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Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art acknowledges it resides on the ancestral territory of the Osage, Kaw, and Otoe-Missouria, among other tribal nations forcibly moved to the region such as the Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox and Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) nations. We recognize and support the continued vibrancy of Native communities and cultures today who continue to thrive, as well as the inherent sovereignty of tribal nations. We are compelled to serve and advocate for these communities in accordance with our public mission.

Kemper Museum acknowledges and respects the diversity of Native people connected to this land today. Many recognize the land and all beings who live within it as relatives. We acknowledge the earth we inhabit, the waters of the Blue River, the Kansas River, the Missouri River, and the plants, animals, and people supported by them. 

We acknowledge our responsibility to be good caretakers of the land we occupy. 

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Kemper Museum is pleased to present Nkame: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón (1967–1999). This landmark retrospective is the first in the United States dedicated to the work of Belkis Ayón—the late Cuban visual artist who mined the founding myth of the Afro-Cuban fraternal society, Abakuá, to create an independent and powerful visual iconography.

Ayón’s signature technique was collagraphy, a printing process in which materials of various textures and absorbencies are collaged onto a cardboard matrix and then run through the press with paper. Her narrative works, many of which were produced at a very large scale by joining multiple printed sheets, are imbued with an air of mystery, in part due to her deliberately austere palette of shades and subtle tones of black, white, and gray. For a black Cuban woman, both her ascendency in the contemporary printmaking world and her investigation of a powerful all-male brotherhood were notable and bold. Nkame, a sweeping overview of her most fertile period of artistic creativity, covers Ayón’s graphic production from 1986 until her untimely passing in 1999. 

Curated by Cristina Vives, the exhibition was organized by the Belkis Ayón Estate, Havana, Cuba. Exhibition tour management by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA.

Sustaining Sponsors:
 Linda and Michael Lyon
 Jean and Tom McDonnell

Belkis Ayón, La cena (The Supper), 1988, collagraph in 6 parts, 54 1/4 x 117 1/4 inches. © and courtesy Estate of Belkis Ayón.

Belkis Ayón, ¡¡Déjame salir!! (Let Me Out!!), 1997, collagraph, 25 9/16 x 25 9/16 inches. © and courtesy Estate of Belkis Ayón.

Belkis Ayón, Sikán [second edition], 1991, collagraph in 4 parts, 78 1/2 x 54 1/4 inches. © and courtesy Estate of Belkis Ayón.