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

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

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

II Edición del Concurso Nacional de Colografía Belkis Ayón, 2015 II National Collography Contest Belkis Ayón ANNOUNCEMENT The National Council of Plastic Arts, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), and the Graphic Society of Cienfuegos, in coordination with the Estate of Belkis Ayón, the Provincial Council of Plastic Arts, the Provincial Committee of the UNEAC, The Cuban Fund of Cultural Assets, the Paradiso Cultural Agency and ARTEX of the Cienfuegos province, summon all interested artists to participate in the Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest, in homage to one of the Cuban artists who marked, with her graphic work and pedagogical, a milestone in the history of Engraving in Cuba. Basis of Participation All Cuban students and artists with engravings made in the COLLOGRAPHY technique, printed between 2014 and 2015, who have not participated in a previous exhibition, event or contest, may participate. Inscription The works must be sent unframed, through certified mail or in person, before March 10, 2015 to the Sociedad Gráfica de Cienfuegos, located at Ave. 50, # 2326, between Calle 23 and Calle 25, Cienfuegos 1 , Hundred fires. Tel. 043 517979. Each artist will have the right to present three works (independent or triptych) duly signed and numbered in pencil, which cannot exceed 60 x 80 cm (paper measurements). Workshops or artists tests are not accepted. Selection A single Jury will be appointed to select and award the works received. The selected and awarded works will be exhibited in the Cienfuegos Art Gallery, within the program of the 9th La Estampa Fair, an event that will be inaugurated on April 7, 2015, at 9 p.m., at which time it will be official the jury's decision. The exhibition will remain open to the public for 30 days. Likewise, it will be presented at the Casa del Benemérito de las Américas Benito Juárez of the Office of the City Historian, Havana, in 2015. The selected artists will be given the Certificate of Participation once the exhibition is over, along with the return of their works within 45 days. The organizers of the contest are responsible for the care of the works sent, running with all the expenses generated by the return of the same to their authors. Prize A single and indivisible Grand Prize will be awarded consisting of 3 000.00 MN (donation of the artists belonging to the Taller de la Sociedad Gráfica de Cienfuegos and the Estate of Belkis Ayón), a diploma and a reproduction of a work by the artist to which the contest is dedicated. The Jury will award mentions at its discretion, without financial award. The Jury's decision will be final. The winning works will become part of the Cienfuegos Stamp Cabinet. The awarded Artist will be invited to perform a personal exhibition at the Cienfuegos Art Center in 2017. The Belkis Ayón Residence, awarded to the award-winning artists, will run for a week; During this period, they will share experiences with prominent artists of contemporary Cuban plastic and engraving. Participating in the II Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest implies acceptance of these Terms and Conditions. More information Organizing Committee of the Belkis Ayón National Coloring Contest GRAPHIC SOCIETY OF CIENFUEGOS caceres69@azurina.cult.cu | 043 517979 ESTATE OF BELKIS AYÓN, HAVANA belkat@cubarte.cult.cu | 07 642 3083 www.ayonbelkis.cult.cu | www.ayonbelkis.co Jury Awards Members of the Jury of the II National Collography Contest together with members of the Estate of Belkis Ayón and La Sociedad Gráfica de Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos, 2015. Events and Exhibitions II National Collography Contest Belkis Ayon Cienfuegos, 2015 Selected Works and Exhibition Muestra Concurso Exhibition Marcando Territorio: Gráfica femenina de México Exhibition ¿Sólo uno tiene la verdad? Exhibition Con las mismas manos. Exposición colectiva de grabado Exhibition Paisajes Cercanos Exhibition Nocturno Collography Master Class by Miguel A. Lobaina

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

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban soul Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut, United States September 12, 2009 - February 21, 2010 Read more Roots & More. Journey of the Spirits Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, Holland April 7 - November 7, 2009 Read more Cuba, Mexico, United States, Portugal November 2006 - 2010 Confluences Inside Read more return to collective exhibitions

