2000

Un Coeur, un Monde, a group show organized by the NHK network of Japan, is presented in France, the United States, Vietnam, Australia, and Brazil, as well as in Japan. Vigas participates in The Latin American & Caribbean Contemporary Art Today at the Miura Museum of Art, Tokyo, and in Reacción y polémica en el arte venezolano at the Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas. The artist presents Entes, colonieras y recuerdos de viajes at the Galería DIMACA, Caracas.

“Vigas’ work presents a fantastic imaginary world, with entities or beings that are nothing more than the inhabitants of his own conscious.”

Édgar Cruz, text for the Vigas: Entes, colonieras y recuerdos de viajes exhibition catalog, Galería DIMACA, Caracas, November 2000

2001

The Coro Museum of Art reopens its doors with the inauguraral exhibition Oswaldo Vigas, 1952-1957. The Ascaso Art Gallery in Valencia hosts the solo show Noon Fiction. The writer, historian, and art critic Carlos Silva publishes the book Oswaldo Vigas, Legends of Tomorrow. Vigas participates in the First Salon of Art sponsored by Exxon Mobil of Venezuela.

2002

In the setting of the France-Venezuela 2002 Festival, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofía Imber (MACCSI) presents Oswaldo Vigas, ideografías de París, 1952-1957, which goes on to be displayed at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia, Maracaibo. Vigas shows graphic works at INSA de Lyon, France. He participates in Geometría como vanguardia, Colección Banco Mercantil, at the Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas; and he exhibits Oswaldo Vigas at the Tenji Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.

2003

Vigas is an official guest of the 56th Cannes International Film Festival on the occasion of the selection of his work La bruja de la culebra for the poster representing their prestigious category Un Certain Regard. He presents a solo exhibition Recuerdos del Presente at the Galería de Arte Ascaso in Caracas and a show of large-format graphics work at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas. With the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo he attends the Ibero American Art Fair in Caracas.

2004

He receives the Latinity Award 2004, awarded by the Latin American Union, with the endorsement of the jury of the Ambassadors of Member States represented in Venezuela. He participoates in the Feria Iberoamericana de Arte (FIA 2004), in Caracas, with the Galería de Arte Ascaso. On occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Alliance Française of Caracas, the Alliance Française of Paris presents Caracas in Paris.

2005

The exhibition Sacro y Mundano is presented by the Galería 700 Arte in Maracaibo, Venezuela, comprising oil paintings, drawings, and etchings. Under the technical direction of Alssio Saladino and Franco Uccelletti, Vigas makes the Trilogía para Banesco, a mural work (5 m x 40 m) made of Bisazza Venetian mosaics for the Ciudad Banesco Building in Caracas. The Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine in Angers, France exhibits Oswaldo Vigas: Sortilèges des tropiques: peintures, tapisseries, sculptures, céramiques 1950-20. The solo exhibition Grabados recientes, thirty works including holographs and etchings, is presented at the Alliance Française of Caracas.

2006

As part of the celebration of ten years of the gallery, the Galería Medicci of Caracas presents the solo exhibition Oswaldo Vigas: Criaturas del Asombro. Vigas participates in Le Musée de la Tapisserie a 20 ans at the Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, Angers, France; Documentaria, 30 años en el arte venezolano, at the Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas; and Iberoamérica, presented at the University of Saint Francis, Chicago, by the Aldo Castillo Gallery.

“The visual language of this Valencian artist asserts itself once again in his 2005 and 2006 work. However, we could say that in these years a chromatic inversion occurs in his pictorial language, emphasizing the relationship between drawing and the chromatic. The line, like an abyss, strongly defines the inside and the outside, as an expressive metaphor for the duality of existence. Both in the background and in figures, grays or raw patches that dominated in prior periods disappear to give vitality with green, red and yellow, colors of the tropics themselves. It is the seething of life, characteristic of Caribbean culture, that is present.”

Eduardo Planchart Licea, “Oswaldo Vigas-figuras ancestrales,” for the exhibiton Oswaldo Vigas, Galeria Medicci, February 2006

2007

The CAF Gallery in Caracas presents Oswaldo Vigas: pasión por la creación. His work Selvático II (1963) becomes part of the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Prague National Gallery, Czech Republic. The Fundación Banco Provincial, Caracas, presents Tierra y Fuego, Ceramics; as part of that exhibition, the Galería Medicci publishing house presents the book Mis dioses tutelares (“My Guardian Spirits”), a selection of Oswaldo Vigas’ poems.

2008

The Galería de Arte Ascaso in Caracas presents Oswaldo Vigas en París. Obras de los sesenta, and publishes the book of Vigas poems Regreso de la noche (“Return of the Night”), with a prologue by José Pulido. The Mary Ann Manning Gallery, Culturecentrum Schapoord, in Knokke, Belgium, presents Oswaldo Vigas, Art Nocturne Knokke. Vigas takes part in Atelier 3 Transpositions, Tapisseries, 1972-2008, at the Musée Jean Lurçat de la Tapisserie Contemporaine in Angers, France. He participates as guest artist in the XIII Biennial of Miniaturas Gráficas Luisa Palacios, Inter-American Development Bank (CAF) Gallery.

