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Belkis Ayón: Fear, Confusion, Trance, Dignity, And The Sublime., Silvia Márquez Pease

Department of Art and Art History

Belkis Ayón, a cuban artist, takes it upon herself to reveal a secret, to be a transgressor. She believes to be the alter ego of the legendary Sikán, a princess who was punished because she shared the secrets of the Abakuá knowledge that were reserved only for men. I argue that the work of Belkis Ayón caters to the possibility of attainable sublimity through paradoxes of confusion and fear; a state of unsettling discomfort and a sensing of something greater than oneself. And yet, this state of paradoxical affects, predicated by confusion, fear, and trance, result in obsolete boundaries and …