In parallel with the more conventional aspects of its program, and no less important than these, Elba Benítez Gallery has embarked in a series of projects that result from a renewed view of the activity and function of an art gallery. It is a model geared towards influencing both specific cultural policies and the community as a whole, in order to promote a wider conception of art and an improvement in the plastic quality of everyday life.

Underlying this activity is an open conception of culture, lacking strict borders between different disciplines. The connections between art and architecture, design, theatre, music, dance, landscape, or gardening, serve to enrich the creative experience and the medium of artists, opening up for them new roads in which to develop their work.

In light of this reflection, and in contrast with the traditionally static exhibition space, Elba Benítez Gallery visualizes itself as a "fluid space", in the sense of a changing, multifunctional space. Such a space may, for instance, be mainly a production workshop, a studio for the research, design, and production of projects, or a projection room. This fluid space also involves a more fluid work mode. A close collaboration with artists ensues, in which ideas arise from a shared need.

In this sense, the gallery has a "production" role, and its mediating task is multiplied, thus contributing to encourage the artists' creativity as well as their capacity to apply their knowledge to other creative fields, whether inside or out of the traditional scope of the fine arts.

The projects presented in this section result from this vision and this aspect of the gallery's activities.




The exhibition Co-Llaborations: Architects/Artists sought to explore the versatile relationship between architects, visual artists, and those institutions that act as private or public promoters of art by means of commissioned works involving a joint effort by the two fields. It presented five international projects in which a stimulating and fruitful collaboration between the two fields has been achieved.


This project aspires to provide an opportunity for "The Canary Islands Revisited" through the eyes of a diverse group of international artists whose work involves photographically based media. The goal is to give rise to a different type of representation of the Archipelago: an image of the Canaries as a space for other kinds of activities. It seeks to open up the islands an object of interest for circles other than those that, up to now, have tended to take notice of them.