Nkame Mafimba. Belkis Ayón Additional texts translated into German

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

NKAME: A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE CUBAN PRINTMAKER BELKIS AYÓN (1967-1999) Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, United States October 1, 2016 - February 17, 2017 Project Management: Belkis Ayón Estate and the Fowler Museum Curator: Cristina Vives The traveling exhibition Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) was inaugurated on October 1, 2016, at its first venue in the United States, the Fowler Museum at UCLA. A project developed by this prestigious institution and the Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana, Cuba. The exhibition is curated by Cristina Vives. Photographs: José A. Figueroa, Yadira Leyva Ayón, and Courtesy of the Fowler Museum For more information, visit the Fowler Museum website Press coverage http://southernworldartsnews.blogspot.fr/ http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-belkis-ayon-20160912-snap-htmlstory.html http://artishockrevista.com/2016/11/05/primera-individual-eeuu-belkis-ayon-una-artista-prolifica-corta-vida/ https://www.artforum.com/picks/id=64969 http://www.cubanartnews.org/es/news/the-mysterious-world-of-belkis-ayon http://cubacounterpoints.com/archives/4280 http://www.artandantiquesmag.com/2016/11/belkis-ayon-art/ http://hyperallergic.com/346366/the-masterful-unsettling-work-of-a-female-cuban-printmaker/ http://artillerymag.com/fowler-museum-belkis-ayon/ http://hyperallergic.com/347988/best-of-2016-our-top-10-los-angeles-art-shows/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/belkis-ay%C3%B3n-artist_us_58682398e4b0d9a5945bb281 https://www.artslant.com/ew/articles/show/47166

