Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) Contemporary Cuban Printmaker. Specialized in the technique of Collography, creating monumental prints, inspired by the legends, myths, and rituals of the Abakuá Secret Society, creating a breathtaking artistic iconography for this religion, that had been never seen before in Cuban art. Collection

Fundación Los Carbonell y Estate Belkis Ayón presentan en Cuba el libro Nkame Mafimba e inauguran la exposición Mi alma y yo te queremos . La Habana, septiembre de 2025 – El próximo 11 de septiembre en la Galería Salón Blanco (Basílica y Convento de San Francisco de Asís, Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad de La Habana) tendrán lugar dos momentos especiales dedicados a la artista Belkis Ayón. A las 3:00 pm, el Estate Belkis Ayón y la Fundación Los Carbonell presentarán en Cuba, por primera vez, Nkame Mafimba , segunda y actualizada edición del catálogo razonado de la artista, publicado por Editorial Turner (Madrid) en 2024. La presentación contará con la participación de la Dra. Lázara Menéndez (profesora universitaria), Ernesto Leyva (director del Estate Belkis Ayón), y las curadoras Corina Matamoros y Sandra García Herrera. Posteriormente, a las 4:00 pm, se inaugurará la exposición colectiva Mi alma y yo te queremos, organizada por la Fundación Los Carbonell, el proyecto malaYerba y el Estate Belkis Ayón, bajo la curaduría de Sandra García Herrera y con la asistencia curatorial de Camila Marín. Un homenaje a Belkis Ayón El título de la exposición se inspira en un grabado de la artista y funciona como un gesto colectivo de afecto y admiración hacia ella. Participan artistas que fueron colegas, discípulos y continuadores de su legado, junto con jóvenes grabadores vinculados al proyecto Espacio Ayón. La muestra incluye un conjunto de impresiones y matrices de la propia Belkis, cedidas por su Estate. Artistas: Ángel Ramírez / Sandra Ramos / Ibrahim Miranda / Abel Barroso / Isary Paulet / Antonio Martorell / Eduardo Roca (Choco) / Juan Carlos Rivero / Lidzie Alvisa / Yamilys Brito / Frank E. Martínez / Janette Brossard / Norberto Marrero / Anyelmaidelín Calzadilla / Octavio Irving / Aliosky García / Orlando Montalván / Osmeivy Ortega / Marcel Molina Una fecha simbólica La jornada se realiza el 11 de septiembre, día en que se cumplen 26 años del fallecimiento de Belkis Ayón, y coincide con el natalicio de Eusebio Leal Spengler, historiador de la ciudad y principal impulsor de la preservación del Convento de San Francisco de Asís, actual sede de la Galería Salón Blanco. La exposición se mantendrá abierta hasta noviembre del presente año. Con esta nueva muestra la Fundación Los Carbonell reafirma su vocación de crear espacios donde los grandes referentes del arte cubano vuelvan a encontrarse con las nuevas generaciones de artistas, curadores e investigadores. Belkis Ayón (La Habana, 1967-1999) Figura esencial del grabado contemporáneo cubano y espíritu aglutinador de su generación. Graduada de la Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro y del Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), donde también ejerció la docencia, dejó una obra marcada por la innovación técnica y la hondura simbólica. Su legado abrió caminos en la estampa cubana y sigue convocando a quienes compartieron con ella el taller, la enseñanza y la amistad.

