THE AYÓN ESPACE The Ayón Space, the original idea of Dr. Katia Ayón, Belkis Ayón Estate, was a project presented to Cuban cultural institutions in 2004, on the fifth anniversary of the artist's physical disappearance. It was conceived as a permanent space for the exhibition and conservation of Belkis's graphic work and as a place for promotion and support for young printmakers, one of the missions assumed by Belkis Ayón from her position as an exceptional pedagogue. Numerous artists and intellectuals, especially Antonio Martorell and Humberto Figueroa, supported the initiative, which is still waiting for its materialization, and argued, from different perspectives, the need to found it. Goals: • Permanently display the artist's work. • Promote the work of young artists whose main line of work is printmaking. • Offer summer workshops to young national and foreign artists. • Establish the BELKIS AYÓN National Contest of Collography that allows the participation of young and established artists, of national and international character, in collaboration with other art institutions. • Establish links with the community near the place to integrate it into the public activities of the space. • That they can access the valuable and vast bibliography, property of the artist Belkis Ayón: students, ethnographers, sociologists, anthropologists, artists, historians, and teachers.

RENDERINGS: NEW NARRATIVES AND REINTERPRETATIONS Mechanical Hall at Delawere University, Philadelphia, United States September 3 - 30, 2014 In September 2014, the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, opened to the public in the Mechanical Hall Gallery of the University of Delawere, an exhibition of works in paper from its archives and of invited artists for the exhibition, under the title: Renderings. New Narratives and Reinterpretations, curated by Dr. Cheryl Finley. In it, works by 26 artists from different nationalities were presented, among which were the Cuban printmakers Belkis Ayón and Ibrahim Miranda, all representatives of the art of the African diaspora. Participating artists: Terry Adkins, Maya Freelon Asante, Belkis Ayon, Camille Billops, Jamal Cyrus, Andrea Chung, Letitia Huckaby, Sedrick Huckaby, Curlee Raven Holton, Valerie Maynard, Paul F. Keene, Ibrahim Miranda, Ayanah Moor, Howardena Pindell, Michael B. Platt, Faith Ringgold, Robert Pruitt, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Juan Sanchez, John T. Scott, Clarissa Sligh, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Janet Taylor-Pickett, Hank Willis Thomas, Deborah Willis.

II Edición del Concurso Nacional de Colografía Belkis Ayón, 2015 II National Collography Contest Belkis Ayón ANNOUNCEMENT The National Council of Plastic Arts, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), and the Graphic Society of Cienfuegos, in coordination with the Estate of Belkis Ayón, the Provincial Council of Plastic Arts, the Provincial Committee of the UNEAC, The Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets, the Paradiso Cultural Agency and ARTEX of the Cienfuegos province, summon all interested artists to participate in the Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest, in homage to one of the Cuban artists who marked, with her graphic work and pedagogical, a milestone in the history of Engraving in Cuba. Basis of Participation All Cuban students and artists with engravings made in the COLLOGRAPHY technique, printed between 2014 and 2015, who have not participated in a previous exhibition, event or contest, may participate. Inscription The works must be sent unframed, through certified mail or in person, before March 10, 2015 to the Sociedad Gráfica de Cienfuegos, located at Ave. 50, # 2326, between Calle 23 and Calle 25, Cienfuegos 1 , Hundred fires. Tel. 043 517979. Each artist will have the right to present three works (independent or triptych) duly signed and numbered in pencil, which cannot exceed 60 x 80 cm (paper measurements). Workshops or artists tests are not accepted. Selection A single Jury will be appointed to select and award the works received. The selected and awarded works will be exhibited in the Cienfuegos Art Gallery, within the program of the 9th La Estampa Fair, an event that will be inaugurated on April 7, 2015, at 9 p.m., at which time it will be official the jury's decision. The exhibition will remain open to the public for 30 days. Likewise, it will be presented at the Casa del Benemérito de las Américas Benito Juárez of the Office of the City Historian, Havana, in 2015. The selected artists will be given the Certificate of Participation once the exhibition is over, along with the return of their works within 45 days. The organizers of the contest are responsible for the care of the works sent, running with all the expenses generated by the return of the same to their authors. Prize A single and indivisible Grand Prize will be awarded consisting of 3 000.00 MN (donation of the artists belonging to the Taller de la Sociedad Gráfica de Cienfuegos and the Estate of Belkis Ayón), a diploma and a reproduction of a work by the artist to which the contest is dedicated. The Jury will award mentions at its discretion, without financial award. The Jury's decision will be final. The winning works will become part of the Cienfuegos Stamp Cabinet. The awarded Artist will be invited to perform a personal exhibition at the Cienfuegos Art Center in 2017. The Belkis Ayón Residence, awarded to the award-winning artists, will run for a week; During this period, they will share experiences with prominent artists of contemporary Cuban plastic and engraving. Participating in the II Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest implies acceptance of these Terms and Conditions. More information Organizing Committee of the Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest GRAPHIC SOCIETY OF CIENFUEGOS caceres69@azurina.cult.cu | 043 517979 ESTATE OF BELKIS AYÓN, HAVANA belkat@cubarte.cult.cu | 07 642 3083 www.ayonbelkis.cult.cu | www.ayonbelkis.co Jury Awards Members of the Jury of the II National Collography Contest together with members of the Estate of Belkis Ayón and La Sociedad Gráfica de Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos, 2015. Events and Exhibitions II National Collography Contest Belkis Ayon Cienfuegos, 2015 Selected Works and Exhibition Muestra Concurso Exhibition Marcando Territorio: Gráfica femenina de México Exhibition ¿Sólo uno tiene la verdad? Exhibition Con las mismas manos. Exposición colectiva de grabado Exhibition Paisajes Cercanos Exhibition Nocturno Collography Master Class by Miguel A. Lobaina