Remembering Belkis Ayón, on the 10th anniversary of her physical disappearance Isbel Alba February 4, 2015 A Date that Cannot Be Forgotten September 11 has become a date of loss and pain in our collective imagination after the terrorist attacks against the twin towers, in New York, 2001. However, although we share the grief of thousands of people for whom this day represents a tragedy, a before and an after, we have another motive to write these words. Today, I am writing about another departure, perhaps more intimate because it is ours, perhaps more questionable because it was intentional, leaving behind a mystery and the terrible sensation that accompanies bitter, inexplicable gestures. I am speaking of the Cuban artist Belkis Ayón Manso (1967-1999), who one day, ten years ago, took her own life. Belkis Ayón was an exceptional woman, with unparalleled energy and talent. Together with artists Sandra Ramos and Abel Barroso she implemented La Huella Múltiple (1996) (The Multiple Print), a project that would change forever the appreciation of Cuban print-making, an art expression that after its splendor in the 19th century due to the booming commerce of sugar and tobacco, had practically fallen into oblivion in the Cuban artistic milieu after the rise of Modernism in Cuba. Regarding the work and legacy of Belkis Ayón In some previous lectures and writings in which I have introduced the work of Ayón, I have not doubted in classifying her prints as palimpsests[3]. Using the collographic technique the artist would superpose layers of various textures to create reliefs that represented a very personal iconography, inspired in the expressions of the intangible legacy of the Abakuá[4], the different parts of the initiation ritual of the said religion or the characters of their foundational myth. In my opinion, what she did was a remake of something that had already been assimilated through oral tradition thanks to the intellectual and historical-anthropological approach allowed by books such as El Monte and Abakuá Secret Society by Lydia Cabrera, “The Ñáñigos tragedy”, by Fernando Ortiz or Los ñáñigos, by Enrique Sosa. Interpreting these works that reproduce an oral tradition, Ayón created her own imaginary graphic work. A world elegantly portrayed in the images of her prints. Although representing the Afro-Cuban legacy in our painting is constant since colonial times, her work may be considered a rarity from multiple viewpoints, since Belkis Ayón rescued printmaking in the midst of the Special Period. Engraving allowed her, among other things, to produce more with less and to exhibit a chromatic minimalism bordering on exquisiteness. During the last stage of her life, Belkis Ayón combined her work as an artist with that of being a professor at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) and with her position as a vice president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC). Whenever she had the chance she disseminated the work of her students and colleagues. Thus, she became an active promoter of Cuban culture on a national and international scale. However, the factor that made her work deserve recognition, beyond the Cuban intellectual circles, is the Abakuá topic around which she articulated her poetic language and the refinement of her collographies and prints in general. According to Alex Rosenberg, a prestigious specialist of international graphic arts and renowned collector, the results achieved by this artist with the collographic technique had no match in the world of art up to date [5]. This gives her demise another dimension. Thus, we may affirm that Belkis Ayón had the merit of having taken the Abakuá culture to its highest form of recognition in the world of visual arts and of introducing it into the museum spaces. It is a paradox that thanks to a woman, this centuries-old, sectarian culture achieved universality in the most demanding circles of international art of the 20th century. At present, the works of Belkis Ayón are part of fourteen cultural centers and museum collections, among which are the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, the Van Reekum Museum, Apeldoorn, Holland, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, the Museum of Fort Lauderdale, USA, el Museum of Latin American Art of California, USA, Ludwig Forum Fur Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany, the State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg, among others. Her works are also in numerous private collections in various countries. Nobody has been able to explain the reasons for such an abrupt death at a moment in which her career was in full growth and when she had the acceptance of critics and other art professionals. Her physical disappearance left a void in the Cuban artistic milieu. Many of her colleagues coincide in pointing out that seldom the human and artistic values have combined in such a special way in a single person. Perhaps such departure is the only reproach that can be pointed out. However, in her gesture, there is a certain coherence with the myth that fascinated her. This allows us to draw a parallel with the philosophy of the romantic poets or other artists who have committed suicide. The figure of Belkis Ayón, therefore, is fused with the myth of Sikán giving place to a circle of meanings with a certain aura of mystery, offering thus great research material for historians and anthropologists. The Belkis Ayón Estate After her death, her legacy became protected by the Belkis Ayón Estate, an institution directed by her sister, Dr. Katia Ayón, with the advice of prestigious specialists in Cuban art. This institution, in which the family legacy and the cultural legacy of the nation coexist, has a model of management that is not widely known in the current socioeconomic context of the island [6]. Thus, self-managed for ten years by Dr. Ayón it has been developing a superb job which includes the preservation of Belkis Ayón’s works and the dissemination of her legacy by organizing exhibitions, publications, and other cultural activities. According to an invitation that I received recently, the Belkis Ayón Estate has programmed Nkame, the first retrospective exhibition of the artist to commemorate the 10th anniversary of her demise. The show was officially opened last Friday, September 11, at 6 p.m., in the Convent of San Francisco de Asís, in the historical center of Old Havana. The exhibition includes some 83 works such as collographies, lithographs, and chalcographs made from 1984 to 1999. Likewise, other graphic documents of shows in which Belkis took part, as well as texts and photographs of the artist printed on large canvases are on display. Organized by Dr. Katia Ayón and with the curatorship of Cristina Vives, the Nkame exhibition shall remain open to the public up to November 28th. During those two months and as part of the cultural program accompanying the exhibition, the halls of the convent shall take in lectures on the work of Belkis Ayón, the launching of the magazine La Gaceta de Cuba, and the launching of the projects of six young printmakers, some of them former students of the artist. Nkame is a deserved homage to the work of Belkis Ayón, a great exponent of printmaking in the history of Cuban art. [1] This fish was the embodiment of Abasi, supreme deity of the Abakuá. See SOSA RODRIGUEZ, Enrique, Los ñáñigos, Casa de las Américas 1982 Award, Ediciones Casa de las Américas, Havana, 1982. [2] Sikan’s sacrifice, which will appear in her works as a leitmotif, will bring about the Abakuá tradition in the ancient ethnic groups of Nigeria (the Efik and Efor peoples). It is, doubtless, a foundational myth that afterward, as Ortiz pointed out, during slavery – through a transculturation process-, gave origin to the Abakuá fraternity in Cuba in the towns of Havana and Matanzas (1830). See : ORTIZ, Fernando, La “tragedia” de los ñáñigos, Poligraf, Havana, 1993. [3] ALBA DUARTE, Isbel (2009) The myth of Sikán in Cuban culture: tangible and intangible heritage in the work of Belkis Ayón. Reflections on the strategies for preservation and the methods for recovering her legacy. The lecture was given in the framework of the 28th International Congress of the Association of Latin American Studies, Río de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 13, 2009. [4] An example of the expressions of intangible heritage is the figures in the parades, such as the little devils or iremes as well as the signatures or anaforuanas covering the bodies of the practicing Abakuás, the animals that will be sacrificed, and the musical instruments that take part in the various sections of the initiation ritual of this brotherhood (Author’s note). [5] In ROSENBERG, Alex and Carol, Belkis Ayón in memoriam, 2005 BACK TO CRITIQUE next article