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

GLANCES Factory Havana, Old Havana, Havana, Cuba. May 23 - August 23, 2014 From May 23 to August 23, 2014, the exhibition Glances, curated by Dr. Concha Fontenla, took place at the Factory Havana exhibition space. The exhibition brought together works by nineteen artists representing Contemporary Cuban Art, including the printmaker Belkis Ayón, from which three of his large-format works La Familia, Nlloro, and Resurrección could be appreciated. As a whole, the works of the selected artists, according to the curator, trace a possible journey through Contemporary Cuban Art, highlighting a past that distinguishes it, without neglecting its intimate relationship with the latest creative proposals to which they undoubtedly contribute with decisive notes of deep repercussion. Participating artists: Aimeé García, Antonio Eligio Tonel, Belkis Ayón, Carlos Montes de Oca, Eduardo Pónjuan, Ernesto Leal, Felipe Dulzaides, Ibrahim Miranda, Jorge López Pardo, José Angel Toirac, José Manuel Fors, Lidzie Alvisa, Luis Enrique Camejo, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Roberto Fabelo, Sandra Ramos, Santiago Rodriguez Olazábal.

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.

Talk about the myths of art. Interview with Belkis Ayón Jaime Sarusky February 4, 1999 © Revolución y Cultura, No 2-3 / 99, p. 68-71 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. We are in front of his mural La Cena that is in the Ludwig Foundation. It is a tenaciously mysterious piece. I would not hesitate to say that it has many readings. But tell me your story La Cena was first seen in public in 1988 at the Servando Cabrera de Playa gallery. I conceived it to print in color but once it was printed and displayed I was not satisfied with the results. So I dedicated myself to preparing it for my graduate thesis and in 1991 I modified it and took it to black and white. The first figure, top left, has his face covered with his hands. The main idea is from Dinner ... Are you referring to the traditional dinner? Yes, but as a main idea. And I had in mind for a long time. Dinner is for women, except for two men, one who is on the right, the black figure who is completely indifferent, as if he is going to leave the composition, and another who has a black face. What are the elements of mythology present there? One of them is the background. It is made with the Anaforuanas or “signatures”: the cross, the circle and the cross within the circle, symbolism of the different branches that influenced or where the myth arose as such this type of societies, efik, efor and ori bibi. The + sign corresponds to efik, the O efor and oru-bibi. Another element that I use is the scale. The fish's scale, the sacred fish. And also the type of symbology that I have taken to mean the man with the leopard skin, which is a concentric circle, a little elongated with various points around it. And, in addition, figures that have a design that suggests a relationship with femininity. And the bandage? When someone who is in the process of being initiated is going to enter the sacred room, the Fambá, before entering it, they are blindfolded. It's like a kind of ceremonial dinner. There is a figure that is starting or about to start. What is celebrated with this ritual? In this case it is something that perhaps existed. But it is not something that happens. From the point of view of the religious ceremony there is a part that is food, but it has nothing to do with this idea of dinner. This is totally symbolic. Another figure has a snake around his neck. In Abakuá mythology, it is the animal sent by the tribe's sorcerer to find out what had happened in the river when the Tanze fish disappeared. Then the Nasakó sends two snakes to see what has happened. And on the way back they appear to him and surprise Sikán, who gets scared and drops the güiro that he was carrying on his head. That is why the snake is always a company for her. It can be threatening, it can be preventive, or it can simply be companionship. And depending on the idea I also use it as a phallic element. Now why the scales and the significance of the fish? The fish was the way, the vehicle that contained the secret, that is, it was the being that contained the secret. The secret was a voice. Here it is no longer fish on that plate. No, not anymore, because this figure, that of the man with the black head, kind of broke into the women's dinner and ingested the fish. His plate is already empty, as is the gourd that accompanies each of the figures next to the plate. The fish is the sacred being. In this women's dinner, two figures wear the skin of the fish, thus relating the fate of the fish with the fate that Sikán will have or had. It is assumed that among the Abakuá women do not play any role, they are out of that world. Anyone could think that his is a daring because he is transgressing what is taboo. It is out from the point of view of professing religion. But it is inside, deep inside, because it was a woman who discovered the secret. And from that discovery is that, somehow, all this kind of story arises. What was the secret? The secret was the voice. According to the myth, appropriating that fish that contained the voice meant that whoever reached it would be the richest and most prosperous tribe. It was power. In