Rodolfo Molina
The Salvadoran arts an culture world, as well as those of the entire Central American region, was shaken by the sudden passing, last April, of Rodolfo Molina, the renowned architect, artist, curator, and cultural promoter. Molina was a founding member and director of valued cultural initiatives, both public and private, in El Salvador, among them the Museo de Cultura Popular (INAR), which he presided for the 2008, 2009, and 2010 periods; the Julia Díaz Foundation, which he presided in 2000; and the National Direction for the Arts at CONACULTURA, between 1993 and 1998.
Rodolfo Molina graduated as an architect from Universidad Albert Einstein in El Salvador. Thanks to a Fulbright Fellowship, he received a Master's in Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1989. Later, he returned to his native country, where over the years his trajectory and artistic production was consolidated. He exhibited constantly at El Laberinto gallery, which hosted five solo exhibitions of his work between 1981 and 1989. Over the next two decades, he presented four solo exhibitions in international galleries and participated in group shows across the Central American region, as well as Spain, Colombia, England, Taiwan, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States.
Rodolfo Molina was characterized by his affable temperament, his commitment to the art of the region, and his disposition to contribute to the development of modern and contemporary art in El Salvador. During the last 15 years he participated as a curator of exhibitions and projects in a variety of local and international cultural initiatives, establishing himself as one of the region's most prominent experts. As a cultural promoter, Molina participated in numerous seminars and publications, contributing prominently to the historiography of Salvadoran art. Special mention must be made of his recent curatorial project for the exhibition Al compass del tiempo: Proceso e influencias en el arte salvadoreño, which Molina developed alongside his colleague the architect Rafael Alas. The show, which will remain open for five years at the Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE), features 114 works by 73 artists and proposes a journey through several periods in Salvadoran visual arts over a period of 150 years. From this total number of works, 45 belong to the MARTE collection and 69 come from private holdings.
Starting in 2002, Rodolfo Molina was one of the responsible coordinators of the "PROMERICA Selection of Salvadoran Art" for the Central American Isthmus Visual Arts Biennial (BAVIC). He fulfilled this task enthusiastically until the Biennial's recent eight edition, held in Panama City in January of 2013. A collaborator and consulting curator of the Ortiz Guardián Foundation in Nicaragua, Molina alternated his curatorial work with the presentation in El Salvador of traveling exhibitions of works from the Foundation's collection. A valuable example of these experiences was the exhibition Del expresionismo abstracto al arte Pop en la colección Ortiz Guardián, exhibited at the Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE) last March.
The many valuable facets of Rodolfo Molina's participation in the field of art helped generate among colleagues, friends, artists, and institutions a drive to engage in future explorations. For instance, he encouraged the artists' collective Grupo TEA Escultura to participate in the project Land Art 2012, an experience where this group of artists connected to Molina's innovative vision were able to share some of the long-term management and promotion projects.
A month after Rodolfo Molina's sad and unexpected passing, the city of San Salvador offered him a posthumous tribute titled T...
