DRAPETOMANIA Galería de Arte Universal, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba / Consejo Nacional de Artes Plásticas, La Habana / 8th Floor Gallery, New York, United States / Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, California, United States / The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. April, 2013 - 2015 The exhibition Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano y the Art of Afro-Cuba, which was presented in Santiago de Cuba and Havana, arrives at Harvard University after having been shown in New York and San Francisco. Originally exhibited at the Provincial Center of Plastic Arts and Design in Santiago de Cuba (April-May, 2013), where it was described as "one of the best exhibitions of plastic arts in recent years in Santiago de Cuba," Drapetomanía now travels to the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and Afro-American Art at Harvard University after have been exhibited at the Center for the Development of the Visual Arts in Havana, The 8th Floor Gallery in New York and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. Drapetomanía pays tribute to Grupo Antillano (1978-1983), a previously forgotten cultural and artistic movement, which proposed a vision of Cuban culture that highlighted the importance of African and Afro-Caribbean elements in the formation of the nation. The exhibition offers a revisionist reading of the so-called “new Cuban art” and highlights the need to include the work of artists who tried to think about the Cuban from their connections with the African diaspora. Grupo Antillano's art is part of a long Caribbean tradition of resistance and cultural affirmation, of that "prodigious effort of self-defense" and of "ideological cimarronearía" that, according to the Haitian poet René Depestre, allowed the enslaved masses of the hemisphere rework their pasts and cultures. The title of the show, Drapetomania, refers to an alleged illness described in the mid-19th century by a plantation physician in Louisiana. From the Greek drapetes (escape, flee) and mania (madness), the most visible symptom of this curious disease was the irrepressible and pathological tendency of many slaves to flee and be free. In other words, the doctor described maroon as a disease, a disease, a deviation from the natural order, an expression of the indomitable savagery of blacks. Curated by historian Alejandro de la Fuente, professor at Harvard University, the Drapetomanía exhibition is complemented by the book Grupo Antillano: el arte de Afro-Cuba, edited by the curator of the exhibition, with essays by art critics and historians like Guillermina Ramos Cruz, José Veigas and Judith Bettelheim. The exhibition includes works by Grupo Antillano artists (Esteban Ayala, Rogelio Rodríguez Cobas, Manuel Couceiro, Herminio Escalona, Ever Fonseca, Ramón Haiti, Adelaida Herrera, Arnaldo Rodríguez Larrinaga, Oscar Rodríguez Lasseria, Alberto Lescay, Manuel Mendive, Leonel Morales, Clara Morera, Miguel Ocejo, Rafael Queneditt and Julia Valdés) and a group of contemporary artists who have shown in their work similar concerns to those articulated by Grupo Antillano (Belkis Ayón, Bedia, Choco, Diago, Esquivel, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Montalván, Olazábal, Douglas Pérez, Peña, Elio Rodríguez and Leandro Soto). In other words, Drapetomanía proposes a new genealogy in Cuban plastic arts that connects creators from generations and diverse artistic trajectories through their shared attention to issues such as race, identity, and the meanings of the Cuban. The show will be exhibited at Harvard from January 29 to the end of May of this year. Information provided by Alejandro de la Fuente, Curator.

NKAME: A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE CUBAN PRINTMAKER BELKIS AYÓN (1967-1999) Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, United States June 2 - September 3, 2018 After the successful presentations in different cities of the United States, 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 2 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 life, thanks to the efforts of the Museum staff and its Director James Harritas: many of the large-format works gained three-dimensionality when placed on individual walls, specially built for each piece, resulting in a very positive visual impact, as the pieces obtain an unprecedented monumentality. In addition, this exhibition will feature a book/catalog that will cover the exhibition and the life and work of Belkis Ayón, entitled Behind the veil of a 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. Photographs: Ernesto León and Yadira Leyva Ayón

NKAME: A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE CUBAN PRINTMAKER BELKIS AYÓN (1967-1999) Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, United States January 25, 2018 - April 29, 2018 The traveling exhibition Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) was inaugurated on January 25, 2018, at its third venue, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. A project organized by this prestigious institution and the Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana Cuba. The exhibition is curated by Cristina Vives. Exhibition Tour Management by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA. Photographs: José A. Figueroa, Havana, Cuba, and courtesy of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. For more information, visit the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art website Press coverage KC Studio. Covering Kansas City's performing, visual, cinematic, and literary arts http://kcstudio.org/critically-acclaimed-show-cuban-printmaker-stops-kemper-museum-belkis-ayon Earthquake http://terremoto.mx/nkame-a-retrospective-of-cuban-printmaker-belkis-ayon-1967-1999/ Informality http://informalityblog.com/nkame-cuban-mythology-through-the-eyes-of-belkis-ayon/

