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BEHIND THE VEIL OF A MYTH NEW BOOK ABOUT THE WORK OF BELKIS AYÓN October 22, 2018 Yadira Leyva Ayón © Belkis Ayón Estate Behind the veil of a myth, with texts by the curator Cristina Vives, was produced by the Station Museum of Contemporary Art and the Belkis Ayón Estate. The book covers the most significant moments of her artistic career and offers an interesting virtual tour of the exhibition Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999). The book is available at AMAZON PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

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

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

Entrevistas realizadas a Belkis Ayón por reconocidos periodistas cubanos. INTERVIEWS Talk about the myths of art. Interview with Belkis Ayón Jaime Sarusky February 4, 1999 To tell the truth, it was not easy to interview Belkis Ayón, despite appearances, that is, his youth, the recognition that his artistic work has had, his personality, that one would bet very accessible, frank and open as his laugh. But do not confuse such attributes with the vehemence, I would say even the passion, of the creator Belkis Ayón, the one who with steely lucidity knows the paths of yesterday and today of her work. And I'm sure tomorrow too. But his humility and pride, traits that coexist in many authentic artists, prevent him from sanctioning such a prognosis. Although in his heart every great artist knows that it is, the challenge to time is raised and time, in turn, challenges it. Time, for better or for worse, can do everything, except with the great art that resists it, transcends it and walks by its side with an ironic smile ... READ MRE In irregular confidence David Mateo March 4, 1997 ... “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 ... READ MORE

Belkis Ayón. Mythologies May 23 – November 11, 2025 Bildmuseet, Sweden Bildmuseet proudly presents Belkis Ayón / Mythologies, the first Nordic exhibition dedicated to the work of renowned Cuban artist Belkis Ayón (1967-1999). This show highlights key pieces from her career, spanning from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Ayón pioneered the technique of collography, pushing its expressive limits and expanding its formats. Her monumental works draw inspiration from the Abakuá, a secret Afro-Cuban brotherhood whose mythology and symbolism shaped her artistic production. Through her bold reinterpretations, Ayón unveils the power of myths, radically challenging their narratives and creating a unique visual universe. The exhibition is a collaborative project between Bildmuseet and The Gund (Kenyon College, Ohio, USA), with the support of Belkis Ayón Estate (Havana, Cuba) and Modern Art Oxford (UK). For more information, please visit Bildmuseet website

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.

III Edición del Concurso Nacional de Colografía Belkis Ayón, 2017 III 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 officially 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 a 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 III National Collography Contest Belkis Ayón. Cienfuegos, 2017. Events and Exhibitions III National Collography Contest Belkis Ayon Cienfuegos, 2017 Selected works and Exhibition Muestra Concurso Collateral Exhibitions

PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK NKAME. BELKIS AYÓN July 20, 2009 © Belkis Ayón Estate The National Museum of Fine Arts, the National Council of Plastic Arts, José A. Figueroa, and the Belkis Ayón Estate presented at the MNBA Theater. ARTE CUBANO Building, the books: NKAME, Belkis Ayón and José A. Figueroa. A Cuban Self-Portrait, with the participation of Orlando Hernández. NKAME.Belkis Ayón: this book documents in a meticulous way, the life and work of the Cuban artist Belkis Ayón PROJECT DIRECTOR: Dr. Katia Ayón EDITORIAL CONCEPT: Cristina Vives AUTHORS: José Veigas, Cristina Vives, David Mateo, Lazara Menéndez DESIGN: Laura Llópiz 296 PAGES | 400 IMAGES | BILINGUAL SPANISH / ENGLISH EDITION TURNER EDITORES MADRID 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, Stgo de Cuba, Cuba Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) left after her death a set of essential works for contemporary engraving. The religion and the Abakuá Secret Society (original from African Calabar, and settled in Cuba since the 19th century) served the artist as a "source" and a "reference" to construct a universal discourse against marginality, 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 she was allowed, and studied all the sources of information at her reach. As a result, she created a breathtaking iconography and interpreted the religious myth from her position as an artist, woman, black, and Latina 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. José A. Figueroa. A Cuban Self-Portrait: this book narrates more than four decades of the life of a country through the photographic work of José A. Figueroa. RESEARCH AND EDITING: Cristina Vives ESSAYS BY: Cristina Vives, Dannys Montes de Oca DESIGN: Pepe Menéndez 384 PAGES | 384 IMAGES | BILINGUAL SPANISH / ENGLISH EDITION TURNER EDITORES MADRID WITH THE SPONSORSHIP OF: The Busson Foundation Trust José A, Figueroa (Havana, 1946), began his professional life as a photographer in September 1964, when he began working at the Korda Studios in Havana. Due to his age, social extraction, and training, he is part of a generation of "transition" that was at the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, too young to be its manager, but adult enough as a conscious and analytical witness. His life and work, place him between "the inside" and "the outside" of that story. Also has allowed him to document, evaluate and symbolize many facets, both of the public and private life of the nation - two sides of the same coin - over many years; most importantly, it's a work made in Cuba or from a Cuban perspective. These characteristics and circumstances are, indeed, rare among their contemporaries or predecessors, seen individually. A Cuban self-portrait is approximately a portion of that story, through the work of one of the essential names in the history of Cuban photography. Promotional price of sale to the public in the presentation: 250 MN. Courtesy of the Belkis Ayón Estate; José A. Figueroa and the sponsors. PREVIOUS NEWS BACK TO NEWS

