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Dormída

Works

Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Belkis Ayon, Dormída, 1995

Belkis Ayon Cuba, 1967-1999

Dormída, 1995
Collograph Print
26 x 36 inches
66 x 91.4 cm
Edition 4 of 6
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  • Dormída

Visualisation

On a Wall
Belkis Ayón’s “Dormída” asserts the latent, unextinguished power of the feminine within the all-male Abakuá society through a collograph print that presents a reclining female figure—Sikán herself—in a state suspended...
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Belkis Ayón’s “Dormída” asserts the latent, unextinguished power of the feminine within the all-male Abakuá society through a collograph print that presents a reclining female figure—Sikán herself—in a state suspended between sleep and ritual death. Rendered in the artist’s signature densely textured surface of collaged and inked plates, the body appears veiled and mask-like, its fragmented contours and skin-like grain evoking the very hide of the sacred fish whose voice she discovered and for which she was sacrificed, her forbidden knowledge sealed into the society’s drum. The pose is not passive but charged: the dormant form holds the secret that the brotherhood both possesses and denies, transforming historical exclusion into a strategic reservoir of ancestral memory and gendered defiance. Conceptually, the work declares that true resistance resides in the pause—the silenced woman is not erased but preserved in stillness, an unequivocal emblem of the feminine presence that Abakuá mythology simultaneously requires and eradicates, where the sleeping body waits with the quiet, unyielding force of knowledge that can never be fully suppressed.
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Exhibitions

“Siempre Vuelvo. Exposición personal Belkis Ayón,” Galería GRAU, Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1995.


“Unterstütze mich, halte mich hoch im Schmerz,” Kirche St. Barbara, Breinig, Germany, 1995.


“Unterstütze mich, halte mich hoch im Schmerz,” Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany, 1995.


“Belkis Ayón, artiste cubaine,” Galerie Bourbon-Lally, Pétionville, Haiti, 1996.


“Two Contemporary Cuban Artists: Belkis Ayón and Nelson Domínguez,” Hofstra Museum, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, United States, 1996.


“Cuba Kunst Heute,” Staatliches Kurhaus, Bad Steben, Germany, 1997.


“Ángel Ramírez + Belkis Ayón. The New Wave of Cuban Art – I,” Gallery GAN, Tokyo, Japan, 1997.


“Grand Pas de Trois. Sexta Bienal de La Habana (Norberto Marrero, Belkis Ayón y Juan Carlos Menéndez),” Estudio privado, Havana, Cuba, 1997.


“Desasosiego / Restlessness,” Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, California, United States, 1998.


“Bernardo Marqués / Belkis Ayón,” Havana Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland, 1998.


“Belkis Ayón / Elsa Mora. Recent Work,” Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York, New York, United States, 1998.


“Belkis Ayón + Ángel Ramírez. The New Wave of Cuban Art – II,” Gallery GAN, Tokyo, Japan, 1998.


“Rites. Photographies de René Peña; collographies de Belkis Ayón,” Galerie Bourbon-Lally, Pétionville, Haiti, 1999.


“Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul,” Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut, United States, September 2009 – February 2010.


“Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul,” Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana, United States, July – November 2010.


“Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul,” Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, United States, August 2011.


“Nkame. A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” Fowler Art Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, United States, 2016–2017.


“Nkame. A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” El Museo del Barrio, New York, New York, United States, 2017.

“Nkame. Belkis Ayón: A Retrospective,” Ludwig Forum Aachen, Aachen, Germany, 2017.


“Nkame. A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, United States, 2018.


“Nkame. A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, United States, 2018.


“Nkame. A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” SMoCA (Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art), Scottsdale, Arizona, United States, 2018–2019.


“Nkame. A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States, 2020.


“Nkame. A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón,” Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, Oregon, United States, 2021.


“Belkis Ayón. Colografías,” Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2021–2022 (curated by Cristina Vives).


“Belkis Ayón. Ya Estamos Aquí,” Ludwig Forum Aachen, Aachen, Germany, 2022–2023.

Literature

“Arte Kuba: Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Kuba / Contemporary Cuban Art from the Ludwig Collection,” edited by Peter Ludwig and others, Museum Ludwig / Hatje Cantz Verlag, Cologne / Ostfildern, 2002.


“Nkame: Belkis Ayón,” edited by Cristina Vives (with texts by J. Veigas and Katia Ayón), Turner Libros, Madrid, 2010 page 278.


“Ajiaco: Stirrings of the Cuban Soul,” exhibition catalog, 2012 : cover and pages 36–37, page 78 (illustrated).


“Belkis Ayón,” Arte Cubano Contemporáneo, Colección Espiral 1/30, Consejo Nacional de las Artes Plásticas, Artecubano Ediciones, Havana, Cuba, 2016


“Behind the Veil of a Myth / Tras el velo de un mito: Belkis Ayón,” edited by Cristina Vives, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, United States, 2018 : page 171.


“Belkis Ayón. Colografías,” exhibition catalog, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2021–2022 (curated by Cristina Vives) (reproduced).


“Belkis Ayón,” exhibition booklet, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Aachen, Germany, 2022 (illustrated as cat. no. 27).

Provenance

Estudio Belkis Ayon. > Collection of Joel H. Meyers & Gail Gelburd, Massachusetts > Catalogue Raisonné - NKAME mafimba - Page 278


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