FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:


Regen Projects
629 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel.: (310) 276-5424
Fax.: (310) 276-7430


KCHO
September 5 - October 11, 1997
Opening reception: Friday, September 5th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11:00 am - 5:00 pm


Regen Projects is pleased to present the work of Cuban artist, Kcho (born Alexis Leyva Machado). This exhibition will include sculpture and drawings examining the artist's recurring use of the boat as a sculptural form and metaphor for passage. Boats being the main method of departure from Cuba, Kcho's elegant and melancholic sea vessels connote escape and freedom. Susan Davis writes, "Ideas of utopia and broken dreams permeate Kcho's work, in which boats symbolize loss." When asked why the image of the boat figures so prominently in his work, the artist explains, "I live on an island. My limit is liquid. To cross I am obliged to use something that floats."

The 27-year-old sculptor's work debuted in the United States last year at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York. In this earlier exhibition, the image of the boat appears as a Brancusian column in two works titled, La Columna Infinita I and II, 1996. Both sculptures consist of stacked skeletal frameworks outlining various floating forms such as, rowboats, canoes, and inner tubes, all constructed with thin slats of wood joined entirely by steel C-clamps.

Kcho studied at the National School of Plastic Arts in Havana and his participation in group and solo shows in Sao Paulo, Berlin, Geneva and Johannesburg have attracted the attention of critics and curators worldwide. Last year, Kcho was the recipient of the grand prize in the newly founded Kwangju Biennale in South Korea. The sculpture which won him this recognition again evokes the image of the boat and is titled, Para Olvidar (In Order to Forget). In this work, the artist explores the desire for movement and "the necessity to move from one place to the next, and to forget the last place you lived..." (Kcho. Flash Art. 1996).

Kcho's work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles from October 5, 1997 through January 4, 1998 .

An opening reception for the artist will be held on Friday, September 5th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
at Regen Projects.

For further information please contact Stuart Regen or Shaun Caley at the gallery.

CHARLES RAY
October 18 - November 29, 1997

SAM TAYLOR-WOOD
December 5 - January 10, 1998