Moment of truth for Ugandan art

Artists, gallery owners, art collectors, and art enthusiasts have formed the Contemporary Art Society of Uganda (CASU) with the main objective of supporting the emergence of private and corporate art collectors in Uganda and the region.

CASU’s vision is to provide a forum for art collectors in Uganda to regularly engage each other, exchange information, grow the number of art collectors and support each other in the shared passion for collecting art.

The society aims at building more awareness about the visual arts scene and ultimately create more demand for art works from Uganda by Ugandans. It will facilitate and support the growth of exhibition spaces/art galleries.

The society was inaugurated on August 18, at a private dinner at the Afriart Gallery (AAG) in Kampala. The dinner was also a private pre-exhibition viewing of artist (Xenson) Samson Ssenkaaba’s 10--week exhibition titled:  “Kaddugalamukatale”, which opened to the public on August 20 and would close on October 28. The artists in attendance were: Sanaa Gateja, Henry Mzili, Mona Taha, Leilah Babirye, and Sungi.

The CASU founding members are Stephen Tio Kauma, Barbara Barungi, Samallie Kiyingi, Linda Mutesi Sekaziga, Daudi Karungi, Julius M. Musoke, Eva Kavuma, Dr George Mutema, and Dr Nandawula Mutema.

According to Mr Kauma, the founding chairperson of CASU, the society’s “activities will become a key fixture on the visual arts industry calendar in Uganda and eventually across the region and continent.”

Rising from the ashes

Mr Karungi, an accomplished artist in his own right and founder of AAG, says the visual art in Uganda is rising like some phoenix from the ashes.

“Art in Uganda has been suppressed for so many years by actors that were foreign, but now with the participation of Ugandans either as gallerists, collectors, artists, audiences, we are seeing great visibility and an optimistic future,” he told Saturday Monitor.

While “the generation born before 1990 is struggling with understanding art,” Mr Karungi says “young people in their 20s” are stepping up to the plate.

CASU plans to build support structures and systems for art collectors who subscribe to it. This may include provision of specialised services such as: cataloguing of artwork in personal collections; assisting members to participate in art auctions, art talks and art fairs; connecting members to other art societies across Africa and the rest of the world; providing induction information to potential members of the society; and assisting in publication of special art catalogues showing members’ private art collections.

The society laid down a marker after its members donated Shs40 million to aid the construction of a permanent home in Kansanga for Uganda’s largest and most active art foundation— 32 Degrees East.

Expats do heavy lifting

Visual artists in East Africa have to contend with a host of issues. These range from poor arts infrastructure, lack of arts publishing and arts criticism, copycats, erratic power supply and telecommunications. They also heavily depend on expatriates to buy their work.

A study conducted by the UK-based Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy concluded that “contributions from the East African region are missing in the increasingly globalised intellectual discourse and art scene.”

Commissioned by the British Council in October 2013, the study comprised preparatory desk research and interviews in London. There were also research visits to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania between December 3 to 13, 2013.

According to the study, the lack of higher education in the visual arts is a continuing challenge for the East African region.

“There are distinct groups of artists: those who are established and working internationally and who will often have received a higher education in the visual arts abroad, and those who have had little or no opportunity for formal education or training and little exposure beyond their immediate area. Many artists are self-taught and learn from their peers,” the study states in part.

It adds: “The lack of educational opportunities, a poor arts infrastructure that limits the provision of, and access to, museum collections and exhibition spaces for modern and contemporary art, the scarcity of arts publishing and arts criticism combine to create a climate in which artists often need to make work that sells, in order to survive. There seems to be a reluctance to critique work and limited understanding, among artists and audiences, of how to receive and engage with work.”

Misdiagnosis

Mr Nuwa Wamala Nnyanzi, a renowned self-taught artist, says pinning blame on the dearth of higher education in the visual arts is “a misdiagnosis of the disease.”

“On the contrary, tertiary institutions of art have continued to churn out graduate artists every year who after graduation have unfortunately abandoned the art profession for greener pastures elsewhere,” Mr Nnyanzi reasons, adding, “Those who have stayed the course have become art teachers who practice art on a part-time basis.”

Mr Nnyanzi, who runs the Nnyanzi Art Studio in Kampala, says there are things about art such as “talent, persistence, perseverance, dedication and luck” whose contours formal education doesn’t grasp.

Ruganzu Bruno Tusingwire, a Ugandan eco-artist and fine art lecturer at Kyambogo University, told Monitor that the 2013 study is dated. He added that “the numbers coming out [of universities] are more than what the industry can take.”

Mr Tusingwire also disagrees with the diagnosis that a poor arts infrastructure has dogged Uganda. He argues that “art is not only about museums, exhibition spaces.” Online platforms such as social media, he adds, “have more power now” thanks in no small part to the pandemic.

Mr Karungi, however, reckons there aren’t enough vibrant and active exhibition spaces/art galleries in Uganda. The country, by his count, has more than 20 art spaces/outlets as of today.

Being a Ugandan artist

According to the British Council study, “…The arts infrastructure of Kampala is lively and fuelled by friendly and open practitioners. Facebook is the predominant digital social network utilised by the arts scene. It provides the only affordable access to the Internet as it comes free with phone deals, otherwise it is prohibitively expensive.”

The study adds: “Kampala has a long history of nurturing artists and although it is a city with a number of universities and an established art school, there is still a limited art education, with little exposure to contemporary visual art practice and critical thinking. There are many self-taught artists here too, often working and receiving ‘tuition’ from generation to generation. As in Kenya and Tanzania, most arts funding comes mainly from European sources.”

According to the British Council study, artists’ livelihoods and the economies of selling, against the quality of work being produced and the ongoing need for professional development present similar issues and challenges to those experienced by artists and organisations in Tanzania and Kenya. As in those countries, the main income streams for artists in Uganda are through selling work, some working to private commission.

“Artists’ studios are often within residential settings,” the British Council study says.

“Some studios may house only one artist and the space will serve as exhibition, gallery and point of sale. As elsewhere, many artists lack professional training, adopting this way of working as ‘a school’, with the elders taking on a teaching role for the next generation. Some also make artifacts to sell, such as fabric bags or printed textiles.”

Challenges

Many of the gallery spaces are overcrowded with poor quality work, making selection and differentiation difficult, the study proceeds to note.

Gallery directors imply there is a growing awareness that ‘less is more’, but there still seems to be a lack of knowledge in the curatorial aspects of selection and display. Priority is given to those works they think will be most popular and/or familiar. Galleries also take artists’ work to other countries, such as Kenya, by taking temporary leases in shopping malls.

“Most galleries and other art and crafts spaces here are founded by individuals’ savings and high interest loans at high interest rates on the competitive open market,” Nuwa Wamala Nnyanzi, a renowned self-taught artist, affirmed.

As to the buyers of Ugandan art, the British Council study noted thus: “An established expat scene, created partly by the NGOs, makes for a transient population and often an uninformed art audience. Along with tourists, these groups form most of the art-buying public. Encouraging and educating a local indigenous audience is a high priority.”

It concluded: “Educating the market, for both artists and galleries, is difficult … As elsewhere in East Africa, the economics of selling are often bound up with not being able to get a job that pays, artists copying each other because of a popular style and the buying habits of the arts audiences.”