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.

I ALWAYS RETURN Havana Gallery, Havana, Cuba November 2000 Tribute Exhibition General coordination: Katia Ayón and Dalia González Texts: Yolanda Wood, Hilda Ma. Rodríguez, David Mateo Sponsor: Gan Gallery, Tokyo, Japan. SponsorS: National Council of Plastic Arts Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center National Union of Writers Artists of Cuba Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets VIRTUOSE OF LABYRINTHS From the same source of her power Their wounds come from Adrianne rich To Belkis Ayón We believed you to be a stone with an eternal edge, Unconquered Legends Challenge And we abandon ourselves to the lightning of your laughter, To the gravity of your image. Virtuous of labyrinths that she devoured with her hands, Persephone without temples or diaries, You left us only the crumbs of your cracks And the sob of a fleeing cortege. We thought you were a sumptuous abode of the tall word And we entrusted ourselves to the towers that wavered your iron silhouette We no longer listen to the whirlwind that stirred your waves, We do not notice the mist, nor the fragility of your shadow, And we get caught up in spasm and helplessness. We loved you the owner of the unfathomable magic, Of forges and bonfires But we didn't know about your bellows In the deep place of the unspeakable. A single blow burst out of grief, Anguish struck, erased the tracks And the silence and the pain left us Of the one who is still waiting. Hilda Maria Rodriguez September 1999 BACK OVER THE SENSES Once, naively, I thought I was penetrating the reserved universe of Belkis Ayón; I imagined that I could add to my curriculum of author revelations the unpublished fact that she did not know how to draw very well, and that it was her face and body that had always served as patterns for the elaboration of her images. The moment Belkis made that unusual confession to me, which I made public in La Gaceta de Cuba, I was able to allow myself to be seduced by the gesture of deference that she herself implied; although I also came to think that it was an attitude derived from a certain carelessness, a certain presumption, in someone who was not afraid to expose her imperfections because she had already entered the sacrosanct precinct of legitimation. I convinced myself in those days that her greatest expertise was then focused on knowing how to compensate for the lack of ability to carry out a precise sketch, a meticulous drawing, with the implementation of an impeccable, refined and strict collographic procedure in each phase of her particular method, and in which the impact of the composition fell fundamentally on a series of value and color effects. To all this was added, in my opinion, the suspicion of having known how to choose within the Cuban cultural heritage a legend little addressed by the plastic arts, in whose narrative nucleus the experienced woman the most deplorable of the principles: the absolute exclusion. By believing that I was breaking into the confidential space of Belkis Ayón's artistic production, the only thing I had actually managed to do with the appropriation of that news was timidly touch its vertices. I was not able to understand that this argument not only offered me the indispensable coordinates to unravel the devices that she used in the consummation of her works but also to be able to investigate the concerns and uncertainties that haunted her as a creator and individual. In other words, Belkis deposits in me, as perhaps she has done in other inquirers, the necessary indications for me to commit myself to develop a much deeper investigation, which would make the retaining wall demolish once and for all, the limit that I prefixed the difference between the public valuation of her work and her personal subsistence. Analyzing today the creation of this artist as a result of the unfortunate outcome of her life, it is presented to me in a very different way: much more humanized and visceral; stripped completely of the restraint implied by a technical concern; finally rescued from the desire to continue being legitimized as a project with a florist and almost anthropological spirit, without taking into account its purely existential foundation. I also realize that what I interpreted at the beginning as an absence of a definition, could now paradoxically become a reliable test of synthesis capacity. For if what seemed to interest her, was the use of the body as a depository model of dramatic force, it was logical to suppose that she eliminated everything superfluous, everything insignificant, in order to arrive at the scene of expression; it was enough then with a gesture, with a contortion, with a look ... When Belkis emphasizes the Sikan conflict, she seems to want to emphasize her own conflict. The cause of one was unfolding more and more until it became the cause of the other. The fantastic passage must have been the pretext, the excuse; and recreation with the figuration of the royal road to show the traces of anguish, of dissatisfaction that no one knew how to capture and dissolve, not even the beings closest to it. Despite the fact that some of us already felt a growing contradiction between the gloomy atmosphere, the excess of adversity that her works reflected, and the peaceful and optimistic character that she showed before others; even though, in the last days of her life, we forbid a very strange struggle to appear at times behind her gaze, a force something like between disturbed and apprehensive, which she knew how to hide very well with her inscrutable smile. David Mateo November 2000

