Not Vital

Not Vital is a Swiss artist whose work brings together sculpture, architecture and the experience of landscape. After growing up in a Romansh-speaking environment in the Grisons, he studied in Paris in the late 1960s and then settled in New York in 1974. Movement between different places and cultures became a constitutive element of his practice: he divides his time between several countries while maintaining a close connection with his native village.

The Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur presents him as an artist from the Lower Engadine and devoted a comprehensive exhibition to his work in 2017, covering the period from its beginnings in 1964.

Vital works with a wide range of materials and formats: steel, marble, plaster, clay, paper and natural elements enter into sculptures, drawings, paintings and installations. His works often move between abstraction and figurative evocation, while also questioning the relationships between body, dwelling and environment. Some interventions take on an architectural or public dimension; they draw inspiration from places he has visited and from local building practices.

The artist notably developed the term “SCARCH” to designate an encounter between sculpture and architecture.

His attachment to the Engadine is also expressed through heritage initiatives. He established the Fundaziun Not Vital, which includes, among other sites, the sculpture park in Sent, Tarasp Castle and the Planta Haus in Ardez. These places host artworks and cultural activities, bringing contemporary creation, architecture and regional heritage into coexistence.

This notice therefore emphasises the links between international mobility and local rootedness that structure his practice.