Museo de Arte Jesus Soto
The Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. It is named after the kinetic artist and sculptor Jesús Soto, who was born in Ciudad Bolívar. The building, which opened in 1973, is a late work of the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva.
On August 25, 1973, the President of the Republic, Dr. Rafael Caldera, inaugurated the Museum of Modern Art of the Jesús Soto Foundation in Ciudad Bolívar. The work, although it was decreed by the Governor Carlos Eduardo Oxford-Arias, its total construction was made under the administration of the architect Manuel Garrido Mendoza, student of the architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, designer of the work,
It cost 1,300,000 bolivars and was opened with important works of art donated by Soto as a loan and whose value was then estimated at 2,500,000 dollars. Maestro Antonio Estévez integrated his musical creativity with a work titled Multiple Microvibrafonía, made up of six parts, one for each Room of the Museum.
The speech at the opening ceremony of the Museum in 1973 and attended by notable personalities from the national and international artistic and intellectual world, was given by Alfredo Boulton, who presented the Museum as "a challenge to the sedentary and archaic ... a shout in the public square for young people of spirit who want to launch into their own and supreme creative adventure ».
Caldera, who on that occasion received the Collar de Angostura like Soto the Andrés Bello Order, found in Soto's work as in that of the other exhibitors "an unlimited capacity for creation in full development" while Carlos Cruz Díez compared the existence of the Museum with a trigger in a country where the notion of the world is defined by the party's slogans.
The Museum managed by a Foundation created by the Regional Government and chaired by Soto, began under the direction of Armando Gil Linares, who months earlier had won the first prize at the Alejandro Otero Hall of the Casa de la Cultura. The first board of directors of the Foundation was made up, in addition to Soto as president, by Alfredo Boulton as Vice-president; Carlos Raúl Villanueva, Guillermo Meneses, Miguel Arroyo, Hans Neumann, Miguel Otero Silva, Simón Alberto Consalvi, Luis Pastori, Silvia Boulton de Ellis, María Teresa Castillo, Margot de Villanueva, Sofía Imber, Narciso Debourg, Lourdes Blanco de Arroyo and Ángel Ramón Giugni.
The Museum has hosted many events, including the III Biennial of the South "Pueblos en Resistencia" (2019) with the participation of 30 national artists including Francisco Rada (Capital District), Lisbeth Cedeño (Carabobo), Julie Hermoso (Trujillo ), Ligia Acuña Pitto (Anzoátegui) and the D76 Collective (Aragua)