Not Vital American Swiss, b. 1948

Not Vital, born in Sent, Switzerland, in 1948, is an artist whose work drifts between sculpture, installation, painting and drawing, dissolving the boundary between the real and the illusory. His practice is shaped by a deep curiosity about culture, architecture and human behaviour – an anthropological impulse that has led him across continents and into remote geographies. Vital’s work often merges abstract and figurative forms, creating spaces that feel at once monumental and introspective. There is a quietude to what he makes, a sense of reverence – for landscape, for craft, for the unseen structures that shape how we live. In recent years, he has worked closely with architects and engineers on projects exploring the philosophy of housing and the poetics of space, particularly in Niger, Switzerland and Patagonia. He continues to live and work between Beijing, Rio de Janeiro and his native Sent.

 

Vital studied at the Centre Universitaire Expérimental in Vincennes. Vital has exhibited extensively around the world since the 1970s. He has had solo exhibitions at Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2020, 2010); Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (2018); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (2016); Kloster Schoenthal Foundation, Langenbruck (2015); Kunsthalle Wien, Wien (2009); The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago; Currents – Art and Music, Beijing (both 2008); Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld (2005); and New Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow (2004). In 2001 he participated in the 49th Venice Biennial. His recent group exhibitions include AFRICA. ARCHITECTURE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (2015); Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (2010); Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (both 2008); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2007), Fondation Beyeler, Riehen (2006), and Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld (2005). Vital's work is represented in numerous prestigious public collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Philadelphia Museum, Philadelphia; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; Kunstmuseum, Bern; and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.