Skip to main content

Not Vital

Not Vital (b. 1948) is a Swiss artist who has traveled and exhibited widely since the 1970s, living between the United States, Niger, Italy, Brazil and China.

He studied visual arts at the Université Expérimentale de Vincennes, Paris from 1968–71 and moved to New York in 1974, where he began his artistic career. Vital’s multifaceted oeuvre encompasses drawing, painting, sculpture, and architecture. To better define his large-scale structures that bridge sculpture and architecture, Vital coined the term SCARCH in 2009.

His art is inspired by his nomadic lifestyle and experiences of travelling the globe, reflecting on habitations, nature and animals, and on the relationships between sculpture and architecture. Exploring the boundaries between abstract and figurative forms, his work is marked by a particularly intimate relationship with materials, including plaster, steel, marble, ceramic and organic matter. He often collaborates with skilled craftsmen around the world, ranging from Beijing steel-chasers and Murano glass-blowers, to Tuareg silversmiths and Bhutan papermakers. The physicality of his approach, combined with an innate understanding of his chosen materials' essential properties, results in visually challenging works that are often destabilising in their striking scale and presence.

Vital began an intensive exploration of portraiture through painting in 2009 in his studio in China, after a long period of focus on sculpture. For many years, Vital’s ascetic palette - white, light grey and black - has been linked to the rugged, majestic landscapes of Switzerland’s Engadin, his native valley, and the snowy, fog-shrouded mountains that surround it. However, after establishing his studio in Rio de Janeiro in 2022, he expanded his palette including color.

Vital’s work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including the 49th Venice Biennale (2001), curated by Harald Szeemann, and the 17th International Architecture Biennale (2021). Major solo exhibitions were held at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany (2005); The Arts Club of Chicago, United States (2006); UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2011); Museo d'arte Mendrisio, Switzerland (2014); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, United Kingdom (2016); Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland (2018-19); Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria (2020); MAC Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Niterói, Brazil (2025). 

  • Biography

    read or download

  • Bibliography

    read or download

Selected artworks

  • Not Vital, Self-portrait with 3 Noses, 2016

    Not Vital Self-portrait with 3 Noses, 2016

    Stainless steel
    325 x 16.5 x 20.3 cm
    Edition of 5 + 1 AP

Gallery exhibitions