Knife 1976–2026 solo show at La Galería

An art show in Santa Cruz de Tenerife is doing something more specific than just hanging work on walls. “Knife 1976–2026” brings Fernando Álamo back to a piece he first staged in 1976 and treats it as unfinished business rather than nostalgia. That matters because the original “Knife” is not just an early work in his career — it is widely framed as a foundational moment for contemporary art in the Canary Islands. The show is up at Galería BIBLI through May 15, and the city is still listing it as part of this week’s cultural program. ### What is this show actually about? Basically, it is a 50-year return to a single action: “Knife,” the piece Álamo developed in 1976 at the Ateneo de La Laguna. BIBLI is presenting the exhibition as a way to revisit that original intervention and to connect it to the rest of Álamo’s practice half a century later. The framing is not “here are some old documents.” It is “this cut still runs through the work.” (bibli.tf) ### Why does 1976 matter so much? Because that date is carrying the whole argument. The original “Knife” was made when Álamo was in his early 20s, and it has since been treated by a big chunk of the local art history around Tenerife and the Canaries as the first body-art action in the archipelago. Some descriptions go even wider and call it one of the earliest examples in Spain. That is the historical weight the 2026 show is leaning on. (bibli.tf) ### What was “Knife” in the first place? Not a painting, and not a conventional sculpture. It was an action or happening — audiovisual, staged, and collaborative. Listings for the current show tie the 1976 piece to José Luis Medina Mesa, with music by Edmundo López, which helps explain why people keep describing it as experimental and radical. The point was not just an object left behind. The point was the act, the body, and the shock of the gesture. (bibli.tf) ### What does the 2026 exhibition include? Turns out the show is built to feel immersive rather than archival. City listings describe a route through finished works but also sketches, matrices, and print proofs, which puts process front and center. That is useful here, because a piece with this much legend around it can easily harden into myth. Showing the working material makes it feel made by hands again. (arteinformado.com) ### Why Galería BIBLI? BIBLI looks like it is functioning as both exhibition space and memory machine. The gallery opened the show on March 13 at 19:00, and outside coverage pins it to BIBLI’s address on Calle San Francisco Javier in Santa Cruz. So this is not a museum retrospective with institutional distance — it is a gallery-scale restaging that keeps the work close to the city where Álamo’s story is rooted. (santacruzdetenerife.es) ### Who is Fernando Álamo in this story? He is not just “the artist with a current show.” Álamo, born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1952, won the Canary Islands Fine Arts Prize in 2014, and the current exhibition uses that longer career to make a backward glance feel consequential. The catch is that the show is really arguing for continuity — that the same wounds, pressures, and questions from 1976 are still there, just handled now with different tools. (bibli.tf) ### So why should anyone outside Tenerife care? Because this is how local scenes correct the record. Big art histories usually flatten the periphery and act like experimentation only counted when it happened in Madrid, Barcelona, London, or New York. “Knife 1976–2026” pushes the opposite idea — that a body-art milestone happened in Tenerife, and that it still deserves a live audience, not just a footnote. (diariodeavisos.elespanol.com) ### Bottom line This show is a reminder that anniversaries can do real work. In Santa Cruz, a municipal culture listing points to something sharper — Fernando Álamo’s “Knife” is being presented not as a relic, but as a still-open cut in Canary Islands art history. (santacruzdetenerife.es) (bibli.tf)