Interview with a Venezuelan plastic artist Oswaldo Vigas
"I never know what I am going to paint because I have no previous plan"
Albinson Linares
Ultimas Noticias
Caracas, Venezuela. November 10th, 2013
Photos: Hector Castillo
The artist looks at the fabrics as a loving father. He walks tenderly through each stroke, brushstroke and proportion of his creations and still talks with precision. The days go fast for Oswaldo Vigas, who at 89, laughs and cries in his canvases populated with fertile stones, mythical landscapes, signs, archangels, elves, solar mermaids, devils, healers, witches with dense strokes and bright colors that come alive. "I never know what I am going to paint because I never have a plan. The plan is given by the work, not by me. I let things happen and the most interesting is the unexpected. I pick up the pencil and do not know what I am going to draw; I stretch out my hand and she is the one that knows what to do. I leave it to her, "says the Valencian painter in the wide spaces of the Art Gallery Ascaso where he is exhibiting his Constructivist works.
-Few artists manage to summon a thousand people in the first day of his exhibition. How do you feel about that?
-All these works are of the same period, which runs from 1956 to 1958, around 60 years, so I am very happy. A person who does not do anything is because they are always happy. I am a painter because I have always been fucked, that is the secret of all this.
-Do you see a relationship between dissatisfaction and your aesthetic proposal?
-It is what makes you to be someone in life. I think that because I paint since I was 12 years old. The first exhibition I made was in 1952, but by that time I had already sold my first paintings. These paintings are from the forties and people marveled that I painted like that when you consider the fact that there was not even an art school in Valencia.
-What defines your artistic search?
-In life one can do what one wants to or do anything at all. Or do what others tell you to do. I always did what I wanted and I still like that. I am still doing what I like, I paint what pleases me.
-This exhibition gathers your constructivist era in Paris. What influences do you remember of those years?
-I have never thought of any school or art current. I never had a school; I always did what I thought I should really do. I have always painted with what I had on hand. I never thought of looking for a better deal, what I was getting was enough. I work with what I have and with what I can get. I never look for a damn thing.
-Is still Paris among your favorite cities?
-I had many loves and friends there. Many people who are dear in my affections. For me, it remains the same, a city that does not change. People pass, die, but Paris is always there. When I first went in 1952 I visited all the museums and spent the entire day at the Louvre, I knew it inside out. I stayed all day at the Museum of Modern Art, now located at the Georges Pompidou Center, which did not exist before.
-What did you look for in that Parisian artistic expression of the fifties?
-I kept contemplating them in order not to be the same. You have to see the things that are already made and never follow them; I looked at them so I did not look like them, to go against those flows. That is important.
-And Alejandro Otero, who was one of the most complex Venezuelan painters of the last century?
-Alejandro Otero was a great painter. Poor Alexander died, I estimated him a lot, but he was tormented. He did good things and also made stupid things with machines that I do not like. I am very careful about that: neither do not say stupid things because it is a very easy thing to do.
-What other artists do you admire for their plastic proposes?
-I like Joseph Turner and Pablo Picasso too. I feel identified with Mexicans like Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo, who is a close friend of mine; I have about five works that he gave me in Oaxaca, where he is from.
-What element unites the works of these painters that you have just mentioned?
-All Major artists have followed their own way; there has been no important artist that has followed the path of another. That is for idiots. Creativity is a source that is there for everyone, and one grabs it or not. Some people do not want it because they like to look like others. For me, if I look like another artist or not, I do not care.
-And now that you are older, do you feel that you have forgiven your enemies?
-I do not know and I do not care. I think it has rather elevated me. I do not remember many of my detractors and those who I remember, the majority cartoonists or critics, are dead. I think they did me a lot of good, because if someone speaks bad things about me, it is very good. Unfortunately, today there are no people left who speak bad things about me. Death took them all away and I am still here.
-Do you feel you have been lucky in love?
-Yes of course. I have loved and have been loved, I would like to have all of my loves together, all the women that I have loved beside me.
-Always have them nearby just to love them. Have you given up a lot of things for painting?
-Of course. You cannot be a painter and at the same time say speeches. Or write; I have written things but I am not a writer; sometimes I start to write, but only that. I will dictate my memoirs, but I am still living those memoirs every day, it is important to live them. I live my things, what I am and nothing else. I neither want more nor can have everything. You have to leave a large part. When one lives one cannot experience everything.
-Did you miss Venezuela a lot in your long stays abroad?
-Yes, that is why I live here because I like Venezuela. I like my country and I love it; this is why I came back from Europe. I could have stayed in Paris because I was offered the French nationality many times, but I did not take it because I do not need it, but I always loved France and they have loved me there.
-Do you often go back to Valencia?
-For me, this city is my mother and my brothers because I lived there with them. Sometimes I go to Valencia to the house where I was born in La Pastora, at the Anzoátegui Street. That house is been taken care of because I have a person who lives there and keeps it in good condition. Sometimes I go and I keep staring at it, even though I feel nothing special. I like to go there so the memories come back to me and live them once again; but not all the memories, because then I suffer.
-Are you very careful with suffering in the present years?
-Yes of course, when one is a sentimental as I am, one would rather not dwell a lot on memories. I am a crybaby and that is fine. Today I have cried among my paintings. I do not hide it; I not only feel pleasure laughing, but also mourning.
-In 2010, American author Philip Roth said that "old age is a masacre." What do you think about this?
-I have never thought about it, I do not know how many years I still have left. I have had half of my body paralyzed, my right leg does not work very well and I struggle to control my hand. I, who always have been so independent, now need people to help me. I do more drawing than painting, but I do it every day. I am humble and I know that I am not important and I do not care to be, I do not care if I am not famous. This is the way I am and I feel good like this...