reality the fish was the reincarnation of an old king who predicted such events. The guilt of the woman when she discovered the secret eliminated her from the rituals of the Abakuá universe. Yes, and I also think that, like all these stories of myths and legends, there are different versions. One of them maintains that the woman is excluded for having given information to the enemy tribe. But I think that it is not necessary for a viewer to have knowledge of the myths, the Abakuá ritual or the meanings of each of its components to admire or be impressed by his work. The thing would be to know why it impresses ... What does that engraving have? First of all, the mystery. These apparently passive characters convey an atmosphere of tension, of suspicion. Strange diners who are also symbols. There is a sense of uncertainty due to the weight of the allegorical. It would seem that they challenge us, by the very scene presented by these disconcerting protagonists, to go back to the mists of the early days. There they are, simultaneously, the myth and the complex human matter; they transcend time and if by chance I saw that work years ago and I see it again now, I still think that it comes to me as something telluric, unfathomable. I think about these things at the moment when I am doing them. After I print them and it has been so long, like it is no longer mine and I stop thinking about it. Now I was thinking about tension, as something that is contained, where something happened or is going to happen. Something like that. And the eyes on your characters? Actually the eyes in my work is what impresses people, what intrigues them because they are eyes that look at you very directly, so I think you cannot hide, wherever you move they are always there looking at you, they are there making you an accomplice of what you are seeing. And, above all, in these pieces that are large, you are almost at the same level, at the same size, it is someone with whom you are living there in some way. The fact of being characters that do not have a defined face is helping to feed the myth and the symbol. There is no detail that places them in a historical context: they have no clothes or hairstyle. From those clothes or from that hairstyle it could be deduced that they are characters of this or more than that moment. When you conceive these characters — let's call them somehow — you are not thinking of an anecdote, at a certain moment, but you are simply thinking of an episode of the Abakuá universe that you want to represent ... Yes, I think it is the latter to which you refer and also a little more, there is always something else. I really enjoy the fact of working, of filling the characters with something, that is, through the textures, the shapes, not being devoid of clothes. Clothes are the skin that I put on depending on what is happening, on what I want to say. For example, the scales. As I had told you before, it is the skin of a fish and for many people it can also be the skin of a snake. I mean, there is all that ambiguity. Now, how did he enter, how could he appropriate the knowledge of the Abakuá world? It was out of curiosity, to face something that one reads, talks about or sees for the first time. It is not what one is used to and feels that it attracts them and begins to investigate, to seek information. And his father? It is not Abakuá. And in my family no one is, except a cousin. It is important that I say so because stories have been made up that all the men in my family are Abakuá. Not at all. We are two sisters, nothing more. For what reason does it reach you with such force that it becomes the subject, the subject of your artistic work? That interest arose when I was studying engraving at San Alejandro. There were so many things that attracted me to Afro-Cuban cultures; my taste for going to rumba Saturdays and when the National Folk Ensemble had its seasons at the Mella Theater. Also the magazine The UNESCO Courier. At school I was very interested in the numbers that had to do with African culture. In my grandmother's house there was a poster with some items announcing the performances given by Folklorico and Sara Gómez's film, In a certain way. It could also have been the fact that my uncle had among his books, that he could see and leaf through all the time, Los Ñáñigos, by Enrique Sosa, or some suggestions that my teachers from San Alejandro made to me to read The Abakuá Secret Society narrated by its old followers, by Lydia Cabrera, or The African Diaspora, and a bit of all that. Or a catalog that my father gave me from a retrospective they made in Paris of Lam's painting. These things I simplify. I discovered that there were no artists working on this theme at that time, but others such as Santeria, voodoo, spiritism and palo monte. The reading of different stories of the myth also influenced. It seemed so plastic to me, as if it were passing in front of me, where faces appeared and disappeared. Also, there is no figurative iconography, except, of course, the signatures. Then I saw that there was a possibility, there was a whole world that I could perfectly create, from the fact that you already know what stories are like. How do you explain that those characters without faces have such intensity, such density? There are things in the works that one cannot explain oneself. The tension ... I