Founded by Sally Lilienthal, M.I.X. (1972–75) aimed to broaden the museum’s outreach and engagement with local communities to reflect the diversity of San Francisco by offering community events that included concerts, performances, exhibitions, and mural commissions, hosted both at the museum as well as public venues throughout various San Francisco neighborhoods. As part of its charge, M.I.X. sought to include artists of minorities within the museum’s exhibition circuit, launching the M.I.X. exhibition series. In its first year, Jenkins and Castellón served as the joint program director and coordinator of M.I.X. After 1972, Castellón directed the program until its discontinuation in 1975.
As outlined in the report, by its second year, M.I.X. had gained significant traction with local communities by increasing museum attendance and fostering exchanges through its programs, including collaborations with local artists and organizations. Among the major changes introduced to the program since its inception in 1972 concerned its revised performance roster, as the program turned its attention away from well-known and established performers toward more “grassroots” performers known within their respective communities. This strategic shift intended to create more opportunities for emerging artists across several genres, including poetry, music, and dance. The report also includes a selection of images highlighting a year’s worth of events, accompanied by a detailed list, and programs and exhibitions that took place both at the museum as well as at community venues. Looking to 1974, the report ends with projected plans and a budget breakdown for that year, including key highlights such as the major exhibition A Third World Painting and Sculpture Exhibition that was set to take place from June 12 through August 3, 1974.
Rolando Castellón (b.1937) is a Nicaraguan artist and curator who moved to San Francisco in 1956 at the age of nineteen. During his time living in the Bay Area, he was a prominent advocate for community arts programming and minority artists, working actively as a practicing artist, curator, gallerist, and cultural worker. In the late 1960s, he became involved with Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes, serving as the director of artistic programs in 1969. Coming out of this work, Castellón became a cofounder of Galería de la Raza in 1970 and was elected as the Galería’s first director before it became more established and moved away from a cooperative model. After two years, he left Galería to work at SFMOMA, first as the program coordinator and art director of M.I.X. (1972–75), and later as a full-time curator (1975–81). After his appointments at SFMOMA, he served as the director of the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery at UC Santa Cruz (1982–92). During this time, he opened different iterations of Castellón Gallery, and curated exhibitions at various venues across San Francisco; among them, Drawings from the Fourth World at Meridian Gallery in 1989. In 1993, he moved back to Costa Rica, where he had briefly lived as a young boy, and was appointed the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MADC) in 1994. He continues to live and work in San José, Costa Rica.
