1960

Vigas participates in Collection of Contemporary Art of Latin America, at the Pan American Union, Washington D.C. By the end of 1958 we can see in his work the need to break with the formal and arrive at a decisive point in the use of subject matter that for the next three years evokes feelings of a primeval landscape.

1961

The artist presents Vigas, peintures récentes, at the Galerie La Roue, in Paris. He participates in 3 peintres: Attila, Ann Weber, et Vigas, Galerie Neufville, and in the XVII Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, with Francis Bacon, Enrico Baj, Capogrossi, Charchoune, Marta Colvin, Agustín Fernández, Sam Francis, Hundertwasser, Ipousteguy, John Levée, André Masson, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Irving Petlin, Emilio Pettoruti, Antonio Saura, Shinkichi Tajiri, Rufino Tamayo, Mark Tobey, Zañartu, and Zao Wou-ki. He takes part in the XXII Salón Oficial Anual de Arte Venezolano at the Museo de Bellas Artes, and in the De la colonia a nuestros días, Pintura venezolana: 1661-1961, whose catalog prologue was written by Geraldo Meneses.

1962

With other seventeen other artists– among them Jacobo Borges, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Manuel Espinoza, Luis Guevara Moreno, Humberto Jaimes Sánchez, Alejandro Otero, Mercedes Pardo, Régulo Pérez, Héctor Poleo, Manuel Quintana Castillo, and Jesús Soto– Vigas participates in an exhibition at the Venezuelan-Israeli Cultural Institute, New York, which was subsequently presented in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He participates in the XVII Salon des Réalités Nouvelles with Sonia Delaunay, Emile Gilioli, Marc Jacobsen, Jean Messagier, Mortensen, Orlando Pelayo, Piza, Serge Poliakof, Mario Prassinos, Victor Vasarely, and Helena Vieira da Silva at the Museé d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, where he also organizes and promotes the institution’s first exhibition of Latin American Art with other Latin American artists and French critics. Along with Mariano Hernández, Joan Mitchell, and John Von Wicht, he exhibits at the Galerie Neufville and in Donner à voir N° 2 at the Galerie Creuze, in Paris. For “impulsion ou la nature du geste” (“impulse or the essence of gesture”), Vigas is selected by the French critic Raoul Jean Moulin to participate in the exhibition L’art latinoaméricain à Paris at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Vigas participates in Pintores contemporáneos de la Escuela de París at the Rabat Museum, Morocco, organized by Gaston Diehl. He is appointed Commissioner for Venezuela at the XXXI Venice Biennale.

1963

Vigas takes part in several group exhibitions: XIX Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; La Boîte et son contenu, with Arnal, Arroyo, Baj, Bury, J. E. Camargo, César, Guzmán, Mariano Hernández, Istrati, Labisse, Lapoujade, Licata, Minujín, Nevelson, Peverelli, Piza, Rebeyrolle, Jesús Soto, Sugai, and Takis; Del paisaje a la expresión plástica, Musée Maison de la Culture, Le Havre; and Donner a voir N° 2 at the Galerie Creuze (curated by Gerald Gassiot Talabot, Jean Clarence Lambert, Jean Jacques Lévèque, Raoul Jean Moulin, and José Pierre). He presented two solo exhibitions: Vigas, peintures récentes, Galerie La Roue, and Vigas, Galerie Neufville and Librairie-Galerie Anglaise, whose catalog was organized by Raoul Jean Moulin. Vigas participates in a group exhibition at the Adams Morgan Gallery, Washington D.C. He attends the Stanley William Hayter’s etching workshop.

“With Vigas, here is painting that moves, where all the expressive violence of this young Venezuelan appears inscribed in color and gesture. He has ceased to compose a node of massive lines like a nebula suspended in the space of the picture, subject to a glazed, chalk-white light. Vigas covers the canvas from edge to edge, sweeping it with a dripping black brush that conceals the harshness of greens, reds, yellows. The subject seems to have transformed-- it is more expressive; its space, made of light and transparencies. It is also less studied; it is simply installed in the picture’s space, flooded with a tumult of color.”

Jacques Michel, “A través las galerías,” (exhibition at the Neufville Gallery), Le Monde, November 15, 1963, Paris

1964

Vigas settles in Venezuela with his wife Janine and lives in Valencia.

The artist presents two solo exhibitions in Caracas: Oswaldo Vigas, pinturas de los años 1960-1964 at the Fundación Eugenio Mendoza gallery, and another at the Ateneo de Caracas, whose cataliog text was written by José Augusto Franca and Robert Ganzó. He presents Oswaldo Vigas, exposición de pinturas at the Universidad de los Andes, in Mérida. He participates in the XXII Salón Arturo Michelena. For the second time he wins the Arturo Michelena Award. He presents Oswaldo Vigas, retrospectiva 1941-1964 and participates in the group exhibitions L’École at the Musée d’Alger, homage to the Algerian revolution, and La pintura latinoamericana, Artistas de la Escuela de París at the Casa de la Cultura in Havana, Cuba.

