PRESS RELEASE CARLOS GARAICOA  27 November until end of January 2004 Opening: Wednesday 26 November at 20.00 On the 26 November, a show of recent work by the artist Carlos Garaicoa (Havana, 1967) will open at the Galería Elba Benítez. This exhibition, the first to arise from the newly embarked upon collaboration between the artist Carlos Garaicoa and the Galería Elba Benítez, breaks the boundaries of conventional art spaces, exploring questions concerning public space, architecture, urban design and its social consequences, themes that have become a hallmark of this artist and the gallery. Carlos Garaicoa, a self-taught artist, began his career in the nineties in his home town, Havana. At that time, he already showed an interest in artistic projects involving public spaces, disconcerting passers-by by means of interventions incorporating the use of the street. In the mid-nineties, ruins became increasingly prominent in his work: ruins as  fragments of reality or as a source for the imagery of his photographs and drawing. In his Jardín Japonés (Japanese Garden, 1997) Garaicoa salvaged architectural ruins -shafts, capitels and decorative volutes- from buildings in Havana and displayed them together with photographs of the derelict buildings and texts alluding to the decomposition of the city: "(...) The lively waking of a city in ruins. Before becoming a fragment I was a city (...)". This piece catapulted his work to Europe. By the end of the nineties Garaicoa had internationalized his view of the city, depicting several cities in the world using a variety of everyday, domestic materials. An example of this is La ciudad vista desde la mesa de casa (The City Seen from the Table at Home, 1998) in which the artist recreates a city skyline, accomplished by using of a number of household objects made of glass, such as candelabras and an assortment of food containers. In Ahora juguemos a desaparecer (Now Let's Pretend to Vanish, 2001) he made a wax reproduction of the Dutch city Arnhem, razed to the ground by the Germans in the Second World War. It is a short-lived reconstruction, because a burning candle wick destroys the model of the city all over again. According to Laurie Attias (1) "the artist describes the city as a fetishistic object, an obsession, a real place that penetrates the skin and leaves an indelible mark there". A mark which, in the majority of cases, is expressed as a traumatic experience of the city, caused by degeneration, by crisis, but also by a yearning to live in the city of one's dreams. In the piece Cuando el deseo se parece a nada (When Desire Resembles Nothing, 1996) Garaicoa portrays a young Cuban with the twin towers of the World Trade Center tattooed on his arm. This time the city is a physical mark, but it is also a social and psychological one: an unattainable dream about a city.  "It is my firm conviction that architecture represents a bridge between collective memory and the future, one in which utopias and dreams can come true". Carlos Garaicoa(2). The exhibition at the Galería Elba Benítez revolves around the concept of the transformation of reality by means of artistic intervention. Carlos Garaicoa builds his fiction on top of an underlying reality captured on media such as video and photography. For this exhibition the artist has conceived a public intervention project, involving a DVD projection and an open sculpture work, in which the spectator-citizen can participate by deciding how the sculpture develops and what it should include, encouraging a degree of spectator participation impossible in most normal circumstances. The exhibition's second fragment of reality is displayed in photographs, two black and white pictures of half-finished buildings in Havana, which the artist has altered, by attaching a reconstruction plan onto them. Using this artistic approach, Garaicoa dons pictures depicting a decaying reality with the promising qualities of continuity and future. Scale models are the third type of media employed by Garaicoa for this show. However, on this occasion he does not build from a pre-existing reality, choosing instead to create models from 3D computer simulations. All of the models are based on real calculations, so they could actually be built. These models are complemented by a network of coloured threads joining them to the walls setting up a new bridge between design and reality. Carlos Garaicoa has taken part in a number of projects in Spain. In 2001, he displayed work at the El final del eclipse exhibition at the Fundación Telefónica as well as presenting a "Project Room" in ARCO with the Farideh Cadot gallery (Paris). In 2003, Lecciones de Historia at the Casa de América, and Autoflagel.Lacio, Supervivència, Insubordinació at the Fundación La Caixa, in addition to taking part in ARCO again, this time with the Continua gallery (San Gimignano). His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía. His international projects include, among others, being selected in 2002 for Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany. In 2003, his work was displayed at the International Center of Photography of New York in Cuba on the Verge, at the Centro Wifredo Lam in Havana, From the series Nuevas arquitecturas, and his most recent work, Carta a los censores, could be seen in Rome, until 10 October, at the art space Volume!. This project will also be shown at the international contemporary art fair ArtBaselMiamiBeach in Florida, from 4 to 7 December.  Until December 26, Garaicoa will take part in the VIII Biennial of Havana with El arte con la vida and he will greet 2004 with a one man show at the Palazzo delle Papesse-Centro Arte Contemporánea, Siena, from 31 January to 2 May 2004. Pía Ogea (1) Laurie Attias. Exhibition catalogue about Carlos Garaicoa. Ni Christ, ni Marx, ni Bakounine. Maison Européenne de la Photographie. 2002 (2) Carlos Garaicoa. La Generazione delle immagini. Postmedia books. 2003 This exhibition has been made possible by support from: For more information: Pía Ogea Tel. 91 308 04 68  e-mail:piaogea@elbabenitez.com Gallery opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 11.00 to 14.00 and from 16.30 to 20.30. Forthcoming exhibition: Vik Muniz. February-March 2004 elba benítez galería         san lorenzo,11         28004 madrid.         spain   tel +34 91 308 04 68      fax: +34 91 319 01 69      www.elbabenitez.com