Not Vital 'Skulptur 1986-2013'

Not Vital, an artist and modern-day nomad with roots in the town of
Sent in the Lower Engadine Valley, creates his sculptures in
studios scattered across the globe, in New York, Lucca, Agadez,
Patagonia, Sent, and recently Beijing. Fascinated and inspired by
life in this flourishing center of art in China, Vital has maintained his
own studio in Beijing for the past five years.
Galerie Andrea Caratsch is celebrating the opening of its second
gallery in St. Moritz with a survey of Not Vital’s work from 1986 to

1. At the gallery on Via Serlas 12, which features three
   voluminous, modern exhibition spaces with large windows, a total
   of 20 sculptures and large-format drawings by the internationally
   successful Swiss artist will be presented. Sculptures in white, gray,
   black and gleaming metal reveal the laws and ancient secrets of
   the circle of life and death. Vital takes his inspiration from nature,
   its forms and materials, and presents his artworks as objets
   trouvés whose vitality stems from their natural qualities and the
   interaction between culture and nature. The mountainous
   landscape and culture of the Engadine Valley is always present,
   but the works also reveal connections to faraway continents. Vital’s
   sculptures can be interpreted beyond the boundaries of any single
   culture, since they deal with the existential and are visually
   impressive as sensory artworks. Not Vital is a master of making
   visible and simultaneously nobilitating organic forms and utility
   objects. However, what is actually visible often becomes evident
   through what is not visible, the consciously hidden. This is the
   case, for instance, when the actual subject matter and significance
   of a 40-kilogram silver cube is only specified by its title, Troupeau,
   and its materials, silver and bones, thus making the viewer,
   whether an art connoisseur or a goat herder, the one who sees:
   the gleaming silver monolith turns out to be a sarcophagus, and
   artificially refined goat bones are a celebration of life.
   It is the subtle interplay between the visible and the invisible,
   between form and content, nature and culture, that makes Not
   Vital’s oeuvre particularly appealing. Fine materials such as marble,
   gold, silver and stainless steel are used alongside “poor” materials
   such as bones, plastic, wood and plaster in the manner of Arte
   Povera. The texture of the materials and the unusual formal
   language are striking. Year after year, the nomad returns to Sent,
   the source of his creative power, this summer with a survey of his
   work at the new Galerie Andrea Caratsch in St. Moritz.