“An exhilarating show, maybe a little monstrous, of unforeseen dimensions: those black forms, live snakes that threaten the oil compositions, are organized in the gouaches, joining the game of gestures as a key to our reading or a compass to mark the route. Here’s the compelling reason to believe that Vigas has understood the greatest responsibility of this journey, spiritual and physical at once, routed between gesture and sign, into a atmosphere of magical, human density.”

José Augusto Franca, from the catalog of the exhibition Oswaldo Vigas: grabados, dibujos, gouaches, Ateneo de Caracas, November, 1964

1965

Vigas is appointed Director of Culture at the Universidad de los Andes. He settles in Mérida, Venezuela, where he continues painting. He founds the Center of Cinematography, the first cinematographic school in the country. He presents the exhibition Oswaldo Vigas: pinturas de los años 1960-1964 at the Casa de la Cultura in Maracay, Aragua, and participates in the traveling group exhibition Venezolanische Malerei von Heute at the Newmann Foundation, Germany, with the participation of artists like Jacobo Borges, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Luis Guevara Moreno, Elsa Gramcko, Francisco Hung, Humberto Jaimes Sánchez, Alejandro Otero, Mercedes Pardo, Héctor Poleo, Luisa Richter, and Jesús Soto.

“The final period in Paris (1959-1964) corresponds to an explosion. The force of conquered subject matter, reduced to its simplest forms, is seen in paintings that proclaim liberation. Materials, texturalism, and action painting enter the scene with full power, to bring each canvas to a collapse or an epiphany. The figure struggles during this decade to stand out brilliantly, to become a great character. There is a powerful reason: the work has been liberated.”

Roberto Guevara, catalog of the Parisian exhibition of Los dioses oscuros (“The Dark Gods”), Caracas, August 1993

1966

Vigas participates in the international exhibition Grabadores latinoamericanos in Montevideo, Uruguay. In Caracas he presents Las brujas, árbol genealógico, Oswaldo Vigas: 1941-1952 at Gallery 22, under the coordination of Nelly Baptista; the texts for the catalog are written by Juan Sánchez Peláez and the artist himself.

“There’s something in Vigas tying him deeply to the American soil… Still in his last compositions, a tenacious struggle between intellect and a Dionysian impulse is fought... He catches the often opaque human figure and distorts it so that it acquires glare.”

Juan Sánchez Peláez, catalog essay for Las brujas, árbol genealógico, Oswaldo Vigas: 1941-1952

1967

Birth of Vigas’ son Lorenzo (February 13). The artist presents Vigas: pinturas 1965-1967 at the Fundación Eugenio Mendoza in Caracas, and Oswaldo Vigas, Venezuelan Witches, at the Inter-American Development Bank Gallery, Washington D.C.

“Beings, plants, minerals, and vermin must once have been together, making a single body. With these figures, I am simply trying to assemble what should never have been separated, restoring some balance in the disorder of creation.”

Eduardo Planchart Licea, Paris catalog essay, “Oswaldo Vigas, Arqueología espiritual de un continente,” Caracas, July 1993

1968

Vigas organizes the first Festival Internacional de Música in Mérida. With the support of his wife, Janine. With Juan Astorga Anta, Antonio Estévez, Maurice Hasson, Eduardo Lira Espejo, Carlos Rebolledo, Jesús Rondón Nucete, and the Rector of the Universidad de los Andes, Pedro Rincón Gutiérrez, he organizes the First Exhibition of Latin American Documentary Film. The Museo de Arte Moderno Juan Astorga Anta is created. The artist resigns as Director of Culture at the Universidad de los Andes.

“Telluric matters and spooky issues occupy every day in Oswaldo Vigas’ painting– the retrospective odyssey of the American man in search of his origins.”

Aquiles Nazoa, foreword to the Mitificaciones exhibition catalog, Fundación Eugenio Mendoza, Caracas, June 1970

1969

To mark the bicentenary of the city of Tinaquillo, the artist presents the solo exhibition Oswaldo Vigas at the Casa del Maestro of that city. He participates in the XXVII Arturo Michelena Salon, Ateneo de Valencia.

“His work aims toward a simplification of form that, without being geometric or stereotyped, contains precise and repeated symbols. The lines become straight, a dotted line tends to repeat itself, while some forms are highlighted by color, and the materiality of impasto leaves the picture.”

Sebastián Romero, foreword to the Oswaldo Vigas: mitos y figuraciones exhibition catalog, Portobello Art Gallery, Caracas, October 1973