Confessions Belkis Ayon February 11, 1991 Some time ago I studied some of the components of our culture, on the African side, the carabalíes and of them the Abakuá Secret Society, made up only of men, a mutual aid and relief society, self-financed by its members. It resurfaces in the 30s of the 19th century in Cuba under other conditions and objectives very different from those of its African ancestors. There are people who feel and have the need to believe in something, which is inherent to human existence and one of those many examples is the following ... that even after so many years initiation ceremonies are held, promotion of obones or creation of new powers; crying or nlloro (funeral ceremony for the death of a member of society); that of refreshing the sacred pieces of the liturgy; as well as the assemblies of squares or the general assemblies; that are still carried out mainly in Havana and Matanzas, exclusively in Cuba. "To be a man you do not have to be an Abakuá but, to be an Abakuá you have to be a man", society does not come to seek prestige but to give it prestige, the best of itself. "There were women in Calabar who played like men in their power (...) and when the ceremonies began, in the mountains, in a cave on the banks of a lagoon, the men stole their secret ..." "Ekue hates women females. The secret is absolutely for MEN ... "(1) By addressing this unknown and hermetic theme for many, not being popular as another component of the Cuban cultural heritage for dealing with certain aspects that have not yet been clarified, I intend above all to make my vision known from its interwoven overflowing sacred memories religious imagination, presenting them in a synthetic way the aesthetic, plastic and poetic aspect that I have discovered in Abakuá (...) "transferring a complex message that despite its conceptual dimension is never direct but allusive ..." (2), going back many times to its origins in Africa. The antecedents of this secret society must be looked for well past in time because they arose in very primitive economic-social formations where man faced the unknown countless times, always seeking a satisfactory answer to the natural and social phenomena that surrounded him. that in my engravings you will be able to observe an infinity of points that coincide with the cultural fact itself, verifiable both in the field of ideas and in visual references. The antecedents of the ñañigos were back in Africa the Secret Societies Ngbe and Ekpe whose names in ekoi and efik respectively mean leopard man. These associations, due to their cults and their great economic and ideological power, were spreading the leopard as a totemic animal whose ... "fraternity is established on a foot of perfect equality between a human group on one side and a group of things, generally animals and plants ..." from the other, as Frazer would deduce in Man, God, and Immortality, totemism, together with the other primitive religious forms (magic, fetishism, and animism) generally achieve sympathetic magic by law of similarity as a result, which they will permeate the life of primitive man, his thoughts and actions. These societies can be found in the area that was included in the so-called Oil Rivers, from the piers of the vast Niger Delta and the Cross River in present-day South Nigeria and part of Cameroon, in front of the Biafra Bay. When I begin to investigate this interesting and mysterious brotherhood, unique in Cuba in its sacred memories -by the way very tangled-I can select characters that in my view are the most important to convey what I want and will be presented in all my works as : the leopard man, designated and identified with him by the different positions and hierarchies of society, to Sikán, a woman who discovers the secret and is sacrificed so that it passes to men and does not disappear. Sikán dies in vain, the secret fades more and more; This consisted of a voice, UYO UYO ANFONO sacred voice produced by a fish discovered by her when she returned from the river, the fish was the reincarnation of the old king called Obón Tanzé, King of Efigueremo who at the same moment was the reincarnation of Abasí, GOD SUPREME. Many were the efforts and attempts, for the transmission of the sacred voice because each time it faded more. The last transmission was on the hide of a goat; There yes! There yes! There was ... "that peculiar, frighteningly adorable sound ..." (3), the voice that vibrates on the sacred EKUE drum. There are innumerable variations of popular imagery when recounting how the events that gave rise to this type of secret society happened and from them I show you my variations intertwining their signs with mine; I use colography turned into a medium with which I feel very identified since it adjusts to my way of doing and that for some years I have been working, offering very peculiar visual information with effects and results that in a certain way harmonize with the subject. In addition to the possibilities that it presents in its multiple nature, which as it is generally defined, is the printing of a collage with a wide variety of materials which are glued on a cardboard support. Referring to the use of color there was a stage that I worked with a great variety of them and at that moment I was very satisfied, but over time I began to feel a certain nostalgia for black, I recognized that I was strongly united making me return to it. According to the materials that I use, he gives me a whole range of whites, grays and blacks, conceiving him as a great ally of the type of figuration I work with, with his composition ... all so hermetic, secret and mysterious in addition to the strength that he transmits to us. I think that these engravings could be a spiritual testimony if you will, not lived in my own flesh, but imagined, where I placed in the foreground an equivalent of the human figure, on which my ideas ultimately and consequently turn, which are memories of the memory materialized as a kind of crush that when the light is turned off and on, new memories appear accompanied by a successful classmate, intuition. I consider that there is a very close relationship between the vision that I offer you and that of the Abakuá Secret Society clearly transmitted in the work of Lydia Cabrera: … "By the knowledge and power of the signs, it makes the past present, recreates the hill, the river, the palm tree, in the sacred places of Awána Bekúra Mendó." Belkis Ayon / 91 NOTES: (1) CABRERA, Lidia. The Abakuá Secret Society narrated by old followers. Havana, Editions CR, 1958 (2) MOSQUERA, Gerardo. Essay on America. Juan Francisco Elso. March 1986 (3) CABRERA, Lidia. The Abakuá Secret Society narrated by old followers. Havana, Editions CR, 1958 PREVIOUS ARTICLE BACK TO TEXTS