In irregular confidence David Mateo March 4, 1997 © LA GACETA DE CUBA Magazine, No 2, March / April 1997, year 35, p. 50-51.v … Not a single word of anticipation or impatience. She knows that she is the main reason for this conversation and yet she waits patiently for Segura to finish explaining her sculpture project to me. I have the impression that I have seen her many times in that same deferential attitude, lavishing everything as if everything were superior to her. I do not even know if it is by adhesion or remembrance that I have come to think that his serenity has nothing to do with a marriage courtesy, but that even condescension continues to be his second virtue after colographies. “It seems that your work aspires to become universal, I tell him, as he hands me a group of matrices on a small table in his apartment in Alamar. The first one represents a fish woman, beginning in the spiritual world of one between two Jicoteas women; but the poetic atmosphere that the relationship between each one of them acquires is so moving that the allegory of the Abakuá legend and its particularly liturgical iconography almost seems to diminish; I had already noticed something similar with the inclusion of the Holy Spirit in one of the winning works at the Maastrich International Biennial. To some extent I have always been distant from the Abakuá mythology because my position is rather that of an observer. Distance is precisely that perspective in which I place myself to establish analogies and incorporate any universal experience into the particular logic of myth. I could give you the example of the work Repentida, which was one of the winners in the recent Engraving Meeting, in it a woman appears tearing her skin as a symbol of the ambivalence between what we want to be and what we really are. It seems to me that the Abakuá theme is going to be the starting point for a long time, the pretext for comparisons with life. The universe that its characters and incidental narratives enclose is enough by itself to prefigure any reason for human existence, an equivalence that I have begun to glimpse much more now with the relationship studies that I am carrying out between the mythical Abakuá and Christian religiosity. , for the purpose of creating something of a kind of personal holiness. -But won't you deny me that this process of interlinking between the specific circumstances of the myth and the social cosmogony is produced through a merely female speculation? Do you remember when I told you that you insert a feminine ideal where there never was? I have never thought that my work is feminist. I've never had that built-in calling. The first person who tried to draw attention to this aspect was the critic Eugenio Valdés, and it may even be that there is some reason that my work induces a certain femininity, because it reflects my own existential uncertainty; but I have not conceptualized it that way. The legend of the Sikán is a theme that I have been working on in my engravings since San Alejandro and what has always caught my attention is the condition of victim of the female character, but from a rather generic position, weighing the connotations and the analogies that could be derived from such a situation. And why then your insistence on self-representation? It is true that I am the model of my figurations. They shift with me from one state to another continuously, and even lose weight along with me. They are characters that I submit because I like the idea of deciding their destinies. They are the only alternative of revenge, or correction, lightening the term a little, with which I can count in reality; however I live a less mythical life, I exist from a much more objective perspective, much more objective. The imposition of destinations should consequently alter the meaning of the Abakuá fiction that you allude to. Aren't you afraid of offending the legend? What do the believers you have come in contact with think of that? The Abakuá who have valued my work are mostly intellectuals, and in one way or another they have identified with the project. So far I have not found any detractors. The very mystery of the legend, how hidden some of its meanings have been in the historical development is what has given me precisely the opportunity to make certain speculations, but my position has never been to recriminate the brotherhood, but for the contrary to respecting it and promulgating it in its broadest cultural sense. In this part of the conversation we have already reviewed about six or seven matrices, meticulously delineated with synthetic material, sandpaper, carborundum, gesso and all kinds of rare products in the colographic tradition. It occurs to me to ask Belkis what could happen if all those singular montages that are already ready to give the effects that she has been anticipating, had been drawn or painted on a canvas, and that is when her frankness turns into stupor: I have always