Encounter: Bruce Nauman & Kcho

This exhibition brought together works by Bruce Nauman and Kcho, combining pieces from the MCA Collection with works by contemporary artists less familiar to Chicago audiences at the time.

Since the mid-1960s, Nauman has explored questions of self-definition through conceptual strategies that challenge traditional notions of artistic production. His sculptures Three Dead-End Adjacent Tunnels, Not Connected and Rats and Bats (Learned Helplessness in Rats) II evoke psychological isolation while investigating personal identity.

In dialogue with these works, Kcho presented sculptures such as "Lo Mejor del Verano" and "Archipiélago en mi Pensamiento", reflecting his sustained engagement with themes of isolation, insularity, and transformation. Growing up on an island off the coast of Cuba, Kcho addresses the condition of geographic and symbolic isolation through a poetic and materially grounded language.

Archipelago in my Thoughts

1997

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