Kcho. The infinite column. Alicia Chillida

The exhibition brings together large format pieces, sculptures and installations, which revolve around the theme of The Infinite Column. In a clear allusion to the work of Constantin Brancusi, The Infinite Columns Kcho's works are icons that, through the repetition of very simple forms, reach an overwhelming monumentality. For this occasion the artist has worked in situ in the construction of two works specifically conceived for this exhibition: Like The Foam and a version of the piece The Nostalgia Road, 1994-99, which is entitled Wet Ideas located in the pond in front of the Crystal Palace

In addition, the author has created specifically for the exhibition a series of large-format drawings that duplicate the image of the works, as in a mirror, and establish a dialogue between drawing and sculpture.

Water is always present in the author's work, his pieces refer to the Cuban landscape and therefore allude to the most decisive element of life on the island, the isolation marked by the geographical limit of the water frontier. His work evokes the maritime voyage as an ideal territory for remembrance and nostalgia. Kcho reflects on the phenomenon of migration, a theme from which he creates his scenographies about the journey, which finally end up speaking about the ultimate impossibility of fleeing from our own memory, our destiny and our roots. His ships stranded on land are only a metaphor of an impossible journey that, like the staircase of The Worst of Traps, 1990, leads nowhere.

As working material, the artist frequently uses objects he collects on his walks along the seashore and in the streets of Havana, pieces of wood, rope, clothes, glass and the remains of small shipwrecks, duly manipulated and assembled. His sculptures, which have a markedly artisanal character, investigate the relationship between Cuban art, landscape and popular culture.

The double circumstance of insularity (Kcho was born on the Isle of Youth, located south of the mother island of Cuba) has definitely marked the artist's condition of "immigrant" and "traveler". The idea that nothing is permanent and everything is transformed is present in all his work, the work A los ojos de la historia, 1995, a re-reading of Tatlin's piece Monumento a la III Internacional, 1919-20, remains, like its model, a metaphor of utopia, architecture without utility, that speaks to us of a feeling of temporariness, of a specific situation of life on the island, as defined by Estrella de Diego: "the insular syndrome", a provisional quality in permanent change and adaptation.