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

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.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, United States October 1, 2016 - February 17, 2017 Nkame : A Retrospective of the Cuban engraver Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) The exhibition Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban engraver Belkis Ayón will be inaugurated on October 1 at the Fowler Museum of UCLA, Los Angeles, California. This will be the artist's first personal exhibition at an institution in the United States. (...) Read more FRG Objects & Design / Art, Hudson, New York, United States August 2 - September 30, 2014 Belkis Ayón. FRG Objects & Design / Art The FRG OBJECTS & DESIGN / ART gallery, specialized in the art of design, from Hudson, New York, had the pleasure of presenting in August of last year, a collection of visionary pieces, rarely appreciated in the United States, by the Cuban artist Belkis Ayón (Havana, 1967-1999) (...) Read more Convent of San Francisco de Asis, Old Havana, Cuba. September 11 - November 28, 2009 Nkame : Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) Anthological Exhibition This Nkame, synonymous with praise and salutation in the Abakuá language, is the title of the exhibition (and the eponymous book in the process of being edited) that will pay tribute, on the tenth anniversary of her physical disappearance, to a creator she left with her death a message of life (...) Read more Patrician Doran Graduate Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts, United States April 8, 2013 Belkis Ayón. Early work After the successful presentations in different cities of the United States while traveling through this country, the exhibition Nkame. A retrospective of the Cuban engraver Belkis Ayón (1967-1999), arrives at the Station Museum in Houston, Texas. The exhibition (...) Read more Havana Gallery, Havana, Cuba November 15, 2000 I always return. Collographies by Belkis Ayón Read more previous next

FEBRUARY, 2020: NKAME ARRIVES AT THE CHICAGO CULTURAL CENTER January 2020 Yadira Leyva Ayón © Belkis Ayón Estate The traveling exhibition Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) will be inaugurated on February 29, 2020, at its sixth venue, the Chicago Cultural Center. A project developed by this prestigious institution and the Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana, Cuba. The exhibition is curated by Cristina Vives. Tour Management by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA. PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

