Vamos
Primary
Belkis Ayón
(Havana, Cuba, 1967–1999)
Date1993
MediumCollagraph
Dimensions38 15/16 x 26 3/4 in.
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Fran Magee, 2021.132
Rights Statement
Collection AreaLatin American Art
Object number2021.132
On View
Not on viewCollection Highlight
Afro-Cuban artist Belkis Ayón’s remarkable collograph Vamos (Let Us Go) harnesses Abakuá iconography as an allegory. The work depicts Princess Sikán, the only woman in Abakúa mythology, with one hand wrapped around her symbolic staff and snake, securely coiled at the top. Sikán’s other hand extends an offering to two male figures, one blindfolded and guided by the other. Ayón states that like Sikán, she “still lives in anguish, looking for a way out” from the male-dominated art world, mirroring women’s exclusion within the fraternal societies of the Abakúa tradition.
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