South Africa: 10x12 @ SA

Inwardly Irksome (2013) by Barbara Wildenboer

And yet, 211 artworks just scratch the surface. This contradiction lies at the heart of the Benetton Small Canvas Project. On the one hand there is a sense that this sample- collection of art is large enough to be representative. However, the overriding impression I had when choosing artists was of just how indefinably vast, diverse and abundant visual art production in this country is. It was inspiring, but also intimidating, to realise what numbers of us are out there dreaming and producing art.

Not yet uhuru II (2013) by Bambo Sibiya

I am a compulsive list-maker, and looking at the lines upon lines of artists’ names in my Benetton notebook – at times written tight with the frustration of too many choices, at times loose and looping over the pages with the excitement of possibilities – I am reminded of the so many names that could have been, but are not included on this project. I set out with no criteria other than the wish to include as much of a diversity of artists as possible – and here you can place any of the following adjectives before the word ‘diversity’; geographic, conceptual, media-choice, career-progression, educational history, representation within the formal gallery sector.

Face of Africa (2013) by Denby Meyer

211 times I experienced the excitement of commissioning an artist to produce a work on the 10 x 12 centimetre canvases, and 211 times I was astounded, delighted and, yes, sometimes puzzled, by the final results. No matter how much I considered an artist’s oeuvre, no matter how much I projected possible approaches, the surprise of the final work mocked my anticipations with the endless potential of art – and here I truly mean without end. Commissioning art is for those who revel in the unforeseen – the unforeseen of artists moulding their media or approach in an imaginative response to a challenge. This sense of suspense in handing over the blank canvas, and the surprise of the result points to the wonderful alchemy that is art.

Avoiding Capture (2013) by Diana Hyslop

This unpredictability of the imagination may be true of all art production, but the delight of the Benetton Small Canvas Project lies in how it foregrounds it. Each artist’s starting point being an identical canvas gives a rationality and order to the project. Precisely because of this underlying structure, the divergent creativity of each response is emphasised: the alchemy of the artistic imaginative voice that allows so many possibilities and so many answers to the same question.

Red Data (2013) by Eunice Geustyn

Finding the one’s own artistic voice is possibly the most important and daunting aspect of being an artist. I am sure all creatives can associate with the ‘anxiety of ascendency’ another artist’s work which seems so right, so perfect a solution; the admiration – tinged with jealousy – of the perfect answer to the vexed question of what art is and can be. But in the end each artist’s task is to find answers by drawing on their own sensibilities. And the Benetton Project certainly forced artists to interrogate and reinvent their artistic voice. Repeatedly participants mentioned how difficult it had been to work on such a tiny scale – though, in the case of Daphne Carew who normally produces miniatures, the comment was how easy it had been to work on such a large scale.

Diastella parilis (2013) by Hanien Conradie

X-Factor might be a brassy Britpop-TV talent show, but it is irritatingly well named. Decades of art history and art theory later, philosophical speculations from Plato to Rancière, and in the end the most convincing argument in my mind as to what defines good art still lies in the X-Factor. An artwork convinces me because of the ‘X’, the thing, the factor beyond words which resonates with and speaks to a part of us that too few other experiences can reach.

Untitled (2013) by Jonah Sack

In curated art projects there are always potentially two X-factors at work – the power of the individual pieces, and the X of the way they talk to and work off each other. In this project I discovered a third X – best described as the sense of being part of a massive organism. The South African version of the project resulted in 211 artists producing new work, but these are part of a wider international creative endeavour which, at the time of going to press, consisted of two-thousand canvases, and growing.

Sherwin’s sunrise (2013) by Luan Nel

The sprawling nature of the project is for me of secondary interest to the awe of realising just how many artists, in just how many contexts, applied their minds, skills and imaginations to the same question posed by Luciano Benetton. Yes, the project is vast, but the X point for me is that this vastness, bee-hive like, can only exist because of the will and work of each participating individual. Much has been written on the shift from Modernist individualism to a generation of crowdsourced interconnectivity, and accessing this interconnectivity was experiencing the third X.

Eden (2013) by Marlise Keith

The project reminded me too of the value of connectivity through the generosity of the artists, gallerists and other inhabitants of the art world. Just as the uniqueness of this project to an extent lies in a sum of the parts, so the power of the collective truly made this project a delight to work on. The main organisers of the South African leg of the Small Canvas Project were certainly the Benetton Foundation, Ruth Ortlepp (starting as an ever capable colleague and ending as a friend) and myself as curator, with Derric van Rensburg as a valuable sounding- board, and the considerable work of Mark, Lindsay and Wesley from TWA Courier.

Untitled (2013) by Mongezi Ncaphayi

It is only now that I understand the true value of organisations that allow for a collective approach – from the Visual Art Network of South Africa (VANSA) to regional art organisations, from galleries to workshop spaces. The one note of sadness in the project was the realisation of just how much a burden the digital divide could be – it is inevitable that, no matter how keen a curator, without a webpresence, without communication via internet, artists do get overlooked and left behind.

Superficial (2013) by Nelson Makamo

When dealing with 211 artists one becomes aware of the existence of endless possibilities, but also of possibilities restricted by on-going vexed issues of access. Against this backdrop it is an important part of the South African part of the Benetton Small Canvas Project that the Benetton Foundation will award a substantial bursary to one of the students participating in the Project. It was heartwarming how delighted many artists were at the opportunity this bursary would represent to the chosen student, and at their ability to contribute through their participation. Giving and receiving, after all, lie at the heart of the 10 x 12 @ SA Benetton Small Canvas Project.

Nadja Daehnke Curator and Artist