NKAME : BELKIS AYÓN. ANTHOLOGICAL EXHIBITION Convent of San Francisco de Asís, Old Havana, Havana, Cuba. September 11 to November 28, 2009 Curator: Cristina Vives Project Management: Dra. Katia Ayón Manso. Estate of Belkis Ayón. NATIONAL CURATORSHIP AWARD, 2009, granted by the National Council of Plastic Arts, Havana, Cuba. General coordinator: Katia Ayón, Belkis Ayón Estate In the book Los Ñañigos by Enrique Sosa Rodríguez, Casa de las Américas, 1982, page 249 (copy from the artist's bookshelf), Belkis Ayón marked, years before he died, in blue ink, the nkame that modern ñañigos inscribe along with the christian tomb of the dead abanekwe: «Do not remember in your dream none of your brothers that mourn your absence. " This Nkame, synonymous with praise and salutation in the Abakuá language, is the title of the exhibition (and the eponymous book in process of editing) that will pay tribute, on the tenth anniversary of her physical disappearance, to a creator who left with her death a message of life. The Belkis Ayón Estate and the City Historian's Office announce the inauguration of this anthological exhibition that will remain open to the public until November 28, 2009. The exhibition includes 83 works executed in the techniques of collography, lithography, and intaglio made between 1984, during her studies at the San Alejandro Academy, until the series carried out between 1998-1999, which constituted her last personal exhibition in Los Angeles, California. For the first time, all the large-format works that the artist produced since the beginning of her career will be seen as a whole, some of them accompanied by her sketches and notes. Belkis died at the age of thirty-two, leaving behind these essential works for the history of contemporary printmaking. The keys to her death remain a painful mystery for the international artistic community, which observed with admiration her successful rise to the most demanding circuits of art in the nineties. Religion and the Abakuá Secret Society, thematic sources of her work, are spaces created by men and only for men. They stigmatize and segregate women and, in turn, maintain strict discipline and maintain 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. According to the curator of the exhibition: "There is no doubt that Belkis used this theme to build a universal discourse against marginalization, frustration, fear, censorship, impotence and in favor of the search for freedom ..." Written by: Cristina Vives. Curator.

AJIACO: STIRRINGS OF THE CUBAN SOUL Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut, United States September 12, 2009 - February 21, 2010 In 1939 Fernando Ortiz first characterized Cuban culture as Ajiaco : a rich stew consisting of a large variety of ingredients cooked until a thick broth is formed. It is this synthesis of the essence of Cuban art. It embraces and visualizes the very nature of the Cuban soul and reveals the depth of its expression. This is the subject of Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban soul. The art incorporates the tales of the Orisha of Africa, the calligraphy of the Tao Te Ching, and the rituals of indigenous peoples. The formats change, the materials vary, but the syncretist mix remains constant in Cuban and Cuban American art. The stew becomes thicker as the syncretism evolves into a Post Modern discourse. In the contemporary artworks, the artist has felt motivated, by necessity, to appropriate from history and everyday life. We find in the art an amalgam of forms and images ranging from Pop culture to the Byzantine, and high art to low art, using found materials and precious objects. The curator writes, "Isolated and yet educated, restricted and yet heralded, the Cuban artist embodies the angst of their situation and yet embraces the loftiest of goals. Their syncretist tradition and heritage allow them to go beyond the monotheistic traditions in order to find the origins of their soul, the geist or inner spirit of their art. " Gail Gelburd, Ph. D., curator of this project, has been conducting research on Cuban art and artists for over 15 years. She has regularly traveled to Cuba and has lectured for the Havana Biennale, Havana University, and in the Casa Africa in Cuba. She has also lectured about the intersection of art, politics, and spirituality in Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, Australia, England, and Wales, and at such major institutions as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and for Williams College and the Chicago Art Institute. Gelburd has received numerous grants and awards, including a Rockefeller Foundation grant to conduct research on Cuban art, and is publishing a book on Contemporary Cuban art. The article "Beyond the Hype: Cuban art" appeared in Reconstruction: Issues in Contemporary Culture in Winter 2008 and another article "Cuba: The Art of Trading with the Enemy" appears in Art Journal in Spring 2009. Participating artists: Alejandro Aguilera, Belkis Ayón, Luis Cruz Azaceta, José Bedia, Juan Boza, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Nelson Domínguez, Juan Francisco Elso, Carlos Estévez, Flora Fong, Joel Jover, Wifredo Lam, Laura Luna, Ana Mendieta, Manuel Mendive, Clara Morera, Santiago Rodríguez Olazábal, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Sandra Ramos, Lázaro Saavedra, Tomas Sánchez, Esterio Segura, Cepp Selgas, Leandro Soto, Elio Vilva.