BOOK NKAME WINS SECOND PRIZE FOR THE BEST BOOKS PUBLISHED IN SPAIN IN 2010 October 11, 2010 Ministry of Culture of Spain © http://www.europapress.es The Ministry of Culture of Spain has granted the Awards for the Best Edited Books in 2010. These awards do not have an economic endowment but are highly valued by publishers for the recognition and prestige given to their editorial work, as well as for the dissemination that it entails, being included in the book promotion actions and exhibited at the main national and international fairs. The awarded categories include: Art, Bibliophilia, Facsimiles, Children and Youth, General and Outreach Works The jury has evaluated 318 works in total, included in five thematic groups. These are the awarded works: Art books First prize: The toys of the avant-garde, by VV.AA., published by the Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga y Legado Paul Christine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso; Produced by Ediciones El Viso. Second prize: Nkame. Belkis Ayón, from VV.AA., edited by Turner Publicaciones, SL Third prize: Miguel Hernández. 25 illustrated poems, poems by Miguel Hernández, illustrations by various authors, edited by Kalandraka Ediciones Andalucía. The Jury has been chaired by Mónica Fernández, Deputy Director General for the Promotion of Spanish Books, Reading and Literature. They have acted as members Teresa Mezquita for the National Library of Spain, Andrés Fernández for the Federation of Publishers Guilds of Spain, Manuel Vacas for the Business Federation of Graphic Industries of Spain, Augusto Jurado for the Emeritus Graphics Club, Natividad Correas and Rocío San Claudio at the proposal of the general director of the Spanish Book, Reading and Literature and Marta Sáenz Bascones, an expert official of the Ministry of Culture. PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

MAIN COLLECTIONS House of the Americas, Havana, Cuba. José Lezama Lima House Museum, Havana, Cuba. Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana, Cuba. Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich, Switzerland. Dr.hc Wolfgang Schreiner, Bad Steben, Germany. Museum of Art / Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. Galerie Kho Kho René Corail, Fort de France, Martinique, France. luag. Lehigh University Art Galleries, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. Ludwig Museum in the Russian Museum, State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany. Sofía Imbert Museum of Contemporary Art, Caracas, Venezuela. National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba. National Museum of Engraving, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Museum of Contemporary Art. MOCA, Los Angeles, California, United States. The Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California, United States. The Museum of Modern Art, MOMA, New York, United States. The Norton Family Foundation, Santa Monica, California, United States. Coda Museum Apeldoorn, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. Antonio Pérez Foundation, Cuenca, Spain. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, United States. Alex Rosenberg Fine Art, New York, United States. Brownstone Foundation, Paris, France. The Selden Rodman Collection, Art Galleries Ramapo College of New Jersey, United States. University of Central Florida Library, Orlando, Florida, United States. Nelson Fine Art Center, Tempe, Arizona, United States. Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, The Netherlands. The von Christierson Collection, London, England Metropiltan Pavilion, New York, United States. The Farber Collection, New York, United States.

