Three years later, after winning the Baltazár Gavilán National Sculpture Prize, he met the Spanish sculptor Jorge Oteiza, who was visiting Lima, and developed a strong relationship with him.
[13] In 1957 Piqueras participated in the XII Salon de Réalités Nouvelles in Paris with paintings; his work was commented on by the French critic Leon Degand, in Art Aujourd’hui.
During this period, the Italian critic Alberto Boato presented his work in the Galleria del Cavallino (Venice): "…Piqueras unites forcefulness and violence with a firm sense of assuredness, of dominion, of clarity and precision.
In 1960, he participated in the XXX Biennale Internazionale de Venezia, where his work was commented on by Alain Jouffroy: "…Piqueras and Larrain, both of them very interesting for their sense of mystery and the magical power of their forms…"[16] Piqueras moved to Paris in 1961.
In summers in Cadaqués, Spain, he developed strong and lasting friendships with Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, George Staempfli, Mary Callery, Barbara Curtis, Alfonso Mila, Jose Antonio Rumeu and others.
The art journal mETRO published an extensive article on his work with texts by Alain Jouffroy, Paul Steinberg and Bruno Alfieri, editor of the magazine.
But I must add to that list [of the 8-9 most noteworthy artists...] Piqueras, a great painter who nonetheless is scandalously little known, to whom Peru, his home country, has given only two walls plus a fraction of another, when they should rather have presented him like Le Parc or Stenvert or Raysse, giving him the generous amplitude of an entire room, appropriately lit and arranged to favor the works so as to allow the neophyte and uninspired visitor to have a one-in-a-thousand opportunity to "see" – and I mean exactly that, to "see" – what fate has put before their eyes: these marvels of mental purity and rigor.
[...] "Interventi nella citta" (Interventions in the City)... offers concrete opportunities to demolish the... loathesome barriers between the public and Art... to propose direct contact with the artist without unfortunate intermediaries.
[24] Piqueras developed a friendship with Italo Calvino, who was struck by the spirit of the sculpture "Impossible N°1" and its affinity to the main character in his story "Il Conte di Montecristo".
[25] The larger-than-life-size personage "Él", with his full identity kit, was born later - in 1982 - when the architect Sandro Masera saw the figure in Harper's Grand Bazaar and commissioned the bronze for a house he was building in Emilia-Romagna.
In Pietrasanta, in 1973, Piqueras convened – together with Alicia Penalba, Giuglio Lazotti, Gianni and Michele Benvenuti and numerous other artists – a homage to Salvador Allende, the Chilean President ousted by General Pinochet.
Rafael Alberti, Henry Moore, Renato Guttuso, Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino and many others participated by signing and leaving their handprints on posters – "Non dimentichiamo il Cile" – which were then displayed throughout the plaza.
[27] Feeling the need to escape from the world of galleries and the art market, in 1978 Piqueras began to work as a photographer, together with Marina Faust, for magazines such Harper's Gran Bazaar, Interni, Ville e Giardini, Casa Vogue, Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Cree and Corto Maltese.
He proposed and realized numerous photo-reportages on subjects such as Salvador Dalí, Hans Hollein, Hunderwasser, Karl Lagerfeld, Man Ray and Etienne Martin, as well as architecture and other themes.
There, Piqueras continued to review his own history, recreating works from damaged remnants or timeworn vestiges of earlier pieces, recovering materials found on the street or the beach, using detritus to produce objects and collages with tongue-in-cheek references to erudite or banal subjects.
In the Palazzo Ducale di Maierá (Calabria, Italy) in 1996, Piqueras conceived and organized the exhibition "Sogni pietrificati" (petrified dreams), including installations he erected with the stones recently excavated for the construction of the nearby amphitheater of M’ara.
He proposed "encounters" with the sculptures of various friends, inviting Iginio Balderi, Eli Benveniste, Alfio Mongelli, Joaquin Roca Rey and Jorgen Haugen Sorensen to display their works within these installations.
In 2003, Bruno Alfieri invited Piqueras to realize the trophy for the yearly competition "l’Automobile più bello del mondo", organized by the magazine Automobilia.
He created an object with a metal base, painted Ferrari red, holding a wheel woven from bamboo reeds in the style traditionally used in Peru to make firework "castles" for major celebrations.
In 2010, Jorge Piqueras was awarded the Orden del Sol al Mérito por Servicios Distinguidos by the Peruvian Ambassador to France in the name of the Republic of Peru.