not vital

In Not Vital’s universe, symbols and materials travel in high velocity on the metamorphic highways of alchemy. Redefining the possible, Vital presents us with unique artworks that instigate us to acquire new ways of seeing and thinking.

Lotus flowers suddenly present themselves clothed entirely in reflective stainless steel. Removed from the mortal realm of the organic, they carry timeless buds that will forever gleam in seclusion. Walking Sticks are abruptly separated from their function by their enlarged size, standing before us like utopian totems. A Tongue turns into an obelisk, and the Moon lands on earth. Animated Land- and Seascapes slowly, yet unequivocally emerge out of marble plates. Portraits of well-known figures such as Oscar Niemeyer materialize in the form of elegant cubic sculptures made out of silver. White bronze trees extend their branches into the altitude. While unavailingly searching for their leaves, we instead encounter agglomerations of letters that together disclose meaning. Drawings, on the other hand, suddenly cease to be two-dimensional, obtaining sculptural qualities by means of their unorthodox materials.

In retracing Vital’s capacity for transformation, and in trying to better understand his ability to decontextualize, reconfigure, and relocate cultural fragments and symbols, his own mobility emerges as an important explanatory variable: Vital was born in 1948, in Sent, a small mountain village in the Engadin valley of Switzerland. At the age of eighteen, he moved to Paris, shortly after that to Rome, and in 1976 to New York. Since then, he has been traveling unremittingly to all corners of the world, living and working periodically in Agadez (Niger), Lucca (Italy), Beijing (China), Patagonia (Chile), and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).

Propelled by a seemingly unrelenting urge to discover the world, its cultures, and their craft, Vital immerses himself into new worlds with prodigious ease. The regions that interest him the most are often remote and difficult to access, but this does not stop him—on the contrary. By learning from and collaborating with the local methods of making that are prevalent in those areas, he creates artworks and devises projects that are just as mobile as himself. 

The works that together comprise this exhibition are all the result of Vital’s multilocal vita activa that I have briefly outlined here. Many of the works on display were made in the artist’s studio in Beijing—by skillful workers who understand both, Vital’s quest for the perfect form, as well as the importance of the human touch in his oeuvre. Concomitantly, in contrast to most large-scale stainless-steel sculpture, these works are not cast but chased by hand. In the course of this process, hundreds of rough little panels of steel are hammered in shape, welded together, and then minutely polished. Born in a symphony of hammer blows, Vital’s sculptures harbor the human touch, yet they simultaneously emanate a sort of deep-seated, utopian quietness.

Vital’s Lotus conceptually originate from a specifically Chinese context. The artist’s first series of works that departed from the lotus flower was an installation comprised of one hundred unique lotuses, placed on the ground, and entitled Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom (2008). While the visual dimension of this work is profoundly meditative and aesthetic, the title conveys a political aspect: it stems from a campaign initiated by Mao Zedong in the 1950s, that encouraged people to communicate their opinions on his regime in the spirit of open discussion and progress. Yet, when intellectuals and critics started to come out, retribution swiftly ensued, and dissenters were severely punished. Presented with closed buds, cut before having had any opportunity to flourish, Vital’s Lotus refer to both, forced stasis and potential vitality.[1] For about ten years now, Vital has worked on different reiterations of Lotus; each of them unique, showcasing a different posture and mood.

While the tall and totem-like Walking Sticks(2012) that are part of this exhibition have been made in China, their form is something that Vital has encountered before he started to embark on his travels—as a child, in his native Engadin. There, in the high-altitude mountains, children grow up collecting and carving wooden walking sticks, as well as observing the older generation climbing with such. Vital, being a prolific collector, houses a large group of such sticks at his foundation in Ardez, Switzerland. With time and travels, different sticks from all over the world joined the collection. While residing in distant China, this familiar symbol materialized as a surreal sculpture: enlarged by more than three times the original height, Vital’s stainless-steel version of those walking sticks is freed from any functionalist purpose, erecting itself to fantastic heights.

In Vital’s oeuvre, certain forms continue to reoccur, yet, because of their constant metamorphosis, we never quite get used to them. Tongue (2010) is one of those forms that Vital has been materializing in the most surprising materials and sizes for decades: it appeared in the artist’s work for the first time in 1985, shortly after he had seen a cow’s tongue at a butcher shop in Lucca, Italy. This tongue was thirty-nine centimeters long, strangely inert, yet endowed with some sort of surreal vitality. Vital immediately recognized the sculptural potential of this organ, and discerned a pathway for transformation which would enable him to transmute the familiar into the exotic, the organic into the utopian: instead of showing us just the usual tip of the tongue, he displays the whole thing; instead of presenting it horizontally, as it exists in the organic world, he chooses verticality. Just like this, by means of silent alchemy, everything can change.

