"There's no place like home" affirms Kcho

May 27, 2020

On April 19, a month and some days ago, a major exhibition by Alexis Leiva Machado, Kcho, titled "En ningún lugar como en casa," would have been inaugurated at the National Museum of Fine Arts, which was announced as the most comprehensive show to date regarding his artistic trajectory. It would have been extensive in terms of exhibition of works, some never before seen in Cuba, as well as inclusive with respect to very diverse artistic manifestations and intense, likewise, in terms of participants who would be incorporated, given that the idea is, overall, to simultaneously integrate a graphic arts workshop, in which engravers from various provinces of the country and from Mexico are expected. And an exhibition, finally, broad in perspectives, as it also includes an educational seminar about the Museum and the artist's live work.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic left this appointment in abeyance, postponed for when there is no longer danger of illness, but a future meeting at Fine Arts to which we are sure much public will attend, given the well-known popularity of both Kcho and his work.

In this interval of withdrawal, nevertheless, we knew that both the artist and Corina Matamoros, the curator of the artist's personal exhibition, would not be inactive, despite the regulations that limit movements and practices involving personal contact. That is why we decided to interview the artist so he could update us on this ambitious project that would demand much from its managers and a team of specialists. But which, on the other hand, we intuited that, in the current circumstances, would undergo changes and would demand new efforts from Kcho.

In this dialogue we will see how he has assumed this postponement in pandemic times, either by diverting his energies toward unexpected activities, such as fumigating in the neighborhood, bringing national and international works from the collection of the Organic Museum of Romerillo (in addition to the Los Marinos market hall in that area) to the homes of neighbors. Without ceasing, on the other hand, to demand of himself to continue producing artistic works (in a situation in which many of us have felt our lives suspended), and to rethink his exhibition now from other motivations such as the changes that the planet has faced during the epidemic.

Many know Kcho, perhaps from very different angles of his intense and controversial personality, and claim to know his work, but here he himself states that in reality his career has developed largely outside the country, and hence the significance that this upcoming exhibition in 2020 has for him, about which he mentions, again and again, his acknowledgment of the Cuban institution that will exhibit him with an already well-earned international reputation, and which likewise was the first National Museum in the world to show his work in his own homeland, when he was an unknown and talented young artist.

Likewise, in the interview it is clear how now, having just turned 50 years old, already in the middle of his life, Kcho defines his greatest certainty for us, that is, the one that defines the essence of his artistic project and his entire trajectory, in a humanist motto, as objective as it is committed to the reality of his current work.

Agreeing with me that nothing that had happened should be overlooked, even more in such concerning circumstances with COVID-19 still waging a battle for human survival, Kcho and I have agreed to converse about his still-awaited exhibition at Fine Arts, which he significantly titled, "En ningún lugar como en casa."

On April 19, as you answer these questions, your exhibition "En ningún lugar como en casa" would be inaugurated at the National Museum of Fine Arts. It will be a large exhibition, complex in many curatorial, organizational, and museographic aspects. What has been your work during this waiting period given that its opening has not been possible because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the protective measures that have been taken?

"The exhibition was to be inaugurated on April 19. I chose this day because it was the 59th anniversary of the Victory of Girón, I really like dates from history, we are children of history; a month has already passed since the initial inauguration date.

In the month of March I went to Spain to get some materials for the exhibition, some sculptures that were pending, other things for the assembly logistics. Upon returning I imposed a self-quarantine on myself, when it was not yet indicated here in Cuba, I was for more than 15 days in a room of my studio called "Martha Machado," during this time I was thinking, reading, studying, of course I thought a lot about what was no longer going to happen, you can't imagine how much I had to think in the previous months to make the exact decision about the exhibition, about the works, the spaces, the concepts. Every detail was already fixed. Imagine, after something like this, you have to change everything; I think that rigidity is bad for an artist, we must be people who always have the capacity to readapt ourselves, an artist's thinking is totally creative and it is possible to reinvent yourself every day.

It has caused me no regret to not hold the exhibition at the planned time, I repeat to you, I studied, I thought about things, I have added new parameters, new ideas, new concepts; we have worked extensively on the entire Fine Arts exhibition. "En ningún lugar como en casa" will be a very didactic exhibition, I believe strongly in the educational role of art, I have always believed in this. There are many exhibitions in my life and in my work that demonstrate this belief, this conviction I have about the role of art in people's lives, what I did was stop to think, to study, and of course I'm not going to tell you so many things, there's no need to tell you, I want to preserve many of these ideas for the exhibition. We have been working on supports that have the capacity to convey this idea, the path of the didactic, of the conceptual, for example, in the works that I have selected newly, and I have meditated much on this, even on the resources for it.

If you can, read a recent interview that has been conducted with Corina Matamoros Tuma, the curator of the National Museum of Fine Arts (on the Cubarte blog), and also on Cuban television about my exhibition.

