Not Vital

(Switzerland) *1948 in Sent

The internationally known Swiss artist Not Vital lives and works in his birthplace of Sent in the Swiss Alps and since 1974, also variously in the USA, Niger, Italy and China. His multi-layered work is distinguished by his use of highly diverse techniques and materials. Vital works with silver, gold, bronze, steel and aluminium as well as glass, marble and wood. In his extensive travels, and with an almost anthropological curiosity, he harvests new techniques, forms, and methods of working from a variety of different cultures, which he then employs during the different phases of his work. Thus his conceptual sculptures and installations are inspired by the art of glass-blowing in Murano, for example, or by the goldsmithing art of the Tuaregs. His monumental sculpture “Tongue” almost seems to be a metaphor for his absorbing philosophy of life. The tongue, the organ with which the child first explores the world, is at the same time the tool for language and communication. In Bad Homburg, the over five metre-high “Tongue” in shining stainless steel stands like a memorial next to the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad, its abstracted organic form creating a compelling tension with the inorganic material.