THE AYÓN ESPACE The Ayón Space, the original idea of Dr. Katia Ayón, Belkis Ayón Estate, was a project presented to Cuban cultural institutions in 2004, on the fifth anniversary of the artist's physical disappearance. It was conceived as a permanent space for the exhibition and conservation of Belkis's graphic work and as a place for promotion and support for young printmakers, one of the missions assumed by Belkis Ayón from her position as an exceptional pedagogue. Numerous artists and intellectuals, especially Antonio Martorell and Humberto Figueroa, supported the initiative, which is still waiting for its materialization, and argued, from different perspectives, the need to found it. Goals: • Permanently display the artist's work. • Promote the work of young artists whose main line of work is printmaking. • Offer summer workshops to young national and foreign artists. • Establish the BELKIS AYÓN National Contest of Collography that allows the participation of young and established artists, of national and international character, in collaboration with other art institutions. • Establish links with the community near the place to integrate it into the public activities of the space. • That they can access the valuable and vast bibliography, property of the artist Belkis Ayón: students, ethnographers, sociologists, anthropologists, artists, historians, and teachers.

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.

NKAME: A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE CUBAN PRINTMAKER BELKIS AYÓN (1967-1999) Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, United States June 2 - September 3, 2018 After the successful presentations in different cities of the United States, the exhibition Nkame. A Retrospective of the Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999), arrives at the Station Museum in Houston, Texas. The exhibition was inaugurated on the night of June 2 in an atmosphere full of friends, excellent music, and lovers of good art. The masterful curatorship of Cristina Vives, stood out on this occasion thanks to a curatorial idea that was brought to life, thanks to the efforts of the Museum staff and its Director James Harritas: many of the large-format works gained three-dimensionality when placed on individual walls, specially built for each piece, resulting in a very positive visual impact, as the pieces obtain an unprecedented monumentality. In addition, this exhibition will feature a book/catalog that will cover the exhibition and the life and work of Belkis Ayón, entitled Behind the veil of a myth . Produced by the Station Museum and the Belkis Ayón Estate, with texts by Cristina Vives and design by Laura Llópiz. The exhibition will be open to the public until September 3, 2018. Photographs: Ernesto León and Yadira Leyva Ayón

ROLLING THEY MEET Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center (SUPEC), Shanghai, China March 3 - April 8, 2014 Under the title Rolling they meet, the CNAP collection exhibited at the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center (SUPEC) a selection of its main acquisitions and thus an entire inventory of the most recent Cuban plastic production. It is a set that includes around one hundred artists from the most diverse generations, aesthetics and ways of doing, gathered in an exhibition that seeks to function as a kaleidoscope of the island's symbolic production. The show ran from March to April 2014, following a roaming tour of two other cities in China. Participating artists: Pedro Abascal, Eduardo Abela Torrás, Eduardo Abela Villarreal, Gustavo Acosta, Lidzie Alvisa, Douglas Arguelles, Belkis Ayón, Abel Barreto, Abel Barroso, Agustin Bejarano, Adigio Benitez, Osmany Betancourt, Jacqueline Brito, Servando Cabrera, Luis E. Camejo, Ivan Capote, Yoan Capote, Agustin Cárdenas, Sandra Ceballos, Rafael Consuegra, Raúl Cordero, Raúl Corrales, Arturo Cuenca, Duvier del Dago, Roberto Diago, Alberto Díaz (Korda), José A. Díaz Peláez, Humberto Díaz, Nelson Domínguez , Antonia Eiriz, Roberto Fabelo, Ernesto Fernández, Moisés Finalé, Adonis Flores, Flora Fong, Ever Fonseca, José Manuel Fors, José Franco, Gilberto Frómeta, José Emilio Fuentes, José Fúster, Eduardo Rubén, Osneldo García, Ernesto García Peña, Rocío García, Julio Girona, Luis Gómez, José Gómez Fresquet, José R. González, Javier Guerra, William Hernández, Maykel Herrera, Aisar Jalil, Fayad Jamís, Ruperto Jay Matamoros, Joel Jover, Tomás Lara, Alicia Leal, Evelio Lecourt, Glenda León , TO lberto Lescay, Kcho, Liudmila and Nelson, Rita Longa, Kadir López, Manuel López Oliva, Jorge López Pardo, Raúl Martínez, Rigoberto Mena, Janler Méndez, Manuel Mendive, Michel Mirabal, Ibrahim Miranda, Arturo Montoto, Elsa Mora, Juan Moreira and others.