January 2, 2020 Yadira Leyva Ayón © Belkis Ayón Estate Announcement for the IV Collography Contest Belkis Ayón. April 9-12, 2020. Cienfuegos 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 Espacio Ayón, the Belkis Ayón Estate, the Provincial Council of Plastic Arts, the Provincial Committee of the UNEAC and the Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets of the province of Cienfuegos, summon all interested artists and students to participate in the IV National Contest of Colography Belkis Ayón in tribute to one of the Cuban artists who marked, with her graphic and pedagogical work, 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 2019 and 2020, 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, until March 18, 2020: To the Association of Plastic Artists of the UNEAC of Havana, appointment at 17 and H, Vedado. Tel. 78325781, in the case of artists and students residing in the western provinces (Pinar del Río, Havana, Artemisa, Mayabeque, Matanzas and Isla de la Juventud) To the Graphic Society of Cienfuegos, appointment at Ave. 50, # 2326, between Calle 23 and Calle 25, Cienfuegos 1, Cienfuegos. Tel. 43 517979, in the case of artists and students residing in the central provinces (Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Ávila) To the Caguayo Foundation, appointment at Calle 4 No. 403 between 15 and 17, Rpto Vista Alegre, Santiago de Cuba, CP 90400, Tel. 22 643492, in the case of artists and students residing in the eastern provinces (Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín, Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo). 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). Workshop or artist tests are not accepted. 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 14th Feria de La Estampa, an event that will be officially inaugurated on April 9 and until April 12, 2020, making the final decision of the jury public. on April 9, at 9 pm, the opening day of the competitive exhibition. The exhibition will remain open to the public for 30 days. It will also be presented at the Casa del Benemérito de las Américas Benito Juárez of the City Historian Office, Havana, in 2020. 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 5 000.00 MN (donation from the printmaking workshop artists and the Belkis Ayón and 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 a financial award. The awarded artist will be invited to the Printmaking Workshop "Magenta Rhinoceros" in the city of Toluca, Mexico, for a 10-day artistic residency. The winning works will become part of the Cienfuegos Stamp Cabinet. The awarded artist will be invited to carry out a personal exhibition at the Cienfuegos Art Center in 2022, within the official program of the V National Contest of Collography. The not-selected works must contact the Organizing Committee for their return. Participating in the National Collography Contest Belkis Ayón implies acceptance of these Terms and Conditions. The Jury's decision will be final. More information Organizing Committee of the National Collography Contest Belkis Ayón ESTATE OF BELKIS AYÓN, HAVANA belkat@cubarte.cult.cu | 7 642 3083 GRAPHIC SOCIETY OF CIENFUEGOS caceres69@azurina.cult.cu | 43 517979 www.ayonbelkis.cult.cu PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

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.

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

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.