Richard Ndabagoye Kampala Printmaker

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center and Regents of the University of California are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Arts.Alarge proportion of the most exciting artistic production in Africa today comes from a number of artists who typically belong to the artisan or skilledworker class, and engage in artistic activity as a spare time occupation. With a limited amount of formal schooling, they live in the towns or cities, and straddle the gap between the educated urban elite and the rural peasant. Ulli Beier made particular note of this situation in his Contemporary Art in Africa (p. 107). Being very selectively Westernized, they tend not to know about (or react to) worldly devices such as international painting competitions or foreign fellowship programs. They are seldom chosen to spend a year in Iowa or at the Slade. Rather, they become known through informal local patronage, and the extent of their reputations depends heavily upon who their patrons happen to be.Richard Ndabagoye, a printmaker who has been active in Kampala over the last decade, is an example of this type of artist. He was born in the Kigoma region of (then) Tanganyika in 1937 and attended primary school there. His father was Habwe and his mother a Tutsi from Burundi. Ndabagoye came to Uganda in 1960 with the intention of seeking out his father-in-law in Bugerere, near Kampala. He looked for a job at the M-akerere School of Fine Art solely because he knew a Tanzanian friend who worked there. Subsequently, he was hired to help in the graphics department, and to do various odd jobs around the school. His only previous exposure to art was a bit of drawing instruction received in a missionary school.Jonathan Kingdon, an artist and lecturer who noticed Ndabagoye's interest in printmaking, taught him lithography. Later in 1962 a second member of the staff, Michael Adams, taught him the etching process. His first prints, Gods of the Rocks and River Bird were made that year. Encouraged by the Art School staff, his productivity began to increase, and a personal style began to develop. This culminated in a full-scale exhibition of his work in 1967 at the Nommo Gallery in Kampala. The show was an overwhelming success and established Ndabagoye as an important artist within Uganda.

Imperial Liberties: Democratisation and Governance in the ‘New’ Imperial Order

“…The discourse of governance operates in a ‘cosmopolitan idiom’, which acknowledges a measure of cultural particularity, yet it insists ‘that states accept a common set of governance values, institutions and practices’ (Hindess, 2005, p. 1396). ‘All sustainable democracies’, it is argued, ‘share certain fundamental characteristics … these universal elements [will be emphasised] in implementing programs’ (USAID, 2000, emphasis added). Similarly, there are ‘certain universal standards that cannot be compromised’ (OECD/DAC, 1995, p. 1, p. 6, emphasis added); the ‘fundamental principles of human rights, democracy and good governance are universal ’ (CIDA, 1996, emphasis added).…”

“…‘All sustainable democracies’, it is argued, ‘share certain fundamental characteristics … these universal elements [will be emphasised] in implementing programs’ (USAID, 2000, emphasis added). Similarly, there are ‘certain universal standards that cannot be compromised’ (OECD/DAC, 1995, p. 1, p. 6, emphasis added); the ‘fundamental principles of human rights, democracy and good governance are universal ’ (CIDA, 1996, emphasis added).…”

“…Analysing the PNDC's volte-face , despite its rejection of liberal pluralist government throughout the 1980s, Kwame Boafo-Arthur (1998, p. 169) concludes that the government's ‘dependence on foreign aid made it extremely vulnerable to external pressure to initiate political reforms’. Similarly, in Uganda, US government funding was conditional upon the formulation of a new constitution (Kasfir et al , 1996).…”

“…Eschewing the traditional political parties as ‘ineffective’, USAID supports new groups, i.e. ‘proto-party groups’ as civil society organisations, such as the Ugandans for Peace and Democratic Pluralism (Kasfir et al , 1996, p. 102). Other Western agencies continued direct support to the traditional political parties: the Uganda People's Congress, for example, received British support (Barya, 1993a).…”

“…The imperative of private sector development underpins the ‘broad agenda’ identified in the World Bank's World Development Report 2005 , ‘A Better Investment Climate for Everyone’. As such, direct promotion of ‘civil society’ (broadly construed) has been undertaken through USAID and World Bank projects intended to foster the development and enabling environment for competitive private sectors (USAID, 2005b; 2006; World Bank, 1994b; 1995c; 2004a; 2006c). Sector-specific programmes have also been financed, such as the ‘Mineral Resources Project in Uganda’, designed in accordance with the neoliberal mantra, to promote development based on private investments (World Bank, 2003c) and the $40 million eGhana loan, which develops an IT-enabled services sector focused on ‘Business Process Offshoring’ such as call centres, data entry operations, claim processing, etc.…”