Another symbol of utmost importance in Vital’s oeuvre is themoon: having been deeply fascinated by it all his life, he even built a house in the Sahara desert, just for watching the moon. Moon (2017) represents one of Vital’s most astounding efforts in his ongoing quest for that satellite: materialized entirely in white marble, this perfect large sphere seems indeed otherworldly. Walking around the moon, and caressing its craters, its shadows, and its quietly animated surface with our eyes, we are left wondering: Did Vital bring the moon down to earth or did he transport us into the universe?

Marble has long been an essential medium in Vital’s work. In close collaboration with marble carvers in Pietrasanta, Italy, he has since the mid-1980s produced numerous sculptures in marble, among them shoes for climbing a mountain in his native Engadin, self-portraits, and even an accessible marble tower, no less than nine meters high. Since 2011, Chinese marble has found its way into Vital’s oeuvre as well. Traveling in Dali, in the Yunnan Province, he encountered their so-called dream stones. In Dali, marble has since ancient times been cut in search of images hidden within the mysterious variegated patterns of the stone’s formation. Fascinated by how, in those stones, geologic hazard turns into image, and dream into reality, Vital has since then been collecting precious Dali marbles. By framing those thin marble plates with white geometric plaster constructions, he accentuates their painterly element, as well as their hallucinatory qualities. Works such as Landscape (2017) or Seascape (2017) concomitantly make us realize that mnemonic seeing and the ability to dream a reality are quintessential parts of our sensory apparatus.

The ongoing silver Portraits, with which Vital portrays those close or important to him, are another crucial concept in the artist’s multifaceted oeuvre. Those portraits are always composed of two silver boxes that take their form and volume from the birthdates of those they represent. In this exhibition, we find a portrait of Nara Roesler, who is not only Vital’s longtime collaborator and friend, but also an essential inspiration to many women working in the male-dominated field of arts. We also find Oscar Niemeyer, Ayrton Senna, Pelé, and Caetano Veloso—individuals that have made outstanding contributions to their respective fields with talent, character, and humanity. The minimalistic, yet soulful silver portraits that portray them have all been made by hand; by Tuareg silversmiths in Niger, with whom Vital has worked for more than fifteen years, continuing collaboration even in times of profound political and humanitarian crisis.

With an exemplary discussion of only five of Vital’s artworks, we have already visited several places: China, Switzerland, Italy, and Niger. Being a constant traveler, Vital is familiar with both the yearning for distance and the yearning for home. In Brazil, the artist encountered the most beautiful term for this feeling of longing, that will forever accompany him on his endeavors: Saudade. Since 2011, Rio de Janeiro has become a second home for Vital; a place like no other. Residing in his hometown valley in Switzerland this summer, the artist had two native trees cast in bronze, putting a letter on each of their branches. Together, those hand-crafted letters read Saudade—written on a tree from home, when longing for Brazil. Now, the white branches of those literary trees extend their reach into Brazilian atmospheres again: in Vital’s universe, every object finds its right place.

Rio de Janeiro has not only become a second home for Vital, but it has also proved to be the best place to draw. In Santa Teresa, where Vital lives, it is not as easy to come by artistic supplies as it is in New York, Beijing, or Switzerland. And this is precisely what Vital loves: to make drawings with whatever is available, using not only pencil, but also unorthodox materials such as tape, cotton swabs, silicone patches, and plastic bags. The medium of drawing, for Vital, functions as an outlet for emotions, as well as a playground for experiments. Equipped with a good dose of surrealistic wit, Vital departs from paper to create drawings that with their astounding material compositions often transcend the realm of two-dimensionality. His works on paper incite us to see both, the medium of drawing, as well as the depicted subject matters with fresh eyes: the mountain in front of Vital’s house in the Engadin suddenly materializes in the form of a plastic bag, in Rio de Janeiro.

 In cadence with Not Vital’s nomadic way of life, his art migrates dreamfully in between foreign imageries and native allegories. By means of fleet-footed alchemy, he domesticates the exotic and transforms the local commonplace into surreal-minimalistic visual vocabulary. Identity and transformation, relocation, and decontextualization have consequently evolved into central concepts within Vital’s oeuvre.

Although pure in form, Vital’s art detracts itself from simple interpretation. Instead of offering didactic content, he incites us to stay mobile, both in our perception, as well as in our thinking. Looking at Vital’s art, in this sense, implies to be on one’s toes.