2009

The artist presents Mujeres, mujeres y mujeres, Dibujos y Giclées de Oswaldo Vigas at the Alliance Française La Castellana, Caracas; Oswaldo Vigas en InterValores, a solo exhibition at the InterValores Brokerage, Caracas; and Oswaldo Vigas, mujeres y otras realidades at the Galería Umbrales, Ciudad Guayana, Bolívar state, Venezuela. He participates in the exhibition Latin American Art, organized by Christie’s, New York. He is the honoree artist in the Feria Internacional de Arte y Antigüedades de Maracaibo (FIAAM).

“Vigas defines the main feature of his artistic production with a few words: ‘If there is no drawing, there is no painting. That is the basis, the fundamental structure of everything I’ve done in my life, except in some periods when the subject was most important.’”

Marjorie Delgado Aguirre, “The recent drawings of the 1952 National Painting Award winner will be exhibited from tomorrow,” El Nacional, November 2009, Caracas

2010

Vigas is the honoree artist of the XV Salón Cabriales de Pintura Figurativa. Fifteen gigantographies (banners) are presented at the Parque Fernando Peñalver, Valencia: Oswaldo Vigas, De Brujas a Curanderas (“From Witches to Midwives”). He participates in Latin American shows and sales, at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, New York, and in Chicago ARTEahora, at the Beach Convention Center in Miami, Florida, USA. He attends the Feria Iberoamericana de Arte (FIA 2010), Caracas, with the Galería de Arte Ascaso and the Galería Medicci (which he will attend again in 2011 and 2012). He participates in the group exhibition Colores y formas de la integración, organized by the Inter-American Development Bank Collection, CAF Caracas. The Office of the Mayor of Baruta presents Vigas a cielo abierto, and the Galería 700 Arte in Maracaibo presents Vigas sobre papel.

2011

The Centre d’Art Villa Tamaris, La Seyne-sur-mer, France, organizes the retrospective exhibition Oswaldo Vigas. Mérida, Paris, Caracas. Peintures. Vigas participates in the Fourth Biennial of Sculptures, Galería de Arte Trazos, Caracas.

“The title of the Oswaldo Vigas exhibition at Villa Tamaris implies the idea of ​​traveling, of itineracy. In the essay on Vigas’ work, Jacques Leenhardt said that in the difficult years of the early concerns, ‘Oswaldo enters the indigenous past to find an anchor that would counterbalance the European influences–and that since then, until today, Vigas’ ‘theater’ will be able to multiply its actors and their dramas, and acquire the amplitude of a ‘human comedy,’ ​​of a new euphoria made of vitality and irony.”

Robert Bonaccorsi, text for the Oswaldo Vigas. Mérida, Paris, Caracas. Peintures exhibition catalog, Villa Tamaris Centre d’Art, March 2011, La Seyne-sur-mer, France

2012

El Gabinete del Dibujo y la Estampa, Valencia, Venezuela, presents the retrospective El dibujo en la obra de Oswaldo Vigas, 1940-2012. The solo exhibitions Auténtico, at the Galería Utopía 19, and Lo erótico, at Galería Estudio Arte 8, are presented in Caracas. The artist represents Venezuela in the Ibero-American art exhibition organized on the occasion of the celebration of the two hundred years of the establishment of the Supreme Court, in Madrid, Spain.

2013

Vigas presents Vigas Constructivista, 1953-1957 at the Ascaso Gallery in Miami and in Caracas, Venezuela. At the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, he participates in Sintesis de las artes mayores, seis décadas 1953-2013, sponsored by the BBVA Provincial Foundation, and in Vigas in Black and White, at the France Embassy in Venezuela.

2014

Oswaldo Vigas dies on April 22.

The Dillon Gallery in New York presents Oswaldo Vigas: Transfiguration. After his death, the Galería de Arte Nacional presents the Homenaje Oswaldo Vigas in Caracas. The Miami Ascaso Gallery presents Vigas Informalista, París 1959-1964. In October, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima launches the traveling exhibition Oswaldo Vigas. Anthological 1943-2013, a project the artist had begun during his lifetime.

“With giant steps he advances in his development, showing changes in each period, but maintaining his figurative axis. He darkens or lightens his palette; he replaces the flat surface with the textured ones; dense matter and forms wind into space in a quasi-expressionism close to the American abstract expressionist school, to art brut and the CoBrA Group.”

Bélgica Rodríguez, Oswaldo Vigas, Oswaldo Vigas Foundation, Caracas, 2012