Juan José Molina’s Cycle of Paintings “Nature Is Nature” at the OEBV, Vienna (A)
Obituary held on the occasion of the close of the exhibition on January 15, 2008
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends of Juan José Molina,
Juan José Molina should be standing here with me and talking to you about his artistic work and intentions. We even thought about transferring this artist-critic talk to Molina’s studio, the place of origin of his large and powerful paintings, where he could have demonstrated his painting technique, enabling us to experience his art first hand.
The tragic events of his sudden death on November 26, 2007 have made that all unthinkable and impossible. Juan José Molina leaves us behind clueless and sad with his last paintings. It is consoling for us that today and in the future we can do what Molina probably would have wanted us to do: to reflect deeply upon his artistic work. I would like to fulfill his wish and ask you to direct your thoughts and your gaze toward his art, the permanent legacy of someone who died too young and of his own volition.
Surely today’s experience of “Nature Is Nature” will differ from the one on the exhibition’s opening night. At least this is true for myself and probably for those who have already seen the paintings at the OEBV or in his studio. The focus on the untamable forces of nature as the utmost and life-affirming power, grounding, rooting and wooingly twining around the deracinated protagonists in Molina’s drama – then the center of general observation – has now switched to the underlying darkness in Molina’s cycle of oil paintings.
The fundamental dialectic of human existence, referred to by the artist as “the inner life and the superficial life”, had always been mirrored in his work – body and soul, the material and immaterial, black/white and color, darkness and light. His painted scenarios – staging life itself – are densely populated by nameless, deindividualized figures. Most of them are branded with the signs of existential distress: they appear projected into their state of being, which they seem to fight, to rear up against, or to accept in total passiveness. Dramas full of a dynamism enhanced by extremely gestural brushstrokes and wild colorism are mollified by formal details such as frames, geometric shapes and the artifice of “the picture within the picture” and as such they are kept seemingly under the artist’s control.
Scenes of ambiguous horrors alternate with scenes of extraterrestrial harmony – or does each sequence of this series embody the one as well as the other?
Completely changed by the experience of Molina’s death, we stand in front of his final painting, which he referred to with a sad irony as his “Last Supper”. On the opening night of the exhibition I had come to know it as a delightful rather than a depressing pictorial abeyance – a vision of detachment from the battle of sexes, from the banal and from being driven by the conditio humana. Now we presume that the red teardrops, painted by Molina as a small alteration on the “Last Supper” shortly before the opening, anticipated our tears – not only the tears wept by we who are present, but also by the many friends, colleagues and companions from around the world who were able to accompany Molina in life for a while.
Ricardo Pau-Llosa, art critic, writer and Molina’s promoter in Miami referred to Juan José Molina, born in 1962 in Barranquilla, as one of the most important and promising artists having emerged from Columbia lately. He honored his graphic and painted oeuvre in various essays, which – due to Molina’s migratory life – are scattered throughout galleries and collections around the world. In his obituary on Juan José Molina “El Pincel y la Daga” (The Brush and the Dagger), Juan Luis Calbarro, expert on his Palma di Mallorca paintings, drew attention to Molina as an artist at the crossroad: the crossroad between his wish to be and the consciousness of being, constantly tormented by the sharp dagger of his sensibility. Aldo Castillo, Molina’s art dealer in Chicago, also received the news of his unexpected death with great consternation and dismay.
They and many others who were confronted with his artistic work are convinced of its extraordinary quality. We wish for the deceased Juan José Molina, his family and closest friends that his brilliant charcoal drawings, etchings and oil paintings will not be buried in oblivion, but will be received with great interest and compassion by future art lovers. May Juan José Molina continue to live through his art!
Maria Christine Holter,
art historian, curator and art educator in Vienna
J.J.Molina