Belkis Ayón’s “Myth and Disobedience” brings together a body of work in which myth, gender, secrecy, and ritual become intertwined within an intensely personal visual language. The exhibition, currently on view at MALBA, brings together seven works from the Malba–Costantini Collection, produced between 1991 and 1998, in what is the first exhibition devoted to Ayón by an Argentine institution. Rather than attempting to provide a comprehensive retrospective, the selection concentrates on a crucial period in the Cuban artist’s short but remarkably influential career.
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| Belkis Ayón at MALBA |
Ayón’s imagery emerges from her sustained investigation of the Abakuá secret society, an Afro-Cuban brotherhood traditionally restricted to men. At the center of her reinterpretation is Sikán, the female figure of the foundational myth. Ayón’s decision to place Sikán at the heart of her visual universe is not merely an iconographic choice: it becomes a way of questioning the patriarchal structure of the tradition itself.
The works are visually difficult to forget. Their restricted palette of black, white, and grey produces an atmosphere that feels simultaneously ceremonial and ominous. Yet the power of these images does not depend on spectacle. It lies in their surfaces. Ayón’s mastery of collagraphy—built through matrices assembled from collaged materials—allows textures to become almost tactile, giving bodies, animals, patterns, and architectural forms an uncanny physical presence. The technique is not simply a means of representation; it becomes part of the meaning of the work.
What makes the exhibition particularly compelling is the tension between revelation and concealment. The Abakuá myth had traditionally been transmitted orally, while Ayón transformed it into a visual language without reducing its sense of secrecy. Her figures often appear suspended between ritual and psychological drama, as if they belonged to a world whose rules remain inaccessible to the viewer.
The title “Myth and Disobedience” points precisely toward this contradiction. Ayón enters a predominantly male symbolic system and reconfigures it from within. At the same time, her practice emerged during the profound social and political crisis Cuba experienced in the 1990s, when art could function as a space for resistance against marginalization, fear, and censorship.
MALBA’s concise presentation ultimately works because it leaves room for the images to retain their ambiguity. “Myth and Disobedience” does not explain Ayón’s world so much as place us before it; and asks us to look longer.
The works are visually difficult to forget. Their restricted palette of black, white, and grey produces an atmosphere that feels simultaneously ceremonial and ominous. Yet the power of these images does not depend on spectacle. It lies in their surfaces. Ayón’s mastery of collagraphy—built through matrices assembled from collaged materials—allows textures to become almost tactile, giving bodies, animals, patterns, and architectural forms an uncanny physical presence. The technique is not simply a means of representation; it becomes part of the meaning of the work.
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| Belkis Ayón at MALBA |
The title “Myth and Disobedience” points precisely toward this contradiction. Ayón enters a predominantly male symbolic system and reconfigures it from within. At the same time, her practice emerged during the profound social and political crisis Cuba experienced in the 1990s, when art could function as a space for resistance against marginalization, fear, and censorship.
MALBA’s concise presentation ultimately works because it leaves room for the images to retain their ambiguity. “Myth and Disobedience” does not explain Ayón’s world so much as place us before it; and asks us to look longer.
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| Belkis Ayón at MALBA |
"Belkis Ayón: Myth and Disobedience"
Location: Malba, Junín 1930, Av. Pres. Figueroa Alcorta 3415, C1425CLA CABA, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Opening Date: 17th July 2026
End Date: 12th October 2026
Working hours: Wednesday- Monday: 12pm to 8pm
Official website:
Mentioned Artist:
