Oswaldo Vigas, a delirium of freedom outlined with oil
María Angelina Castillo Borgo
El Nacional
Caracas, Venezuela. April 11, 2016.
São Paulo, Brasil
The retrospective that has toured through different museums like Bogota, Lima and Santiago de Chile and which inquires into the styles and techniques of the artist, is currently being shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in São Paulo.
The activity was frantic, anxious. Trestle, canvas, brush. At all times and in defense of painting. He said it was thunder, lightning; but it was also witches and masks. It was a symphony of Mahler, a letter of Pablo Picasso.
In art and in life Oswaldo Vigas was a man of great strength. Expressive, assert those who knew him. If he was not painting, he was drawing; or working on his murals, sculptures and engravings. "It was passion, and like every passion, it has a certain degree of madness. There are no passions that have common sense, not by any chance", says Bélgica Rodríguez.
The curator and art researcher took one of many planes and traveled to São Paulo, along with an important team, the foundation’s team that bears the name of the Valencian artist born in 1926. The aim: to present the sample that has gone through some of the most important museums in South America in order to publicize his work. And despite the vast universe of shapes and strokes, his signature is not abundant neither in the American nor the European collective mind.
"He was not so well known because he did not like to make himself any promotion, he liked neither to sell his paintings nor to maintain relationships with galleries. In part, it was something positive because he was free to create anything he wanted, but the trouble was that he was not disclosed. At that time, because we had to eat, my mom had to sell some of his works", recalled his son, Lorenzo Vigas, at the conference that preceded the opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo. And the idea is to continue to the northern part of the continent and perhaps to cross the Atlantic.
Lima, Santiago de Chile and Bogotá were the first stops of the Oswaldo Vigas. Anthological 1943 - 2013 and each display has been different: in the number of works, the concept of assembly, the structure of the room. "The idea has been maturing for some time. Oswaldo Vigas was still alive. The intention was always to go to museums, places where artists like Soto and Cruz-Diez have made exhibitions, where a little bit of Venezuelan art is known. That was the issue in which we were focused. We made a first catalog that would make lobby and which already had a first selection of works. I traveled to different countries to locate buildings. It was a pretty intense work. In Lima it was more or less easy because the Museum of Contemporary Art already had a work of him. Brazil was the most receptive” says Rodriguez, who was in charge of being the curator of the first three samples of the exhibition. The São Paulo approach was different.
Subjects for a retrospective. The French critic and essayist Jean-Clarence Lambert, who met Vigas in Paris in the fifties, said that his work resembled the CoBrA Group, which brought together artists like Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn and Corneille in the late forties.
It was Lambert who put Vigas’ son Lorenzo, in contact with Katia Weitering, artistic director of the Museum of Modern Art in Holland. And so she, along with Imre Kis-Jovak, member of the International Council of Museums and the International Committee of Technical Museum, was commissioned to design and to be the curator of the proposal that would be exhibited in Brazil.
"We decided to focus on the reasons that comprise the world of Oswaldo Vigas. He worked so many forms of expression; he can be abstract and baroque; vibrant and almost aggressive in some cases. Instead of making a chronological presentation, we decided to group together works from different periods and connect them in a dialogue", says Weitering. Jovak adds: "This space became something organic. And through all the elements, this man comes to life."
The exhibition is comprised of 63 paintings on various scales, five sculptures and a projection room where a Vigas’ documentary narrated by Alejo Felipe, Renovación en el origen (1996) is being projected. It is divided into four modules, with its billboards and an introductory text. The first is the human figure, a fundamental motif that runs through all his work. There, the female forms worked on his "witches" appear. The second, shows the mythological character of his paintings: the research in pre-Hispanic art and the influences that include biblical references. A family memorabilia with photographs, drawings, letters, cassettes, books and working tools which delves into his private life are added.
The third module is constructivism embodied into his paintings and murals, in which there is an approach to architecture and to modernist tendencies. The end is dedicated to freedom of the method: how he plays with materials and techniques.
Free and revalued. Even though she is cautious when she tells us that more time is needed, Rodriguez assures that with this traveling retrospective that began in 2014, the work of the painter has revalued. In fact, late last year, his Unfinished Paradise oleo broke his personal record when it was auctioned at Christie's for $ 221,000.
Polish Marek Bartelik, president of the International Association of Art Critics stated about the importance of the work of Vigas: "I am interested in artists who remain faithful to themselves; how he learned from the European experience and incorporated it into his own language. Although he was a free artist, he was a man that showed a lot of discipline. I met him personally and he was everything I expected: spontaneous, emotional and at the same time committed to his art."
"We decided to focus on the reasons that comprise the world of Oswaldo Vigas. He worked so many modes of expression; he can be abstract and baroque."
Katia Weitering. Director of CoBrA Museum in Amsterdam
"I am interested in artists who remain faithful to themselves; how he learned from the European experience and incorporated it into his own language."
Marek Bartelik. President of AICA
"The idea has been maturing for some time. The intention was always to go to museums, places where some Venezuelan artists have already been to.”
Bélgica Rodríguez. Researcher
The Oswaldo Vigas Foundation, a space for disclosure
The filmmaker Lorenzo Vigas is the chairman of the Oswaldo Vigas Foundation, while Dilia Hernandez is in charge of the creative direction. The institution is composed of ten people and maintains offices in Caracas.
The projects carried out at present are the inventorying of the work of Vigas – they already have 60% registered, the rest is in Collections-, organizing events and exhibitions. The next activity that is highlighted by the foundation is the publication of a book about the painter who will be distributed by Editorial Planeta, written by Brazilian researcher Lisbeth Rebollo, Colombian Alvaro Medina, curator and Venezuelan writer Bélgica Rodríguez and the president of the International Association of Art Critics, Marek Bartelik.
"Mainly, our job is to disclose the work of my father. Later we plan to create a prize for young Latin American artists and a raisonné catalog of the work of Oswaldo Vigas; furthermore, we will start again the Looking for Vigas campaign, focused on giving the opportunity to different people to register the works of Vigas that they own. And soon will launch the official website", he says.
Personally, Vigas’ son will present a documentary about his father that goes beyond the artist’s work and is focused on a more intimate aspect of the artist: "It is a film that will allow people to delve more into the unfamiliar: the human side, his anguish and pain. The film is already finished, and we are waiting to see in which festival is selected".