In an essay on Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin imagines works of art as keys cut with no particular lock in mind. Future users will one day find that these keys can open new doors, doors which were unknown, unimagined and even unimaginable to the original makers. Most of the artists in this issue are in possession of at least one such key. Elephant issue 4 looks at how contemporary artists are drawing from the art of the past in order to create the art of the future.