BELKIS AYÓN ESTATE FOUNDATION Created by Dra. Katia Ayón Manso, in 2003, the Estate has set itself as its main objectives: • Promote the artist's plastic work • Preserve and restore printed works • Preserve and restore matrices • Creation of the Ayón Space Opening of the exhibition Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban printmaker, Belkis Ayón (1967-1999), Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, United States, 2018 ACHIEVEMENTS Since the creation of the Estate, the work of Belkis Ayón has been present in innumerable solo and personal exhibitions of a national and international nature, which shows the importance of her work for Cuban and universal culture. The BELKIS AYÓN AWARD was given on the occasion of the VII National Printmaking Encounter that convenes the Experimental Graphic Workshop of Havana and in recognition of the valuable teaching work carried out by the artist, it was decided to award a prize among the competing works of the students of the second year of the San Alejandro from the National Academy of Plastic Arts. In 2009 we held the first anthological exhibition of the artist in the Convent of San Francisco de Asís, Old Havana. In 2010 we carried out a very significant and transcendental project for her work of art, the book Nkame. Belkis Ayón, produced by the Turner Publishing House in Madrid, and the participation of important researchers and art critics such as José Veigas, Cristina Vives, David Mateo, Lázara Menéndez, Orlando Hernández, Eugenio Valdés, and others who exalted with a great vision the engravings of the artist. Since 2016, the exhibition Nkame has toured different cities in the United States in successful presentations, receiving an excellent reception from the American public. With the curatorship of Cristina Vives and the management of the tour by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California. Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, California. 2016 - 2017 Museo del Barrio, New York, New York. 2017. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. 2017. Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, 2018 Scottsdale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona. 2018 - 2019 Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois. 2020 (Closed earlier to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic) Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. 2021 Inauguration of Nkame: Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) Retrospective Exhibition, Convent of San Francisco de Asís, Old Havana, Havana, Cuba, 2009 Opening of the Nkame Exhibition: A Retrospective of the Cuban printmaker, Belkis Ayón (1967-1999), Museo del Barrio , New York, New York, United States, 2017 PROJECTIONS Future projects are based on continuing to disseminate the legacy of Belkis to transcend among future generations of artists and make printmaking a greater art that occupies the place it deserves as a manifestation of the plastic arts.

Exhibiciones personales y colectivas de la grabadora cubana Belkis Ayón (1967-1999). EXHIBITIONS PE RSONAL EXHIBITIONS COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIO NS

RESLESSNESS / RESLESSNESS Belkis Ayón Manso When Darrel Couturier sent to request by fax the title for this exhibition he still did not have it, he had not even thought about it, to be honest. That day I had a great commitment to attend the opening of the first personal exhibition of two of my students. After finishing my work as a spectator and as a guardian angel (teacher), I went to my friend Cristina's house where I would meet Rafa who would bring the letter to Darrel with the title of the exhibition. When I left this other, nothing occurred to me - I entered a state of desperation imperceptible to the eye - again showing my moderate personality, less to laugh and do great colography. I thought about the works that I had already finished and I asked myself what feelings they have in common, since in general I have been working on the subject for years - and I associate it a little with what I have been feeling in recent months, a great UNREST, something that almost unconsciously my work began to appear. As, I previously mentioned the subject that I have been working on for years, since I began to study in the 3 year of the San Alejandro Academy, it is one of the components of Cuban culture on the African side, the carabalíes and of them, the Secret Society Abakúa, made up only of men, which emerged in the 1930s in the 19th century in Cuba. Above all, I intend to give my vision, my point of view as an observer, presenting in a synthetic way the aesthetic, plastic and poetic aspect that I have discovered in Abakúa relating it to the questioning of the nature of man, with personal experiences, that feeling that sometimes it captures and we do not know how to define them, with those fleeting emotions, with the spiritual incorporating symbols from other cultures that I use to express my ideas with greater richness and quality. I work with characters such as the leopard man, identifying with him the power, the composition, the aggression of society, a male who sacrifices Sikán, a woman who discovers the secret and dies for the sake of it passing to men and not disappearing. The secret consisted of a voice, SACRED VOICE, produced by a FISH discovered by her when she returned from the river, the fish was the reincarnation of Old Obón, Tanzé, of Abasí, the Supreme God. The transmission of the sacred voice was finally settled on the hide of a goat vibrating on the sacred drum of EKUE. My images come to them through the technical colography of engraving that consists of a kind of collage printed with a wide variety of materials placed and glued on a cardboard support. Sikán, a woman who prevails in the works presented because she, like me, lived and lives through me in uneasiness, insistently looking for a way out. Belkis Ayon Havana, Cuba, January 1998 BACK TO REVELATIONS NEXT ARTICLE