been a very bad draftsman. Perhaps because they never demanded an Academy in the Elementary School studies, in the end I decided on engraving. Without realizing it I was creating a kind of trauma with drawing and painting and so I began to look for a type of image that was credible but did not emphasize anatomical delicacies. Then I discovered that with this synthesis of details I protected the mystery of the images more, and that I had to continue emphasizing poses, gestures, and gaze, trying to avoid certain definitions. I may one day get over the trauma and start painting, but I haven't thought about doing it yet. What in your opinion are the immediate antecedents of all this form of representation of yours? I really liked Russian Byzantine icons. I spent a good deal of time looking at them in art books, until one day I discovered that they were perfectly comparable to all Abakuá imagery. I remember that it was a time when I was researching Afro-Cuban cults and specifically the Anafouranas when something curious happened to me: I was in a class in San Alejandro trying to make a kind of dancing devil and Pablo Borges, who was my teacher at that time, told me with the spirit of being impressed, that what I was doing could bring me serious implications, and it was from that moment that I became interested in this type of representation; although in those days my approach to the matter was purely esoteric. In the libraries they denied me the information and enough I had to ask for a letter of authorization in the School. As far as the Legend of the Sikán is concerned, I consider that the reading I did of the book "El monte" by Lidia Cabrera was transcendental, although my awareness of the episode was total when I studied "Los Ñañigos" by Enrique Sosa. I have been about to comment to Belkis about two categories of the Canadian critic Northrop Frye: myth and commitment, which, although they were not issued specifically for the field of Plastic Arts, through them an approximate allegory of his work could also be attempted artistic. But I have only been on the verge of doing it, because in the end I have reserved it for myself, procuring a few more reasons for the literal intervals of this parliament. Something that may even run the risk of forced matching and that goes something like this: "The engravings of Belkis Ayón could be interpreted from the maxim of the critic Northrop Frye, in which he assures that art is" a laboratory where new myths of commitment were prepared, released. " Fabular selection occurs in her case by way of visual and epic identification, mediated almost entirely by a deeply feminine aesthetic rationality - which apparently does not mean the same as feminist, although it is an approach to a deeply macho myth. - We would say that your work assumes a story in which an unequivocal value judgment is represented, from the point of view of the sexual nature of the person who stars and transmits it, although that judgment provides or alludes to cosmogony phenomena such as good and evil, betrayal and sacrifice and the confrontation between victims and perpetrators, and it is precisely within those limits of chaos that she incurs, restoring patterns of behavior and imposing alternative roles. If it were allegories of Frye's notions, his "new myth of commitment" would lie in the fact of opposing a sense of critical analysis to the hermetic interpretation of the mythological event and also in the additional purpose of extending those same collation experiences towards other manifestations of the interhuman bond. Short tense ending and clearly blessed, where the speculator is relieved of his guilt complex: Belkis, it is one thing that I believe in the conformity of all our irregular conversations or our considerations about the plastic arts, and another that I go around commenting on vindications in Cuban engraving, relying on the work of 6 or 7 artists, among which I intend to include you by the way, without even having consulted you before. That is why I take the opportunity now: Am I or am I not right? I believe that important technical concepts and principles are currently being revitalized in Cuban engraving. In my particular case, I would tell you that I am very interested in the level of discursive and aesthetic credibility that matrices can achieve in their final printing, and therefore I try to generate value effects, including color, by experimenting with novel materials. In other young engravers, the tradition has also been altered from many points of view, fundamentally with the experimentation of new supports, with the flexibility of the criteria on seriality with the dynamization, and sometimes even challenge or parody, of technical methods. habitual and in the very consolidation of the ethics of the trade ... and if all this can be called renewal, then I do not think it is bad that someone like you continues to comment on it. PREVIOUS article back to texts

