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| Kcho | |
|---|---|
| Name | Kcho |
| Birth name | Alejandro Campins Martínez |
| Birth date | 1970 |
| Birth place | Nueva Gerona, Isla de la Juventud, Cuba |
| Nationality | Cuban |
| Field | Sculpture, installation, drawing |
| Training | Instituto Superior de Arte |
| Movement | Contemporary art |
Kcho is the professional name of Alejandro Campins Martínez, a Cuban sculptor and installation artist known for large-scale works addressing migration, memory, and identity. His practice spans sculpture, drawing, and site-specific installations that engage with maritime imagery, mobility, and social narratives. Kcho has exhibited internationally in venues associated with modern and contemporary art and has participated in major biennials and cultural exchanges involving institutions from Latin America, Europe, and North America.
Born in Nueva Gerona on Isla de la Juventud, he studied at the national arts institutions of Cuba and graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. During formative years he encountered the Cuban artistic circles linked to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana and studios associated with figures from the Nueva Trova period and the post-1970s generation of Cuban visual artists. His early mentors and peers included artists who exhibited at the Salón Nacional de Arte Cubano and participated in cultural programs organized by the Casa de las Américas and the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales.
Kcho emerged onto the contemporary scene in the 1990s with installations that quickly entered the itineraries of Latin American art fairs and international biennials such as the Venice Biennale, the Bienal de São Paulo, and the Biennale de Lyon. He has collaborated with curators and cultural organizations including the Pérez Art Museum Miami-associated programs, the MoMA contextual exhibitions, and projects linked to the Instituto Cervantes network. His career trajectory involved public commissions for civic spaces in cities like Havana, Madrid, and Berlin, and partnerships with foundations such as the Prince Claus Fund and the Getty Foundation in programmatic exchanges.
Kcho’s oeuvre centers on motifs of boats, suitcases, and engines that recur across series and individual commissions. Notable projects include a suite of boat-installations that were presented in contexts associated with maritime history institutions like the Maritime Museum, Havana and port-front cultural projects in Valparaíso and Lisbon. He produced large-scale public sculptures for plazas and museum courtyards that dialogued with works by artists who addressed travel and exile such as Ai Weiwei, Anselm Kiefer, Joseph Beuys, and Doris Salcedo. Series titles and individual works referenced in catalogues and institutional collections relate to migrations and journeys similar in thematic concern to exhibitions organized by Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Kcho has held solo exhibitions at municipal and national venues including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and contemporary institutions in New York City, Paris, Madrid, São Paulo, and Mexico City. He participated in group shows alongside peers represented by galleries active at the Armory Show, the Art Basel circuit, and regional biennials such as the Bienal de La Habana and the Mercosul Biennial. Critical commentary has appeared in reviews and essays published by curators from the Guggenheim Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and critics writing for outlets that cover contemporary practice in Artforum, Frieze, and Latin American cultural journals. Responses highlight his engagement with social themes often compared to dialogues in exhibitions curated by the Koenigswinter-based and other European contemporary platforms.
Over his career he has received national and international distinctions from cultural institutions including awards and residencies sponsored by organizations like the Fundación Cisneros, the Hispanic Society of America programs, and municipal cultural prizes in Havana. He has been invited to lecture and participate in academic exchanges at universities and schools of art such as the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Yale School of Art. Institutional acquisitions of his work into collections of museums and foundations in Cuba, Spain, and the United States have been noted in institutional catalogues and biennial documentation.
Kcho’s visual language is characterized by assemblage, found materials, and evocative iconography that repeatedly invokes boats, engines, and domestic paraphernalia as metaphors for migration, exile, and hope. His practice aligns with discourses found in exhibitions addressing memory politics and transnational movement curated by institutions like the International Center of Photography, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Thematically, his work connects with narratives explored by Latin American and Caribbean creators such as Tarsila do Amaral, Wifredo Lam, Carmen Herrera, and contemporaries who interrogate identity and displacement in post-revolutionary contexts documented by cultural bodies like the Pan American Union and projects by the UNESCO.
Category:Cuban sculptors Category:Contemporary artists