The legacy of Oswaldo Vigas transcends in Latin America
By Leisber Curvelo
Revista Exclusiva
Caracas, Venezuela. April 15, 2016
Since April 2, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) of São Paulo, Brazil, exhibits a selection of the most important works of the Venezuelan painter and muralist Oswaldo Vigas, who died on April 22, 2014. The exhibition includes 63 paintings and five sculptures made by Vigas along his artistic path. The exhibition was organized by Bélgica Rodríguez (writer and historian) along with guest curator Katja Weitering (artistic director of the CoBrA Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen, Netherlands).
The MAC is part of the spaces of the main campus of the University of São Paulo. Since 1992, the MAC hosts more than 8 works, protecting one of the largest and most complete collections of Western art of the twentieth century in Latin America.
This exhibition has already been presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima, Peru, then occupied the spaces of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2014. Currently, it will occupy the spaces of MAC São Paulo until July 13, for then later to be displayed in other Latin American countries.
This work reflects a retrospective of his work in his artistic life, where we are able to experience through the works of Oswaldo Vigas, the sense of belonging to the American continent that was an innate part of him. These works reveal us mineral, vegetable and animal elements, as well as the female figure, which links everything to the land and to the origin of life.
This exhibition will continue to travel to Panama City, Mexico City and some US cities.
In 1990, the founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), Sofia Imber, organized a retrospective with more than 200 works by the artist: paintings, sculptures, tapestries, ceramics, jewelry and handicrafts. This sample received the name: Renovación en el origen.