did not think of it, it was not something preconceived. He left. I say that something always accompanies me that is like a good sign, a good company: intuition. Perhaps my work is that: they are things that I have inside and that I throw out because they are burdens that cannot be lived with and cannot be dragged. Could it be said that you detach yourself, in the same creative process, from many of these myths? I detach myself; and not because I think that always, even if I want to say something else, I am using the same symbology and the same figuration and the same signs that I use when I want to refer specifically to a scene or a detail that is, strictly, from mythology, although later, perhaps, he will turn it over and want to say something else. But they are fixed elements in my work. Right now I'm using more personal things; however, I continue to use the character of Sikán, the fish, the goat, the scales, the snake, I continue to use crumpled papers and the symbols that I have always used in another situation, but with other content. I use colography because it seems to me the most appropriate technique to say what I want. That is first. In addition, it is the technique with which I can work large formats, whatever I want, and I like the manufacturing of the piece, it fascinates me. So all that process I enjoy tremendously. It is one of the reasons why he continues to do collography. If I painted would it be the same? No, it wouldn't be the same. It is that I do not have in my mind to conceive this for painting. It is a limitation that I have in the eyes of many. But, above all things, I consider myself a tape recorder. And I'm not going to stop being one for the moment. Do you think that the most important thing you had to express as an artist has already been said in your work or do you think that you have not yet exhausted all its possibilities? Those are questions that I ask myself all the time. Once, in conversation with my friend Antonio Martorell, a Puerto Rican printmaker and painter, he told me: it is incredible how one becomes obsessed with certain subjects, and even if one does it differently, that is always there. In other words, obsession and turning around and falling into the same thing. And I wondered if he was repeating myself. Just imagine. Maybe, yes, maybe, no. The problem is that I feel that there are many people who are very simple when it comes to talking about an artist and a production. It is much easier to say: Ah, look, she works on the abakuá! It's fine, but there's not much more to it than that . And since he speaks of obsession in the themes, just the same thing can happen to a viewer with his characters. They are and they are not, as you say. And they are characters who are saying things to me or are questioning me ... Exactly. I think that's what they are questioning. Interrogating others. A little that others are accomplices of what is happening there. As if they said: Here things are not clear. It is a disturbing situation. The title of my last exhibition, which was shown in Los Angeles, was Restlessness. Maybe that's the play. After so many years I realize the uneasiness. And perhaps that restlessness, as much or more than a religious character, has ... I'm going to tell you, it is more existential than religious. How were your beginnings since you studied at San Alejandro? I was sixteen years old in 83-84 when I was studying at San Alejandro and I had enormous problems with drawing, when the teachers suspended me a lot because I was a very bad draftsman with a model. And my figures looked like sticks. How did you get over that? More than drawing, thinking. And watching a lot and looking a lot. Many times I talk to my students who also work figuratively and have drawing problems. I tell them: look, I am not asking you for an academy, I am not asking you for hyper-realism, I ask you to convince me with what you are putting there. That that hand is credible, perhaps a little more, a little less, but that there is no disproportion, that it does not bother the eye. One of the characteristics that distinguishes his work is the absence of color. Does the use of white or black have a meaning? White is a value. Like black. Like the grays. The value is not the color, the value is the point of attention in the work. A figure because it is white, it is not white. A figure is white because it is a point of attention and because I work with white, black and values. That person may be black, but the value is white. In other words, it has a compositional sense. Exactly. Like this black man who makes a turn; the black goes there, in the serpent, in the face, in this eye and goes up to the other eyes that are inverted, returns to the black eye and goes to the black of the edge. The inclusion of black is a problem of composition, balance and rhythm in the piece. What is your relationship with the Abakuá universe: affective, cognitive? A difficult question. It is the way, the way, the solution that I found to say what I wanted. And I tell him: it is like letting go, and I have let myself go. When you go to work on this issue, at some point do you not do it like in a trance state? In a trance, but in quotes. The phenomenon is one of concentration, a problem of believing at the moment that I am doing it, even perhaps of acting. There is a bit of theatricality in all