I'll tell you something, the capacity for adaptation of an artist is fundamental in what has happened, I have never done an exhibition like this before. I didn't have 30 years of work behind me as I do now, I turned 50 in February and on June 13 of this 2020 it will be 30 years since I left school, from my exit from the school womb to the professional womb. So everything I was always thinking about is on that path.

Now I'll tell you, we have made an almost surgical selection of works that allow us to transmit the precise idea of what my concerns have been over time. I consider myself a tireless traveler, not only physically but also mentally. An artist is a traveler, one travels all the time in the mind and creates things. For a long time I didn't have a studio, I always worked on airplanes, in hotels, restaurants, walking through a forest. So, the studio has become infinite and thinking about this I have looked for works that portray those experiences, since, in Cuba, although people tell me: "Kcho this, Kcho that," like music or a noisy rock, they don't know my work: Why? It's not the fault of Cubans, it's that my career has not happened here, Corina Matamoros said the other day in the interview that my work is in some of the most important museums in the world, in New York, London, Paris, Madrid, Tokyo, so, since the work has not happened here, the public doesn't know the, shall we say, transcendental events of the things we have managed to accomplish over time: This will be an opportunity.

What I like most about being able to hold this exhibition is that when I was barely 22 years old I had my first personal exhibition in a museum, it was called "Cuban Landscape" and it was in the National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana itself, you can imagine that for me it has great significance that after 30 years I can do a retrospective exhibition in the same museum where I took my first steps, in an institution like this, and even though my work is in the MoMA, in the Pompidou Museum, in the Reina Sofía Museum, I do not forget that the first museum where I set foot was in the National Museum of Cuba: "My National Museum." So this has a mark, an undeniable guideline and of course, from the moment they invited me to do the exhibition, that they convinced me, that I started thinking about it, I thought about everything we have done together, about all the things I have experienced with Corina Matamoros, the curator, with our Museum, with its curators, throughout time. That is why the exhibition is very significant, not only because of the work, but also because of the commitment I have with the institution that the National Museum of Fine Arts represents."

Your work has circulated extensively at the international level, perhaps there is no continent where it has not been exhibited in galleries, art centers, or museums. What is the difference between this exhibition and the numerous shows you have held throughout your artistic career?

"I was already telling you in the previous question that for me the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba is the most important museum in the world because that's where I took my first steps. I didn't think back then that I was going to exhibit in the great museums of the world and that is already overwhelming, what I am about to say next is only a comment, there are artists who die without exhibiting in the National Museum of their country, so imagine that I have been exhibiting in the most important museum of my homeland since I was 22 years old, you can look in my curriculum for other exhibitions we have done in the museum over these years, for me it is of great significance that I am exhibiting in the museum that for me is the most important, the one that portrays me, portrays my country and portrays the ideas of my homeland. Of course it is a great experience to be able to do an exhibition like this after 30 years and I tell you this because it is very transcendental and real, for me it is a tremendous gift to be able to share with Cubans so many important works. They will be able to see works that have never been together in the same place, that have been created throughout my artistic career, that have been notable within my work, but that has cost me and I have paid a great price, I have preserved works that museums like the MOMA (Museum of Modern Arts) have wanted, I have never sold them, it would mean losing them forever, it would mean that those works would always be in a place like that.

And I'll tell you an anecdote: The first museum in the United States that did a personal exhibition of mine was the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles, I was 27, that is five years after the one I held very young at the Museum of Fine Arts in Cuba, it was then the first American museum that did a personal exhibition of mine. One day one of my most important collectors, who was an important part of the MOCA board, tells me that my work was an important piece of this institution (and it still is) and he tells me: Kcho have you thought that your valuable, interesting, intense work from the early years of your youth is not in Cuba?, the day your country wants to show your history, it will have to count on the kindness of people like me, who are not kind, I don't think that a collector like me would be capable of parting with a work like the one we have of yours from your early years, so it's in Cuba. And for them that is a treasure, although also for me. I made a decision a long time ago and it has cost me a lot, I've had fights as we say in Cuba, very intense, conceptual, emotional fights with galleries, with collectors of my work, because I have determined that very specific works, shall we say, very influential ones, I should preserve them, I can name some like "The Best of Summer" or "The Jungle" which is between Turin and Havana, "In the Eyes of History," of which the MOMA has the drawing and the Sandetto foundation has the installation. But thanks to the ways of life, when that exhibition was held in Turin, the work didn't fit on the plane, despite having made it in Cuba, I couldn't take it, I had to travel to Italy to make another one in Turin, I have always preserved the one I had in Cuba, so there are two, the one I preserved in Cuba and the one I made for Turin, and this will be able to be seen in our museum, in the exhibition I'm telling you about, it will be inaugurated next November.