PALMA DIGITAL AWARD 2015 GRANTED TO THE WEBSITE OF THE ARTIST BELKIS AYÓN November 14, 2015 Yadira Leyva Ayón © Belkis Ayón Estate The team made up of the Belkis Ayón Estate and CarDanSoft, creators of the website of the artist Belkis Ayón, received Friday morning, November 13, the 2015 Palma Digital Prize awarded by CUBARTE, in the category of Personal sites and blogs from cultural profile. PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

Belkis Ayón: Sikán Illuminations October 5, 2024 - January 26, 2025 MODERN ART OXFORD Sikán Illuminations examines Cuban artist Belkin Ayón’s (1967 – 1999) brief but intense artistic career. Using a printmaking process called collography, she used her exceptional technical skills and innovative use of this method to produce richly detailed and enigmatic artworks which recreate the cultural and spiritual world of the Abakuá. The Abakuá secret society, a predominantly black male Cuban religious group originating in the tribes and ritual traditions of West Africa, served as a lifelong source of inspiration for Ayón. Ayon explored the heritage of the Abakuá by focusing on the mythical female figure of Sikán. Ayón reinterprets the origin story of the Abakuá by making visible the emotions and struggles of Sikán in her imagery and combines it with her own ideas and experiences of life as a black Cuban woman. Ayón’s work defies societal norms and creates space for imagining alternative possibilities for spirituality and gender equality. Telling ancient stories in new ways, these artworks create a radical new mythology capable of amending the past and altering the future. Belkis Ayón was one of the most prominent figures of 20th Century Cuban art and Sikán Illuminations is the first major survey exhibition of Ayón’s work in a UK institution. The exhibition consists of 50 works belonging to the Belkis Ayón Estate based in Havana and is curated by Corina Matamoros and Sandra García Herrera.

Belkis Ayón at th e 34th São Paulo Biennal Although is dark, I still sign Diseño para el catálogo de la 34 Bienal de São Paulo y algunas obras incluidas en la exposición principal July 5, 2021 Isachi Durruthy Peñalver © Belkis Ayón Estate The 34th edition of the Sao Paulo Biennial will feature the work of Belkis Ayón (Havana 1967-1999). The event, one of the most prestigious in the world and an indisputable reference for the art of our continent, will host 16 works by the renowned Cuban artist. In total 14 prints, one of them, large format, and two matrices, also large format, will be exhibited from September 4 to December 5, 2021, at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, located in Ibirapuera Park in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Belkis Ayón traced a renovating path for Latin American printmaking. Her peculiar aesthetic discourse grounded in the traditions of the Abakuá culture, her outstanding mastery of the collography technique, and her prolific work as a pedagogue made her one of the most prominent figures of 20th-century Cuban art. This is the first time that her work has been invited to participate in this notorious event, conceived as a polyphony of voices and points of view on contemporary artistic production. The 34th Biennial entitled Faz escuro mas eu canto [Although it's dark, I still sing] affirms the right to complexity and opacity, in expressions of art and culture, as well as in the identities of individuals and social groups, with a representation of 91 artists from 39 countries. The curatorial team is form by of Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, Paulo Miyada, Carla Zaccagnini, Francesco Stocchi and Ruth Estévez. The Cicillio Matarazzo, former Palace of Industry, also known as the Biennial Pavilion, is part of the original Ibirapuera Park complex in Sao Paulo and was designed by the famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. For more information on the 34th Sao Paulo Biennial visit HERE the official page NEXT NEWS