that ... Yes, it is very theatrical, like the ceremony of the Abakuá. For Fernando Ortiz it was like a theatrical performance. It is like bringing theater to religion. And religion to the theater. As for the trance, it is, above all, the concentration and the forced foot that they put me when working. In addition to the passion for the subject, the very fact of having been working on it for many years, does it not somehow reflect a fear on your part? That is, to stay conservatively in it because it does not initiate or face other subjects. Ah, look, maybe that's it. Of course, unconscious fear. I believe that there are unconscious things that become conscious. In your case, does it become conscious? I think so. I think that one can say things like that, and in another way. But I want to keep it that way. For now, because this is what I need to say. One of its characteristics is originality. I take from a million things. What I see that I like, I do. There is a whole screening process. I think this is like my son, this is something that I created. If I created it, I don't have to abandon it if I still have things to say. Well, forgive me, but you can have a child and then have another without necessarily abandoning the first. Ah well, for now I sit with only one! —Suddenly, when you get up in the morning, you say to yourself, I'm going to work today, do you already know what you're going to do? No. Until I have it here (he puts his index finger to his temple), I don't do anything. While that is happening I am looking at my books, the books that I buy, that I like, that are art. And as I go through them I say to myself, I like this composition, here I am going to put Fulano, Mengano and Ciclano. And this has to do with it, I want to talk about dissatisfaction, intolerance, I want to talk about betrayal or I want to talk about sacrifices. Many compositions I take, for example, from the family. The Family was a piece that had long been crushed on his head. I used to say, this has to come out somewhere. And it all came from the work of Gauguin Ana la Javanesa. That I love it; That is very important to me, that it marked me ... And the family comes out of that work, of that figure sitting so calmly. You have said that among your plastic references, in addition to those of the Abakuá universe, there were also Byzantine icons. The reference of the icons is purely formal. It is the shape of the arches, of the altarpieces, they always attracted me a lot and it was like inventing an iconography for these people. And also many times the compositions that I like so much. And I tell him that my work is the one that surprises me because it is the one that has led me to be what I am, not because I proposed it. Could it be that there is a certain ignorance of yourself, of who you are? If it is accepted that your characters, in addition to being disturbing, are defiant, one has every right to suppose that there is a struggle in you, between the Belkis that you want to challenge and the other that you knew is calm and that you want to go unnoticed. I think I'm out there. Is the fact that you are a woman and black reflecting your challenging characters in any way? Not at all, or at least, I don't intend to. It's just that I've never had a racial problem, you understand? Let me explain. I know that she has not had problems, on the contrary, anyone who sees her would say that she is a winner. But both you and I know ... I think these are things that are manipulated a lot and maybe they manipulate us or manipulate me. But it is not a conscious thing. In your work each signature is based on the idea that you are raising. That's how it is. Even in a work there may be different signatures but depending on the characters or their relationship with others. Yes. You start from the Abakuá myths as a source of your creative production, but the result, the work of art as such, is already something else, it transcends the reasons that originated it to become universal. It can be given more than one interpretation, even a connoisseur is impressed, not because of the mastery he may have of the matter but because of the indisputable artistic result. I really like the subtle things in the work, but also that the viewer is awake enough to discover them. BACK TO INTERVIEWS next article

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.

Exposiciones colectivas con la presencia de la obra de Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS Estudio Figueroa-Vives / Norwegian Embassy, El Vedado, Havana, Cuba September - November, 2019 Towers and Tombs Read more Drapetomania. Tribute Exhibition to Grupo Antillano Galería de Arte Universal, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba / Consejo Nacional de Artes Plásticas, La Habana / 8th Floor Gallery, New York, United States / Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, California, United States / The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. April 2013 - 2015 Read more Museo de Arte Maníaco, Alfredo Ramos's Colonial House, Línea106, Havana, Cuba. October 26, 2014 Witches, but also warlocks Read more Havana, Cuba. October 13, 2014 Eva leaves and takes flight. Eva stops being a rib Read more Dinner-auction within the framework of the sixth and last edition of the Leo Brouwer Chamber Music Festival Havana Cuba. October 5, 2014 Read more Next