Death Would Be Better If It Wasn't The End Of Life

Uganda Thu 17-12-2009

Death Would Be Better If It Wasn't The End Of Life
By Sophie Alal

October 9th came and went, a significant date in the newspapers because it was the 47th anniversary of Uganda's independence: thus the exhibition which has been showing since then at Makerere University Art Gallery titled After Independence … So What?

Now what?

In this diverse exhibition, it was delightful to see art that was political, explicit and topical. Most were either scoffing at Independence , or ranting against post-colonial governments.

Unfortunately, some of the malaise and management problems the artists were objecting to seem also to apply to the gallery itself; turning up at 10:45 AM, fair enough, as gallery hours are from 9:00 AM to 6:00 AM in the week, the doors were only slightly ajar. I poked my head through anyway, but was turned back. “Still cleaning,” said a man in charge.

To the right of the gallery door, Fred Mutebi’s woodcut, Supper Without Jesus, depicts a feast, with pot-bellied men in suits accompanied by women in flamboyant head dresses and white high-heels.

Small people under the table stretch out their arms to receive the falling remains, while others stand on the table amidst the baskets of food. It is comparable to the spirit of religious depictions of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples.

The difference is the irony of Jesus’ absence, which provides an interesting mode of comment on the familiar corrupt lifestyles of our politicians.

Art through the ages has glorified the sensuality of the female form. However everywhere in this exhibition the same message seems to be repeated: “BURDENED.”

Country women are portrayed as beasts of burden, tethered to the rearing and bearing of children, not to mention their “extracurricular” responsibility of having to be objects of beauty.

Our Home, by Gerald Gibu is a kind of chauvinistic eye-sore, showing two women, one winnowing and the other sorting grain in a basket. In another piece Back Home, a pregnant woman with a basket on her head and a baby strapped to her back, is walking barefoot, behind two other women.

Though the brush-work is learned, the execution of the composition shows that the artist is an avid amateur- who has yet to develop a language.

It looked like there was an uplifting exception in seeing the bejeweled women of Paul Kaspa Kasembeko. Full-bodied, with sensual red lips and floral wraps round their chests, they appear to be glowing against the bright yellow and green background.

But the look of subdued innocence in their large bright eyes, whose gaze is suspended at something overhead, left a gloomy impression, particularly on discovering that it is titled Struggling Women.

Paul Kaspa Kasembeko paints with a unique hand, facing his contemporaries with a refined style that he has settled comfortably into. With the superficial charm and the irony of his women, he comes across as a gifted artist who has always painted safely, avoiding flamboyant perspectives of visual art.

Impressive works by older artists did tend to be more rational, especially in form and composition. Such was George Kyeyune’s Bayuda, which is the kind of painting that is relentlessly dramatic, for it successfully draws the viewer to the passenger, seated dangerously on the motorbike, carrying a fiery load much bigger than him; simultaneously, he appears to be shielding his face from the same, as they ride off to the left of the canvass.

Outstanding was Violet Nantume who focuses sharply on the sexuality of her subject. Having felt a lot of male presence, finally, I came across two ladies exhibiting their work. One drawing on a black background titled, Netaayaya…N’olwekyo? (I’m Free…So What?), depicts a bare-chested woman with streaks of colour exploding out of the back of her head.

The original picture is fixed up with orange and yellow lines, curves, dots and zigzags. What breaks through is her mental restlessness. And quite unusual, though commendable was the accompaniment, a poem whose last lines release the prevailing darkness of mood.

If am on bended knees to survive/

Then Death would be better if it was not the end of life!

Though touching, her heaviness leaves the viewer wondering about the personality of the artist rather than the art itself.

Joel Nsadha’s medium is photography. He appears to focus mainly on children growing up against the rambling backdrop of the city. One picture, titled Traffic, shows three street children in rags.

A girl in the right foreground, visibly malnourished, with her distended belly peeping out from under a black top that barely skims her midriff, smiles slightly, clad in a pleated skirt composed of two mismatched rags - the one covering the back red terry cloth and the front, a nondescript grey.

She rests her right hand on the left shoulder of another girl wearing a soiled yellow dress with a white lace-trimmed collar. Both girls gaze at something that a boy in front of them is holding. He is in the act of sharing some morsel, as people with bulging handbags and luggage pass by.

Traffic is a beautifully composed photograph that tells an evocative story life on the street. Its strength lies in causing one to stop and reflect, on the gentle side of people ordinarily labeled outcasts.

The funeral installation Independent by Muwonge Kyazze, which appeared to have once born fresh flowers, now withered, carries a price tag marked ‘Condolences’. It is grossly assembled in a bark-cloth covered coffin.

The choice of subject, a headless figure with charred logs for limbs, wears a beaded bangle in the Ugandan national colours: black, yellow and red. What is apparent was that the artist seemed to be trying to make viewers uncomfortable. If it was a study in horror, then it suffices to say that the guest book, which lay open for comments, captures this spirit.

“Damn you!! The piece totally scares me…” a lady remarked, adding that she does not celebrate independence. Nevertheless more reverent insubordination follows as a male student concludes, “… Keep up the real independence especially for Buganda !”

The book of comments also had its moving moments, including everything from unassuming tourists and young flustered artists, to fiery students expressing their anger.

The type of artistic expression in the funeral installation may cause a fuss but hardly survives for long - in the sense that it is easily forgotten, and shortly becomes irrelevant because of its contextual restriction, that is, the occasion for which it exists. Artistically it neither pushes the boundaries nor gains meaning with time.

It is just like the time after a funeral, once the flowers have withered, the event has become a distant memory. If nothing survives, I wonder whether Kyazze is mindful that something will be lost.

Although this is supposed to be an age of equal opportunities, if artists are still encumbered with a dark and dismal social and political commentary, then perhaps it is not their fault. For the decadence that they are witnessing in society is what they are portraying in their art.

The exhibition was also downgraded by some literal interpretation; take the sculpture titled Victim, which had a wooden machete driven through the torso of a limbless human-like figure, which was laid out on a concrete slab. Sadly it left nothing to the imagination, thus barring any other interpretations that may have arisen.

The sentiment to ‘out-art’ each other was strong. Many artists seemed to be vying for a top spot in surviving the circus of independence, without becoming a side show.

Walking out, I was impressed with the forgivable – but saddening – realization that hard-hitting art is not as hard as can be. Any artist who would like to brew up a controversy using social, political and economic reasons, as was caused by Danish artist Kristian von Hornsleth, should become bolder.

His notoriety got the condemnation of the Uganda government, when villagers in Mukono district willingly changed their names to Hornsleth. And it follows that their national identification cards were intended to become enduring works of art!

And as the exhibition shows, we may be living in an era of constant decline but there’s still a couple of promising minds out there, living up to the adage that art is supposed “to provoke.”

And so it seems that come next Independence Day, it augers well that art works may become better thought of.

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