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

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

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS Renderings. New Narratives and Reinterpretations Mechanical Hall at Delaware University, Philadelphia, United States September 3 - 30, 2014 Read more Havana Factory, Old Havana, Havana, Cuba. May 23 - August 23, 2014 Glances Read more Without Masks. Contemporary Afro-Cuban Art. Museum of Anthropology (MOA), University of British Columbia, Johannesburg Gallery of Art, Vancouver, Canada, Johannesburg, South Africa May 2 - November 2, 2014 Read more Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center (SUPEC), Shanghai, China March 3 - April 8, 2014 Rolling they meet. The Art Collection from the National Council of Plastic Arts Read more In the heat of the thought. Works from the Daros Latinoamérica Collection Santander Group City Art Room, Madrid, Spain February 3 - April 30, 2010 Read more previous Next

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PROPOSAL AT AGE 20 Belkis Ayón and Isary Paulet Servando Cabrera Moreno Art Gallery December, 1988 PIECE FOR FLUTE AND CLARINET We are simply between two worlds, where fantasy, where THE FABULOUS, have the floor. If for a moment we put aside the virtuosity of the printmaker, which are everywhere here, and evade a certain illustrative character, not because these things are despicable, but because she wanted to bring them to the center of her expression, then we would have to face a message directly poetic, based on harmony, on a lyricism that plays with reasons and beautician desires, which make a delicate piece for flute and clarinet from the vision of reality. Everything unfolds like the scenery of a story: in Isary, the characters, like crazy pixies, are distributed following the whims of the kaleidoscope, playing, I believe, the role of the only saviors of a world that increasingly needs and wishes the arrival of some representative of the magical world capable of transforming it into something else. Spielberg? Neo-infantilism? Like Isary, Belkis works with mystery in her work, drawn from such perfect configurations, of colors so peacefully pleasing, that they arouse unease. But suddenly one has the feeling that we are only facing an idealization, too much tenderness, almost in a peaceful reverie, in that unreal film that cannot continue, that cannot be, that one more moment and explodes. It may be that neither of the two interpretations is exact, it does not matter, they are only the style that fits for these expressive centers, surrounded by the deployment of an arsenal of irreproachable techniques and invoices. Because some could stay there, in the resplendent quality of the finish of their products. That finish is nothing more than the superficial of the art of these charming. The elements are well managed by the magician to integrate them into the illusion. Then the feeling is presented in the force of a very own saying in each case that in Isary and Belkis, in their proposals, they have the presentation of a meticulous structure, many times thought and calculated, destined to transmit security or very security purified that it becomes practically brittle. Aldo Menendez (Text for the exhibition catalog)

NKAME: A RETROSPECTIVE OF THE CUBAN PRINTMAKER BELKIS AYÓN (1967-1999) Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States February 29, 2020 The traveling exhibition Nkame: A Retrospective of the Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) was inaugurated on February 29, 2020, at its sixth venue, the Chicago Cultural Center. A project organized by this prestigious institution and the Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana, Cuba. The exhibition is curated by Cristina Vives. Exhibition Tour Management by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA.

BOOK NKAME WINS SECOND PRIZE FOR THE BEST BOOKS PUBLISHED IN SPAIN IN 2010 October 11, 2010 Ministry of Culture of Spain © http://www.europapress.es The Ministry of Culture of Spain has granted the Awards for the Best Edited Books in 2010. These awards do not have an economic endowment but are highly valued by publishers for the recognition and prestige given to their editorial work, as well as for the dissemination that it entails, being included in the book promotion actions and exhibited at the main national and international fairs. The awarded categories include: Art, Bibliophilia, Facsimiles, Children and Youth, General and Outreach Works The jury has evaluated 318 works in total, included in five thematic groups. These are the awarded works: Art books First prize: The toys of the avant-garde, by VV.AA., published by the Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga y Legado Paul Christine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso; Produced by Ediciones El Viso. Second prize: Nkame. Belkis Ayón, from VV.AA., edited by Turner Publicaciones, SL Third prize: Miguel Hernández. 25 illustrated poems, poems by Miguel Hernández, illustrations by various authors, edited by Kalandraka Ediciones Andalucía. The Jury has been chaired by Mónica Fernández, Deputy Director General for the Promotion of Spanish Books, Reading and Literature. They have acted as members Teresa Mezquita for the National Library of Spain, Andrés Fernández for the Federation of Publishers Guilds of Spain, Manuel Vacas for the Business Federation of Graphic Industries of Spain, Augusto Jurado for the Emeritus Graphics Club, Natividad Correas and Rocío San Claudio at the proposal of the general director of the Spanish Book, Reading and Literature and Marta Sáenz Bascones, an expert official of the Ministry of Culture. PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS

Escritos personales de Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) REVELATIONS Restlessness / Restlessness Belkis Ayón Manso January, 1998 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 went into a state of desperation imperceptible to the eye - again showing my moderate personality, less to laugh and do great colography ... READ MORE Confessions Belkis Ayón Manso February 11, 1991 Some time ago I studied some of the components of our culture, on the African side, the carabalíes and of them the Abakuá Secret Society, made up only of men, a mutual aid and relief society, self-financed by its members. It resurfaces in the 30s of the 19th century in Cuba under other conditions and objectives very different from those of its African ancestors. There are people who feel and have the need to believe in something, which is inherent in human existence and one of those many examples is the following ... READ MORE