KCHO

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KCHO

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4 auost – 1. settember 2018

grazia a impressum curatur artist texts traducziun grafica layout ediziun -

KCHO i Claudio Guenzani fundaziun Not Vital 2018 Not Vital KCHO Not Vital i Daniele Agostini Giorgia von Albertini SĂźsskind SGD Giorgia von Albertini 400

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Flot dad exponer mes collega cuban KCHO. Cur ch’e til n’ha viss per la prüma jada m’ha’l fascinà. Tant el sco sas scupturas.

Barchas servivan per ir da Cuba in Florida i servan hoz per ragiundscher l’Europa da l’Africa i saran adüna actualas in quist mond basgual. El sbuorfla disegns stupends id es bun da s-chaffir ovras ingio ch’el’s rechatta pel mumaint.

NV lügl 2018

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Untitled, 1997 Mixed media on paper, 146 cm x 51 cm Courtesy of Studio Guenzani, Milano -

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KCHO (Alexis Leiva Machado) was born in 1970 in Nueva Gerona, the main city of Isla de la Juventud, Cuba.

KCHO’s mother was a noted local artist, his father a carpenter. Growing up with art and woodwork has certainly been a circumstance of fundamental influence with regards to the artistic practice KCHO later developed.

Renowned for his room-filling wooden installations, KCHO has also consistently drawn and made engravings.

The medium of drawing is an important site within KCHO’s oeuvre: on paper, the artist both conceptualizes and documents his three-dimensional works.

The exhibition KCHO at the fundaziun Not Vital in Ardez materializes around Lo unico permanente (serie illuminaciones) from 1998. This piece, which represents the wooden skeleton of a medium-sized boat, is contextualized with drawings that both elucidate and document the monumental sculpture, yet also point to other endeavors that the artist pursued in the 1990s.

KCHO’s oeuvre is essential and poetic. It is saturated by references to the rich Cuban landscape and culture, and it is full of reflections on the notion of travel and on environmental issues. In those deliberations, the sea, the cardinal element of Cuba, emerges as a leitmotif.

Utilizing the image of the sea, KCHO has developed an iconography to articulate isolation. In the case of Cuba, such isolation is perpetuated by both geographical, and political factors. Concomitantly, in KCHO’s practice, the boat and the notion of seafaring are utilized to convey moments of mnemonic sentimentality as well as a sensation of yearning.

With his concentration on the motif of the sea, KCHO inserts himself into a specific facet of the history of art. In this tradition, the motifs of the wave and the sea are associated with temporal notions such as repetition and recurrence, as well as with sociopolitical phenomena such as migration.

Growing up in Cuba, KCHO has witnessed the reality of migrating by seaway. Such tactic has gained renewed salience in our current political context, which is characterized by a grave refugee crisis.

The installations and sculptures that KCHO has conceptualized throughout his career, are made of simple, everyday materials. Often, the artist utilizes objects and materials that he finds in his surroundings, such as along the seafront of Havana. In doing so, KCHO makes reference to the practice of recycling, which is fundamental on his hometown island. In Cuba, everything is in flux, and nothing is ever permanent.

Daniele Agostini, July 2018 Translated by Giorgia von Albertini

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Lo unico permanente (serie illuminaciones), 1998 Wood and iron clamp, 495 cm x 150 cm x 180 cm Photo R. Marossi Collection of Not Vital, Sent -

Forma unica nella continuitĂ dello spazio, 1996 Mixed materials (dimensions variable) Courtesy of Studio Guenzani, Milano -

Untitled, 2001 Mixed Media on paper, 140 x 271.5 cm Collection of Not Vital, Sent -

Untitled, 1997 Mixed media on paper, 51 cm x 73 cm Collection of Not Vital, Sent -

fundaziun

Not Vital

7546 Ardez