I National Collography Contest Belkis Ayón ANNOUNCEMENT Basis All Cuban students and artists with engravings made in the collography technique, printed between 2011 and 2012, who have not participated in a previous exhibition, event, or contest, will be able to participate. Inscription The works must be sent unframed through certified mail or in person before March 10, 2013, to the headquarters of the Centro Provincial de Arte de Cienfuegos, at Ave 56, No. 2601, between 25 and 27, Cienfuegos, CP 55100, telephone: (043) 55 06 76. 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. Workshop or artist tests are not accepted. The works submitted to the contest must be unpublished. Selection A jury will be appointed to select and award the works received. The selected and awarded works will be exhibited at the Cienfuegos Art Gallery, within the program of the 7th La Estampa Fair, an event that will be officially inaugurated on April 6, 2013, at 9 p.m., at which time the will make public the final decision of the jury. The exhibition will remain open to the public for 30 days. The exhibition will be presented in Havana during the next engraving meeting to be held in 2013. 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 Cuban pesos (donation from the artists belonging to the workshop and to the Belkis Ayón Estate), a diploma, and a reproduction of a work by the artist to whom the contest is dedicated. The Jury will award mentions at its discretion without financial endowment. The winning works will become part of the Cabinet of La Estampa de Cienfuegos. The award-winning artist will be invited to perform a personal exhibition at the Cienfuegos Art Center next year. Participating in the Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest implies acceptance of these Terms and Conditions. The Jury's decision will be final. More information Organizing Committee of the Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest GRAPHIC SOCIETY OF CIENFUEGOS Sociedadgraficadecienfuegos@gmail.com plastica@azurina.cult.cu (043) 51 79 79 ESTATE OF BELKIS AYÓN, HAVANA belkat@cubarte.cult.cu (07) 642 30 83 www.ayonbelkis.cult.cu www.ayonbelkis.com JURY AWARDS Events and Exhibitions I N ational Collograpy Contest Belkis Ayon Cienfuegos, 2013 Selected works and Exhibition Muestra Concurso Exhibition Texturas Develadas Exhibition Nuevas Circusntancias

EVA LEAVES AND TAKES FLIGHT. EVA CEASES BEING A RIB Havana, Cuba. October 13, 2014 As part of the visual arts event Ellas Crean , sponsored by the Embassy of Spain in Cuba, it was inaugurated in October 2014, the exhibition Eva leaves and takes flight, Eva ceases being a rib, with the curatorship of Gabriela García Azcuy. This exhibition shows the works of five outstanding women in the world of Cuban visual arts: Aimeé García, Belkis Ayón, Cirenaica Moreira, Rocío García and Sandra Ramos; which despite having begun their struggle for the plastic arts in the late 80's of the last century, have maintained, in the words of the curator, that "female protagonism, which twenty-five years later, remains in the art scene of the Island like an already stainless spring". Participating artists: Aimeé García, Belkis Ayón, Cirenaica Moreira, Rocío García, Sandra Ramos.