TOWERS AND TOMBS Estudio Figueroa-Vives / Norwegian Embassy, El Vedado, Havana, Cuba September - November, 2019 On September 11, 2019, the exhibition Towers and Tombs in homage to the 20th Anniversary of the death of Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) were inaugurated at the Figueroa-Vives Studio / Norwegian Embassy. Also dedicated to her sister, Dr. Katia Ayón (1964-2019) who worked tirelessly and successfully in the promotion and conservation of her sister's artistic legacy through the Belkis Ayón Estate. The exhibition presents "an unsuspected parallel between historical moments, lives and aesthetics", which come together on the date of 09/11, unveiling through works and matrices of the outstanding Cuban printmaker alongside the photographic work of Janis Lewin (USA) and José A. Figueroa (Cuba). Press coverage https://rialta.org/el-11-de-seipt-de-belkis-ayon-por-el-estudio-figueroa-vives/

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

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSE IN ORDER TO IMPROVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS February 6, 2015 Humberto Figueroa. Director of the Museum of Cayey, Puerto Rico © Belkis Ayón Estate This year the Museo de Cayey from Puerto Rico was the place selected to take the final exam of an interdisciplinary course to improve skills in the English language. On this occasion, the exam consisted of choosing and speaking in English about a piece in the exhibition from the Antonio Martorell art collection. This exhibition responds to the concept of the artist-collector, developed by Martorell, who affirms that for different reasons, artists are sometimes the people with the most important art collections in their countries. The mysterious character in the image is a student who selected the piece by Belkis Ayón and covered his face, alluding to the work it represented. In this case, the young man spoke about the work and its author, describing his opinion about the representation of the mystery, the hidden or the unknown in Belkis's work. PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

WITHOUT MASKS Museum of Anthropology (MOA), University of British Columbia, Johannesburg Gallery of Art, Vancouver, Canada, Johannesburg, South Africa May 2 - November 2, 2014 From May 2nd to November 2nd, 2014, the Museum of Anthropology (MOA), at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, hosted the exhibition: Without Masks: Contemporary Afrocuban Art, The von Christierson Collection. Curated by Orlando Hernández, the exhibition exhibits the private collection of Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art, by the Englishman Chris von Christierson.

Nkame Mafimba. Belkis Ayón Additional texts translated into German

NATIONAL COLLOGRAPHY CONTEST BELKIS AYÓN find out MORE

THE CALLALOO ART & CULTURE IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA MAGAZINE, ILLUSTRATED ITS COVER WITH THE PIECE LA CENA, 1988 BY BELKIS AYÓN January 26, 2015 Yadira Leyva Ayón © Callaloo Art & Culture in the African Diaspora Magazine Issue 4 of the Callaloo Art & Culture in the African Diaspora Magazine illustrated its cover with the piece La Cena de 1988 by Belkis Ayón, of which we can find a dossier with more of her works and specific aspects of her artistic life. With interviews, historical articles, reviews, and dossiers of visual artists, the publication presents different aspects of the culture generated by the African diaspora in the American world. PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

