Kcho, born Alexis Leiva Machado on February 12, 1970, in Nueva Gerona on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, grew up near the ocean amid driftwood, fishing nets, and propellers that would later inspire his material choices, the son of a carpenter and telecommunication technician and an artist mother, with four sisters shaping his early environment. He attended Josué País and Manuel Alcolea primary schools before studying at the Elementary Art School Leonardo Liberta in Isla de la Juventud, then enrolling in Havana's National School of Plastic Arts (ENA) from 1986 to 1990, specializing in painting and sculpture; his thesis, Paisaje Popular Cubano (1990), entered the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes' permanent collection. At 16, he debuted with the solo exhibition Kcho Expone Favelas at Nueva Gerona's Centre of Plastic Arts, marking the start of a career that integrates engraving workshops nationwide to nurture emerging talent.
Influenced by American conceptualist Bruce Nauman and Cuban folk icons honoring the dead, Kcho's multidisciplinary practice—spanning installations, sculptures, engravings, drawings, and mixed-media—employs salvaged items like bottles, lumber from docks, twigs, sticks, and twine to explore travels, migrations, nostalgia, human conditions, customs, culture, and movements, often through simple yet profound forms that critique socialist utopias and living realities in Cuba. Recurring motifs include boats as metaphors for exile and survival, infinite columns symbolizing knowledge and motion, archipelagos representing fragmented thoughts, and elements like hurricanes, animals, and beaches evoking fear's erasure and life's ephemerality; series such as Columna Infinita and Núcleos del Tiempo structure poetic inquiries into time, memory, and displacement, while works like Para Olvidar el Miedo fuse spiritual mourning with political commentary.
Key pieces include La Regata, a boat installation featured at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and on covers of Revolución y Cultura and ARTnews; Columna Infinita #1, acquired by MoMA; A los Ojos de la Historia, a twig-and-twine structure engaging Cuban politics; Para Olvidar, shown at Paris's Champs-Élysées; Archipiélago de mi Pensamiento, exhibited at Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume; La Jungla, a reimagined classroom as moving archipelago at the V Latin American Biennial in Curitiba; Núcleos del Tiempo, exploring temporal cores; Autorretrato; El Huracán; and Vive y Deja Vivir, a performance-driven installation at Havana Biennials. His oeuvre often addresses forgetting fear and infinite journeys, blending raw materials with conceptual rigor to highlight resilience amid adversity.
Kcho's international breakthrough came with the Grand Prize at the 1st Gwangju Biennale, followed by UNESCO's Prize for the Promotion of Plastic Arts in Paris, the National Group of Art Schools' Teachers Prize at Havana's Centre of Plastic Arts and Design, Cuba's National Culture Distinction from the Ministry of Culture, the Medal Abel Santamaría from the State Council, the Order Julio Antonio Mella from the State Council, the Flag Feat Labor from the CTC (shared with his brigade), the Commemorative Medal for Haiti's Bicentennial (shared for relief efforts), and the Prize for Cuban Delivery at the 4th Caribbean Biennial in Santo Domingo. Residencies include the Atelier Calder in Saché, France, awarded by the Calder Foundation and French Ministry of Culture, and a Ludwig Foundation scholarship in Aachen, Germany.
His exhibition history spans over 90 solo shows and 200 group participations in 35 countries, beginning with 1980s and 1990s collectives like Proyectos Recientes, Los Hijos de Guillermo Tell, Vont Dort Aus: Kuba, Arte Cubano Actual, First Biennial Barro de América, La Década Prodigiosa, and La Ronda Cubana, expanding to biennials in São Paulo, Havana, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Venice, Valencia, and Fin del Mundo; solos at venues like Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York, Marlborough galleries worldwide, Centre Wifredo Lam in Havana, Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, MOCA in Los Angeles, and Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and groups such as Cocido y Crudo in Madrid, Diálogos de Paz at the UN in Geneva, No Place Like Home at Walker Art Center, Utopian Territories in Vancouver, and Cuba Avant-Garde at the University of Florida. Pieces reside in collections including MoMA, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Walker Art Center, Ludwig Forum in Aachen, Pérez Art Museum Miami, and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana.
Beyond creation, Kcho founded the Martha Machado Artists Brigade following Cuba's devastating hurricanes, mobilizing over 500 artists for art workshops, education, and performances in relief camps to restore hope, especially for children; the brigade extended to Haiti post-earthquake, traveling 4,000 kilometers for similar healing initiatives, viewing art as mutual inspiration. He donated a private collection of 52 works by Cuban masters like Wifredo Lam and Amelia Peláez to Isla de la Juventud's Municipal Museum, building an exhibition hall, and served as a deputy in Cuba's National Assembly of Popular Power representing his home island, receiving a CTC stamp commemoration for its anniversary. His legacy endures in bridging art with humanitarian action, positioning him as a transformative figure in Latin American contemporary sculpture who amplifies cultural essences through evocative, material-driven narratives.