“(...) The famous summer of 1993 constitutes a passionate reflection on the country’s harsh living conditions, which triggered a qualitative leap in the young artist’s imagination. A qualitative leap at the level of the synthetic dynamics of language, perceptively and with extraordinary lucidity observed by Llilian Llanes, his tireless promoter. From this moment onward, Kcho would become an exceptional master of installation, the most evident representative of Third World creativity, and a leading figure of emerging art on the planet’s periphery.
My first encounter with Kcho’s work took place at the Fifth Havana Biennial in 1994, where La Regata was exhibited. It was an immediate revelation for me: the entire drama of Cuba was laid bare in this small armada of pathetic little boats. History has largely determined the destiny of the island, and its migratory fate was expressed here in precise and simple terms, without the slightest rhetoric and without the usual demagoguery, through these miniature elements of everyday life. It was the work of a great artist, and Kcho would go on to demonstrate this greatness throughout his subsequent meteoric international career. (...)”
— Pierre Restany Milan, December 1996
