Untitled [Sikan, Nasako, and the Holy Spirit] 2010
Curated by Alejandro De La Fuente
Description
Curated by Alejandro De La Fuente
Belkis Ayón studied printmaking at the Instituto Superior de Arte. Her work focuses on the feminine character of Sikán and the origin myth of the Abakuá, an Afro-Cuban men’s secret society. In her article “Transcendent Belkis Ayón,” Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda describes this origin myth and its implications in Ayón’s art: “The artist reveals the social origins of the sect, associated with the caste of the house canoe, the capture of the maiden Sikán by the sacred Voice of Tanze the fish, and the sacrificial death of Sikán, which suggests the replacement of a primitive matriarchal society by a patriarchal slave society. She does this by raising questions about ‘desire,’ ‘possession,’ and ‘the power of the secret’ from a feminine perspective with overtones of race and class.”