ROOTS AND MORE: JOURNEY OF THE SPIRITS Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, Holland April 7 - November 7, 2009 Roots and More: Journey of the Spirits Scheduled to run from April 2009 to November 2009. Venue: Afrika Museum, Postweg 6, 6571 CS Berg en Dal, The Netherlands. Curator will be Wouter Welling The Roots and More: Journey of the Spirits exhibition is scheduled for 2009 and will almost certainly transfer to the Miami Art Museum in Florida at the end of 2009. It is a thematic exhibition on spirituality in the work of contemporary artists from the African diaspora ( specifically Brazil, Britain, Cuba, Curaçao, Haiti, Suriname and the United States): different countries and different generations. The art is spectacular: suspended boats with luminous spirit beings, singing sculptures, a spirit being that squeaks and groans as it rows a huge boat, the macabre sculptures of Haiti's mysterious Bizango society, spirits in bottles, paintings with magic signs and strange apparitions. In many cases the artists are priests, famous in their homeland but often unknown in Europe. For all their variety, they display one particularly striking similarity: they are all rooted in a spiritual world that is thoroughly African. Some are remote descendants of slaves who were deported to the Caribbean and America. The slaves took their traditional religions with them - religions originating in various regions of West and Central Africa (Benin, Nigeria, Congo, Angola). In the parts of the world where they were set to work, their ancestor spirits and the spirits of natural forces became allied in various ways with the dominant Christian religion - a forced amalgamation, for the slaves were not allowed to continue their own traditions. They were to prove spiritually very flexible. The Africans and their descendants recognized features of their own spirit beings in Catholic saints, and so were able to appropriate the saints and incorporate them into their own pantheon. New religions arose, such as Candomblé and Umbanda in Brazil, Winti in Suriname, Santeria, Abakuá and Palo in Cuba, Voodoo in Haiti and derivatives of it such as Hoodoo in the United States, and Obeah in places including Jamaica and Trinidad (although the latter are really forms of traditional 'healing arts' rather than religions). Other denominations sprang up in turn around them. This highly complex spirit world, with its own rituals, songs, music, symbols and images, is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists. There are constantly recurring themes: the journey of the spirits (boats), the relationship between the world of humans and the world of spirit beings and death (the domain, in voodoo, of Baron Samedi). People can have a relationship with both the world of the dead and the spirit world. Over twenty artists have been selected for Roots and More: Journey of the Spirits. Among others they are Belkis Ayón, Barra, José Bedia, Société Secrète Bizango (a group), María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Mestre Didi, Sokari Douglas Camp, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Félix Farfan, Adenor Gondim, Stivenson Magloire, Pascale Monnin, Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal, Gerald Pinedo, Edival Ramosa, Alison Saar, Eneida Sanches, Renée Stout, Patrick Vilaire and Frantz Augustin Zéphirin. Their work provides an opportunity to establish links with traditional African art from the Afrika Museum collection. However, unlike in the case of functional objects (ie objects that have 'operated' in a religious setting), these contemporary artists have clearly interpreted things in their own way. Roots and More: Journey of the Spirits is the first of its kind in the Netherlands and in Europe. Never before has there been an exhibition with such a topical focus on the spiritual wealth that Africa has offered and continues to offer the world. It marks a magical crossroads where sacrifices are made to Eleggua / Eshu / Lucero, on the threshold between two worlds, where everything - humans, spirits, animals and things - comes together. A richly illustrated bilingual catalog with an introduction to the various religions of the African diaspora and descriptions of the participating artists will be published to mark the exhibition. © Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, The Netherlands / January 2008. . Participating artists: Belkis Ayón, Barra, José Bedia, Société Secrète Bizango (a group), María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Mestre Didi, Sokari Douglas Camp, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Félix Farfan, Adenor Gondim, Stivenson Magloire, Pascale Monnin, Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal, Gerald Pinedo, Edival Ramosa, Alison Saar, Eneida Sanches, Renée Stout, Patrick Vilaire and Frantz Augustin Zéphirin.

Nkame Mafimba. Belkis Ayón Additional Texts Curriculum

Today, September 11th, we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the passing of Belkis Ayón Manso (Havana, 1967-1999). Belkis radiated with her smile, talent, and dedication as an artist, curator, and professor at the San Alejandro Academy and the Higher Institute of Art in Havana, Cuba. Her enigmatic and overwhelming work earned her the admiration of the public and critics, making her an indisputable reference in 20th-century graphic art. Belkis’ work not only reflected her tireless creative spirit but also her commitment to making new generations of Cuban artists visible. Today, we evoke her generous personality and her indelible mark on the art world. We also highlight the work of her sister, Dr. Katia Ayón Manso (1964-2019), founder of the Belkis Ayón Estate in 2003. Her work over 16 years was vital for the preservation of the visual heritage of the Cuban artist and her relevant permanence in the contemporary scene. In recent years, various initiatives and cultural projects promoted by the Estate reflect our mission to preserve Belkis’ legacy and continue the path traced by Katia. We would like to thank all the family, friends, institutions, and Cuban and foreign specialists who have supported our efforts. Belkis continues to illuminate us with her smile, and her work is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Belkis Ayón Estate Havana, September 11, 2024.