We are going to start working on logistical and constructive details, because to do an exhibition that portrays 30 years of work you have to be very careful, you have to be very detailed, you have to be almost like a surgeon who saves your life, and that is also the role of art, so we are working now on those details so that the exhibition is exactly what we want, so that it has all the messages we want to convey, so that the viewer can enjoy and know my work and my art, because I agree with Corina Matamoros that people in Cuba don't know my work, they only know an echo of it, but they have never seen it, so the exhibition will be this opportunity, it will be very important that we can do this in Cuba, it is important just thinking about it and dreaming about it, imagine actually doing it."

I appreciate that the Organic Museum of Romerillo has become involved in this confrontation with a pandemic that has required efforts from the nation and from each citizen. But perhaps many of us don't know what activities have been carried out by the colleagues, friends, specialists, and technicians of the Organic Museum of Romerillo during this period.

I would like you to tell us if, furthermore, this world and national situation that was not expected when they initially planned your exhibition will appear in some way in your upcoming exhibition.

I went to my studio in Barcelona a few days before Spain declared a state of alarm, upon arrival and knowing the situation I didn't move from my house for a single moment, I stayed there permanently for a week, until I could return to Cuba, that's why I arrived in my country safe and sound, as I was telling you I put myself in self-quarantine and decided to release my workers from that moment on, and so the situation will remain until the Cuban State declares the end of the pandemic, because the people who work with me come from their homes on public transport and it is an unnecessary risk, I decided it to be that way, everyone at home peacefully, we are paying our working brothers and sisters 50% of their salary and we will do so until the pandemic ends, because nothing is worth more than life. When I decided to do something like the Organic Museum I have always been aware that one has to be truly committed to people, so that was my decision, that is the way.

Apart from all this, remember that I am in a neighborhood that has hanging on its forehead that sign of the marginal neighborhood, in which we have changed things since 2012, there are many indications of what I am saying, real, concrete, but you have to prove it all the time, it is as my mother would say "you have to be diligent in life," we have been diligent in life, we have made an effort every day so that what we have managed to do in Romerillo is permanent and prevails despite the pandemic, for example in Romerillo there is not only our Studio, but also the parks, warehouses, markets, on the street there are compelling signs of what we are and do, so we have wanted to maintain it over time, in this new pandemic situation, for example in the Los Marinos market which is a place that for 5 years has been an art gallery, we have removed the entire collection, so that people go for what they have to go for, to buy their food and leave quickly, so they don't get sick. We are very committed to everyone, wherever Kcho, his Martha Machado brigade, or the Organic Museum may be, we will be committed to the change and improvement of people's lives. We are carrying out a group of actions against coronavirus, in all commercial spaces that are found in my surroundings be they farms, warehouses, stores or any space where people have to go by necessity, we perform safety marks on the floor to maintain social distance and we fumigate twice a day; with the help of the neighborhood federation and the CDR, 32 family nuclei were identified, which are social cases or have some kind of difficulty, from the Studio we support them with aid packages that I will not specify what they contain, only that they are some necessary resources to help them during this quarantine, these concrete actions we have always done, although it has never been my purpose to publicize them, but to carry them out and support those who need me most, because this Romerillo neighborhood is part of my life and my daily work.

We have carried out other actions, we have wanted to celebrate International Museum Day with an action that will extend over time, we are sharing with our neighbors our collection from the Organic Museum, that idea that art changes everything, "artists as doctors of the soul," we apply it really, part of our patrimonial collection is installed in our neighbors' homes, works by Lam, Mariano Rodríguez, Servando Cabrera, Raúl Martínez, Spencer Tunick, Arman and we will continue taking our universal contemporary art collection to the streets, we will not stop.

I was reading an article the other day on the internet about the American anthropologist Margaret Mead where she answered a student's question about what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture, to which she responded that the greatest indication that humanity is civilized is a restored human bone, it is a femur of an individual who damaged it while hunting, which was found 5,000 years later healed, that indicates that man learned to care for his own, that another individual had the capacity to take that injured person to a safe place, to protect them, care for them, attend to them, heal them and save them from death. And today to find it in an archaeological discovery, this restored femur, is the greatest indication of what human civilization is.

I believe without a shadow of a doubt that the best work of art I have done in my life is to be close to Cubans, it is to have created the "Martha Machado" brigade, to go build homes, to sing, to put a roof or a painting in their house. That is the main idea of art, that life changes, that man becomes a better person, that he be a better individual, that he survives everything, and that can only emanate from something as powerful as art. I don't think I have done anything better than that, I don't think that any installation, any sculpture, any drawing or engraving that will be at Fine Arts, in this exhibition "En ningún lugar como en casa" is as powerful as the real fact of being able to understand, assimilate and act in consequence that the greatest human and civilized achievement is to love your neighbor, is to be next to him, is to love him, is to give yourself to his future, that is what I think is most important and that is what I do all the time, that is the Organic Museum, that is Romerillo, it is the "Martha Machado" brigade, that is the work that I develop, it is what I dedicate myself to and will continue to dedicate myself eternally."