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban soul Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut, United States September 12, 2009 - February 21, 2010 Read more Roots & More. Journey of the Spirits Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, Holland April 7 - November 7, 2009 Read more Cuba, Mexico, United States, Portugal November 2006 - 2010 Confluences Inside Read more return to collective exhibitions

NKAME: A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE CUBAN PRINTMAKER BELKIS AYÓN SELECTED AMONG THE BEST OF THE ART OF 2017 WORLDWIDE BY ARTnews MAGAZINE Jan 4, 2018 Yadira Leyva Ayón © www.artnews.com On December 27, 2017, the article by Andrew Russeth, «2017: THE YEAR IN REVIEW, was published on the ARTnews website. The Year in, and Beyond, New York Galleries — Plus a Top 10 from Around the World. In the article, among other very important contemporary art exhibitions of the year, Nkame… was selected in the number 4 position among the best exhibitions in the world of the year 2017. Andrew Russeth refers: “Once you take a look at the large-scale pieces that Belkis Ayón made by assembling printed panels, you never forget. They are typically black, white, and every shade of gray (though she briefly and incredibly dipped into the color), and they feature, with supernaturally sinuous confident lines, figures with faces that only have piercing eyes, piercing eyes, performing non-ritualistic rituals. identifiable, hugging each other, and, yes, looking at us, inspired by the male and Afro-Cuban secret society known as Abakuá. The world lost the Cuban artist in 1999, at the age of 32, and this retrospective made it clear that if she were still alive, she would be one of the main figures operating today. " Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón, previously exhibited at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, and then at the Museo del Barrio in New York, has been selected as the best of art for two years, as it was also chosen as the best of art in Los Angeles in 2016. Link to the article HERE PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

FRG: BELKIS AYÓN Gallery FRG OBJECTS & DESIGN / ART, Hudson, New York, United States. August - September, 2014 The FRG OBJECTS & DESIGN / ART gallery, specialized in the art of design, from Hudson, New York, had the pleasure of presenting in August last year, a collection of visionary pieces, rarely appreciated in the United States, by the Cuban artist Belkis Ayón (Havana, 1967-1999), from the private collection of Carole and Alex Rosenberg. The pieces could be appreciated in an environment designed in parity, complete harmony, and connection with these masterpieces of contemporary Cuban printmaking. The exhibition opened to the public until September 30, 2014.

NKAME ARRIVES AT THE STATION MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN HOUSTON, TEXAS July 31st, 2018 Yadira Leyva Ayón © Belkis Ayón Estate After the successful presentations in different cities of the United States while traveling through this country, the exhibition Nkame. A Retrospective of the Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999), arrives at the Station Museum in Houston, Texas. The exhibition was inaugurated on the night of June 2nd in an atmosphere full of friends, excellent music, and lovers of good art. The masterful curatorship of Cristina Vives, stood out on this occasion thanks to a curatorial idea that was brought to reality, thanks to the efforts of the Museum staff and its Director James Harritas: many of the large-format works obtained three-dimensionality when placed on walls, specially built for each piece, resulting in a very positive visual impact, with the pieces obtaining an unprecedented monumentality. In addition, this exhibition will feature a book/catalog on the exhibition and the life and work of Belkis Ayón, entitled Behind del veil de un myth. Produced by the Station Museum and the Belkis Ayón Estate, with texts by Cristina Vives and design by Laura Llópiz. The exhibition will be open to the public until September 3, 2018. PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS