KABALA, Uganda (AP) — Lilian Nabulime has not forgotten the time in the 1990s when Uganda The capital had only one commercial art gallery, a small space that emerging artists struggled to enter.
Now, there are at least six in Kabbalah, including one whose curator recently exhibited the sculptor’s opposite work.
Nabulime’s show, which has attracted an audience for its conspiratorial take on the specifics of urban “gossip,” might never have happened had she not approached Xenson Art Space and asked for an opportunity to exhibit her work. Her work includes terracotta works with the distorted facial features of gossip mongers.
“No one ever comes up to me and says, ‘Oh, can we show your work?'” she said, sitting among her sculptures. “For me, I just decided and said, ‘Let me go and exhibit my work. “. I asked for the exhibition and they gave me the space.”
Her solo show, which runs through Dec. 20, exemplifies an expanding artistic landscape that is making more room for local artists who once struggled for space. Nabulime, who teaches sculpture at a prestigious art school in Kampala, is among a growing list of artists whose body of work contributes to the curators’ sense of an exciting moment for Ugandan art.
Their sense of exuberance reflects a similar trend across Africa fueled not only by an explosion of exciting new work but also by the growing ability of curators from the continent to reach out to new collectors at a time of growing global interest in contemporary African art.
There are new signs of this momentum. Ivorian painter Aboudia was the world’s best-selling artist in 2022, selling two more artworks than the popular Damien Hirst, according to the Hiscox Artist Top 100 survey. And in November, an artwork by Ethiopian-born artist Julie Mehretu reached $10.7 million at auction, a new record for an African artist.
Apart from the annual East African Art Auction in Kenya – in which dead and living artists are valued if not rediscovered – Africa’s most ambitious curators are accredited to attend events such as the influential Art Basel.
“Let’s have more curators so they can show other people’s work,” said Nambulimeta, referring to the growing number of gallerists in Kampala. “In Uganda, if we want to have more work in the international market, we need to have more well-connected curators.”
Daudi Karungi, an artist and entrepreneur who founded Kampala’s Afriart Gallery in 2002, spoke to AP about his struggle to nurture talented artists from scratch to a level of professionalism where their work is properly documented and accessible to global collectors.
One of Africa’s most prominent art spaces, Afriart Gallery runs a training program for artists, with the most successful of them now able to exhibit their work abroad. Karungi usually invites some of his artists to accompany him to art exhibitions abroad, a key element in giving them international exposure, he said.
“Now we’re doing shows with artists in other parts of the world,” he said. “We publish books about these artists because some of the things we have to fix is that we have to write our own stories. We are doing this kind of work for now and so far so good.”
Those artists not represented by Afriart Gallery have options, including an alternative space in a derelict bank hall in Masaka’s central district, now the scene of a vibrant arts community that was unimaginable five years ago. A painter born and raised there, Godwin Champs Namuyimba, was selling some of his works for six figures at auction in Europe, despite being largely unknown at home.
Regular art auctions in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, have also been critical to the revaluation in recent years of Ugandan artists such as Geoffrey Mukasa, a painter who was undervalued in his lifetime and died poor but now commands high prices.
Many of Mukasa’s works remained unsold when he died in 2009, but his work is now recognized as “timeless,” said Danda Jaroljmek, an influential curator whose Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi stages the annual auction.
“We were able to source works and be able to put them up for auction and introduce them to a new audience,” he said, adding that the auction creates a “secondary market” for collectors.
Jaroljmek described the Kabbalah art scene as more spiritually engaged in ways that the Nairobi scene is not. That’s partly because a prominent art school at Uganda’s Makerere University has proven to be a pivotal “central place” in the training of artists, he said.
However, the Ugandan collecting class remains small, with new shows supported by trendy youth and expatriates. Gallerists still struggle to make sales, relying mostly on collectors outside Uganda who may spot desirable artworks through promotional material before bidding.
These poor conditions are troubling artists, despite the optimism of curators and others who say more Ugandans are beginning to appreciate art as an attractive investment option.
In 2022, a small group of Ugandans formed the Uganda Contemporary Art Society, whose aim is to promote the emergence of private and corporate art collections in this East African country of 45 million people. Each of the team members is asked to collect at least one artwork from a Ugandan each year, creating opportunities for emerging artists.
Ugandan lawyer Linda Mutesi, an art collector who helped start the Uganda Contemporary Art Society, said the collection for her and others has become a principled effort aimed at preserving Africa’s most unique cultural resources.
“Over the years, the African middle class has awakened to the things around them, the beauty around them and the issues around them and as you can see, it has always been the expatriates who come to our countries and take it all. this art away,” he said.
“I feel like we’re approaching art collecting as an intervention. We’re kind of protecting and saying, ‘Hey, don’t let this go on.’ Let’s not let these works, all this intellectual property leave the continent. Let’s hold it here.'”