Kcho, el rústico del arte cubano

Gerardo Mosquera Art Nexus No.3, January 1992, pp. 160-161 Translated by Colleen Kattau and David Craven

Kcho is the rustic of the new Cuban art. Although he works the countryside with components of that same landscape, his artwork is not motivated by a semiotic investigation. What stimulates him is the mystique of nature and its elements, where their use acquires a sense of communication with humanity. This “transcendentalism” and the direct symbolic structuring of the pieces distinguish his art from most propositions concerning the earth and its resources. In Kcho the mystic qualities of materials and of nature proceed from Juan Francisco Elso and Ana Mendieta, whom he recognizes as inspirational sources. But while they were urban intellectuals open to a “primitive” feeling, symbolism and experience of the earth, he has really pursued the opposite change. His intimacy with nature is absolutely natural, spontaneous; he is someone who grew up beside plants and sticks and who now creates art with them. He is a campesino land artist, an ecological artist, an arte povera artist of the poor because his simple naturalness is modulated by the vision of a contemporary artist. He is not naïve; we are confronted with a first- hand intimate rural poetics expressed through the resources of today’s aesthetics. Here the roles of “rustic” and “cultured” are fused, each transforming the other to give birth to a particular expression. One of the principle values of the new art in Cuba is the spontaneous and interiorized emergence of the popular that manifests itself in very different ways, thus enriching the “cultured” sensibility. Kcho’s best works come out of a state of grace that affords them a unique touch. I find a possible parallel only in David Nash, the English sculptor- logger who lives in the forest. Both have works that are highly connected to nature. Nash’s is more “sculptorly”, despite his ecological minimalism; that of Kcho’s is more “artisanal” despite the play with the traditional format of hanging and exhibiting in a gallery. Along with an almost religious sense of communion with nature, an artisanal refinement of raw material charged with symbolism is operating in Kcho’s work. His exposition in the Centro de Arte emphasizes that aspect and almost takes it to the thematic realm. The works form a map of Cuba and are like works of the most humble craftsmanship from Cuban popular culture: there is a jaba (bag)- Cuba, a cage-Cuba, a kite-Cuba… The confection of useful objects that inspired the works is very elementary and they represent a level of minimal action upon the primary materials. Nature is still living in them and there is an equilibrium between them and culture, between the natural and its transformation by a human being. They are found very close to Kcho’s own poetics, and as such it is not unusual that he now recreates them as images. These objects of practical use are reconstructed to function as symbols, while employing real techniques and

materials, thus proclaiming at once the beauty of their simplicity and a rustic sensibility of natural materials. Cuba is a country poor in popular craftsmanship. The aboriginal people, not very numerous, were already exterminated by the seventeenth century. Blacks came as slaves and were subjected to the prison-like existence of the farm huts. The Spaniards and their descendants disdained manual labor. A port country, Cuba imported many things from Europe. A craft aesthetic tradition did not take hold. One Cuban essayist used to say that for decades we have even had to import our souvenirs in order to offer them to the tourists. Now we make some, designed ex professo, that are bastard objects, epitomes of kitsch disconnected to vernacular creativity. Kcho parodies these things in another of his works. It is a strange and subtle poetry to make an image of the island with these few objects of popular confection that are left to us. It responds to the desire of young artists in Cuba for working with patriotic symbols, all of which has filled these emblems with life and has made that symbolism act in reality, thus taking it out of the marble. Flags, shields, and heroes are being reactivated in Cuban art, though they are not objectified in presentationism à la Jasper Johns, but rather are used to express something notable about the country, as does Kcho, thus returning to Cuba things that are Cuban.

Gerardo Mosquera