The passion for and promotion of indigenous art and culture by Scandinavian countries through their local embassies is well documented in Uganda. They have forged a commanding partnership with local artists and a fairly assured market for Ugandan art as well.

Their latest event is a painting and sculpture exhibition taking place at the Dutch ambassador’s residence on Prince Charles Drive in Kololo. Ten local artists are showcasing under the theme, “Controversial Art”.

They include the likes of Daudi Karungi, Henry Mzili, Sane Eria Nsubuga, David Kigozi, Jude Katete, Edison Mugalu, Abusharia, Ronex, Enoch Mukiibi and Fred Mutebi, who are probably the Chameleons and Bebe Cools of the art world in Uganda.

They were each challenged to craft a work of art that elicits as much controversy as possible. A critical observation of the result of their labour might educe a mixture of feelings from the viewers and a multiplicity of questions: What is controversial about these art works? Is there any element of controversy about them in the first place? If so, to what end did these so-called controversial art works achieve their objectives? Controversy suggests a disagreement, especially about a public or moral issue that a lot of people have strong feelings about. Since nothing of the art works on display implies any serious matters of policy, we assume the show is about moral issues.

All the works take on various degrees of abstraction. Take Daudi Karungi’s collage painting titled What the Fuck; it is designed to feed into the frenzy around homosexual which is centre stage in Ugandan today. Amid the clamour for severe retribution, including death for the offenders, Karungi uses a rather small caption “GO SLOW” in the left corner of the painting, right adjacent to the head of President Museveni.

The dominant figures constitute four nude male figures ostensibly consorting with each other ‘romantically’.

Jude Katete’s painting titled Ravages of Sexual Exploitation by Monuc portrays a distraught woman seemingly writhing in agony with blood oozing from her privates. An ominous bird above her carries an olive branch; a symbol of the United Nations, the very perpetrator of the allegedly abused woman’s suffering. Ronex’s metallically fabricated chair has steel spikes welded on the very spot where a person is supposed to sit. “It is about the pretenses of most people, like those who invite a passer-by for a meal and yet they don’t mean it,” said Ronex about his chair. In other words, one should not fall for such pseudo hospitality lest s/he gets spiked.

But it is Enoch Mukiibi’s two paintings that exude the most debate among the lot. One is an acrylic titled Rose in Bed, depicting a woman with her legs spread apart, exposing a crimson “thing”. Another is an assembly of penile erections arranged in different sizes and heights. They jut into space as though in some kind of height competition. The two works are so explicitly coarse that even a toddler can tell the meaning. These works appeared not only “controversial” but disturbing to even fellow artists attending the opening of the show. “Our public is not yet ready or prepared for this kind of art,” Margaret Nagawa, a painter and curator at Makerere art gallery commented. To others it is an exhibition of vulgar like never seen before in Uganda’s nascent art history. On his part, Jerome Verheul, the Dutch ambassador and host of the exhibition remarked that there is not much controversy in the showcase, considering the rendering of the term from his native point of view. It is not anywhere near controversy back in Netherlands, where artists engage completely outlandish art forms that totally defy convention. In effect, there is nothing controversial about nudity. So, where is the controversy in this so-called “controversial” exhibition? Perhaps controversy, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder.  The public will have their take on the exhibition as it moves to Afriart gallery in Kamwokya.

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