Belkis Ayón. The preamble to an infinite journey to earth. Norberto Marrero December 1, 1999 © Extramuros, 1, December 1999, pp. 25-26 For us, weary of the tumult and bad nights, reaching Alamar (land of promise) meant, among other things, being able to verify that there was still a full place, devoid of hatred and betrayal; a castle where we could exercise ourselves in the greatest and clearest spiritual tranquility. Then Belkis would appear with her enormous eyes of an Egyptian goddess, she ushered us in, and no one dared to let go of her spirit anymore, and we would be left hanging comfortably by her smile, her contagious optimism. I see Belkis as that mysteriously invulnerable woman, ready to offer us the best spaghetti in Havana and the clearest beer, capable of satiating the appetite, thirst, and fatigue of the most demanding traveler; I see her there with her kind and enthusiastic face, giving each of us a torrent of affection and vitality. When I met her in San Alejandro, I was just another student in the evening course with an avid interest in printmaking. She was already the artist that everyone admired, a teacher of two groups of students in the day course, quite numerous. With somewhat excessive persistence, in which I silently slipped away among her disciples and patiently waited for each moment of respite to ask her any technical or conceptual concerns, to which she responded without the slightest qualm, without the slightest suspicion. At the end of my four years of studies we had become very good friends, and by chance, almost always unpredictable, she ended up being the opponent of my thesis. I remember her as one of those essential teachers, very concerned for her students from San Alejandro, to whom she gave all her knowledge about engraving, including very expensive materials that she managed to buy on her travels, or others that were donated to her by foreign friends; catalogs and all kinds of information that he managed to collect. For a long time, the Chair of Engraving of Saint Alexander survived thanks to his unrelenting interest. She was an irreplaceable friend, and I can't stop thinking about her eyes, with her always encouraging words. For Cuban culture, impeccable work will remain, overflowing with perfection and constancy, of exquisite elegance. A path opened by someone who dedicated a large part of his days to specially promoting Cuban engraving, with unquestionable seriousness and professionalism. For Cuban culture, it is the gross and useless loss of an artist who with her scarce thirty-two years managed to climb the highest levels of national and international culture in the plastic arts, with an astonishingly mature work, of great originality and spiritual depth. . For those of us who loved her, for those of us who were by her side, something more intimate, more imperishable, will remain. We will be left with his goodness, his disinterested way of giving himself, his concern for everything that meant the well-being of his family and his friends, which was the same; his desire to always achieve a fair and happy future for artists and friends. I remember now when he received one of the prizes from the Puerto Rico Engraving Biennial, one of the most important graphic arts events on the continent. It was a moderately happy surprise for her; I could assure you that he received it with a certain amount of modesty. However, I very well remember her inordinate joy and pride when Abel (1) visited La Huella Múltiple, and with her, he toured each of the exhibition halls, which he had appreciated in their exceptional quality. I looked at his eyes and could perceive endless wonderful thoughts, plans for engraving, opportunities never latent before as up to that moment, and then we remembered all the difficulties to carry out the event, the early mornings of work at the UNEAC putting together the catalogs, the money that was not enough and that much of it came from his pocket; the difficulty of assembling many of the pieces, the fatigue, the sleep, and although we always had the conviction that La Huella ... would cost us a lot, now, while we talked about Abel and all that, we knew deep inside that the effort would not it had been in vain. Her work as Vice President of Plastic Arts at UNEAC, for many of the engraving artists who knew her, was a saving dream; there was someone who gave engraving its true importance, such a laborious technique and so much tradition in Cuban culture. Belkis was not only a very responsible artist but also was absolutely affordable for any artist, not only for the most important but also, since they paid special attention, to those less known, less "privileged". He had a special agglutinating capacity, thanks to which he carried out any event, counting not only on the engravers but also on the sculptors, the photographers ... To all this he gave himself with absolute devotion, leaving aside, even, his own work of creation. Today, while making the same trip that I did so many times, I think about the time that Eliseo left us (2), and I cannot conceive of including Belkis in that immaterial, insubstantial time; I try to understand their essences, their latitudes, and I cannot manage their body and spirit through those labyrinths. For some, it is the unspoken and irreversible end. For others it is one of her many trips, one of which inexplicably sometimes she returned very depressed, even having done very well professionally. For me, it is neither one nor the other. I still know that he will be there, in his castle (and ours), waiting for the first traveler, thirsty, spreading his arms. I know this is absolutely true and I don't want to be fooled. We share too many joys, too many sorrows, too many truths, and although for all this means a selfish and terribly devastating loss, we will try to be calm. I wonder about the things that we did not say to each other, because of how dark no one perceived, about the things that we did not understand, and then I think: How else would I see suicide, if not as a prelude of a fervent banquet, and tell each other why it would be worth very little to strip ourselves of our sardonic sorcery as if all our anguish ended there, where the water runs transparent and the salt shines like gold vomited by a goat. How else would we see emptiness. One and the other are voracious objects that our exhausted youth possesses, a relic of knowledge that is spent so inevitably like our children. Love accompanies bodies when they die. A fine line divides the stones and desire. Patience. Before the yew tree, patience. After the desserts, slow and infinite patience. Then I arrive at the door of that wonderful castle. When it opens the door she appears, says "hello", and her huge eyes pull me, Apprehending me for all eternity (1) - Abel Prieto, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Cuba. (N. of the publisher) (2) - It refers to the Cuban poet Eliseo Diego and his poem "Testament", where he bequeaths to future generations "the time, all the time." (N. of the publisher) PREVIOUS article back to texts

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.