Paris fills me completely but it will never be my homeland
El Nacional
Caracas, Venezuela. 11 June 1964
After an absence of twelve years, and a seven-year ago fleeting visit to Venezuela, Oswaldo Vigas the painter, has returned from Paris. In the French capital he has made an important work in relation to his personal career and also collaborating with Latin American artists in the struggle for the exhibition and the appreciation of their respective works. Oswaldo Vigas has been the organizer of the First Exhibition of Latin American Painting done in the world, which had been hosted in Paris.
-What is the reason for your return?
-There are two fundamental reasons. The first is spiritual and the second physical. In the first case i.e. that with the passing of time, I found myself "increasingly Martian."
-What do you mean by that?
-That one has the feeling of not belonging anywhere; a difficult situation when we have to live in Earth -adds Oswaldo Vigas.
-Have Paris disappointed you already?
-No. Paris filled me completely, but it will never be my homeland. I am fully aware that my fellow countrymen are here and not there. And for me it is time to make contact with the essence of my Venezuelan homeland and to get off the flying saucer.
-What do you owe to Paris?
-My training. I did not go to Europe to conquer anything, but to train myself completely, something that I fulfilled completely. I think that as a man I have accomplished all the cultural and human contributions that I have received. The mistake of many South Americans in Europe, which is sometimes perceived here inversely, is that instead of traveling with the idea to learn, they travel with the idea to conquer. Given that this conquest is not produced by the means they think, they obviously fail and then they suffer the disappointment. I can say that I have met South America in Paris. There is no contact between our countries in our continent, and Paris is the route through which all roads pass. It is in Paris where we can find our American travelers and where we really get to know them.
Oswaldo Vigas belongs to a group of two hundred painters who were able to participate in exhibitions in the French capital galleries. Compared to the 60,000 registered painters, it is a place of privilege.
-And without any vanity I am satisfied with it-, says Vigas. I've never tried to conquer this position, but I have reached it and I celebrate it.
-Are you a revolutionary painter?
-I was catalogued like that by the Lettres Françaises Critic, not because my paintings have a theme, but because they take part in a world conception that is linked to a moral action.
On July 19th, Oswaldo Vigas will expose 45 oils at the Mendoza Gallery, meanwhile he announces that he will eventually stay in Venezuela to propose and realize his enthusiastic projects.