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PUBLICATIONS

Nkame. Belkis Ayon

Project Management: Dra. Katia Ayón. Belkis Ayón Estate
Editorial Concept: Cristina Vives
Authors: José Veigas, Cristina Vives, David Mateo, Lázara Menéndez
Design: Laura Llópiz

296 Pages | 400 Images | Bilingual Spanish / English Edition
Turner Editores, Madrid, 2010

ISBN: 978-84-7506-916-6

Availability: SOLD OUT

SECOND EDITION IN THE PRODUCTION PROCESS

Book made with the Sponsorship of:

Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich, Switzerland | The Von Christierson Collection, London, England | Afrikan Museum, Berg en Dal, The Netherlands | Cisneros-Fontanalls Foundation, Miami, USA | Alex and Carole Rosenberg, New York, USA | Brownsote Foundation, Paris, France | Caguayo Foundation, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.

Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) left, after her death, a set of essential works for contemporary printmaking.
The religion and the Abakuá Secret Society (original from the African Calabar, and settled in Cuba since the 19th century) served the artist as a "cite" and a "reference" to construct a universal discourse against marginalization, frustration, fear, censorship, impotence and in favor of the search for freedom.
This society, created by men and for men, stigmatizes and segregates women and, in turn, maintains strict discipline and maintains unassailable ethics and mystery. Belkis penetrated the space of the rite as far as he was allowed and studied all the sources of information at her reach. As a result, she created an overwhelming iconography and interpreted religious myth from her position as a woman, black, and Latina artist in the late 20th century. Nkame, synonymous with praise and salutation in the Abakuá language, pays tribute to a creator who left a message of life with her death.

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Behind the veil of a Myth. Belkis Ayon

Project Management: Dra. Katia Ayón. Belkis Ayón Estate
Editorial Edition and Texts: Cristina Vives
Design: Laura Llópiz

Translation: Gloria Riva, Olimpia Sigarroa

210 Pages | English Edition
Station Museum of Contemporary Art, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4951-4650-3

Availability: Amazon

"Behind the veil of a myth" considers the most significant moments of the creative process of the Cuban engraver Belkis Ayón (Havana, 1967-1999), followed by a virtual tour of the exhibition "Nkame. A retrospective of the Cuban engraver Belkis Ayón ", exhibited in Cuba for the first time in September 2009, traveling through different museums in the United States since 2016. Based on the study of the work of Belkis Ayón carried out by the curator Cristina Vives, as well as in parts of an interview with the artist, and extensively illustrated with the 48 pieces that make up the exhibition among others, "Behind the veil of a myth" offers a description of the creative life of Belkis and the main motivations that led her to an investigation that totally absorbed her short but intense artistic life: The Secret Society Abakuá. His work evolved from the stage of "representation" of the myth during his student years, to a later artistic moment in which the myth served as a vehicle for a post-modern disguise, which characterized young Cuban artists in the 90's. after the collapse of European socialism. Belkis' monumental engravings were pioneers in Cuba and worldwide and provided the Abakuá legend with an overwhelming iconography, which it did not have previously. "Behind the veil of a myth" is an approach that interconnects the artist with the Cuban and international context and the unequivocal signs of the present and the universality that her work communicates from her deep social and liberating vocation.

 

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