The Supper
- Artist: Belkis Ayón
- Date: 1991
- Medium: 6 collagraphs on paper, mounted on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1390 x 3003 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “The Supper” by Belkis Ayón, created in 1991. It’s a six‑sheet collagraph stretched across more than three metres, printed in a stark black, white and grey palette that instantly pulls the viewer’s eye to the centre. In that centre sits Princess Sikán, a slender, almond‑eyed figure rendered with no adornment, standing out from the richly patterned bodies that surround her. Ayón uses those patterns—crosses, circles and other marks borrowed from the Nigerian nsibidi script—to weave a visual dialogue between the Afro‑Cuban Abakuá secret society and the Christian iconography of the Last Supper. The table in the foreground holds fish, a nod to a key Abakuá myth that granted the tribe its power.
Ayón places Sikán at the heart of this story, challenging the all‑male focus of Abakuá rituals and asserting a female perspective that mirrors her own. The work’s monochrome treatment heightens that sense of isolation while inviting us to see her as a transgressor, observer, and revealer. It’s one of Ayón’s most iconic pieces and marks the shift that defined her mature style.
See it in person
The Supper is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
