Not Vital valuation
Swiss sculptor from the Engadin who builds houses to watch the sunset, tunnels and towers, which he calls SCARCH.
Not Vital was born in Sent, in the Lower Engadin, in 1948, and grew up among the mountains and forests near the borders of Switzerland, Austria and Italy.
What a work by Not Vital is worth
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Bio
Not Vital was born in Sent, in the Lower Engadin, in 1948, and grew up among the mountains and forests near the borders of Switzerland, Austria and Italy. He studied at the experimental university at Vincennes in Paris from 1968 and moved to New York in 1974, where his career began, and has since lived and worked in many places, among them Lucca, Agadez in Niger, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro and his home village. His sculpture uses plaster, steel, marble, glass, bronze, ceramic and organic matter, often made with craftsmen where he is working: steel-chasers in Beijing, glass-blowers in Murano, Tuareg silversmiths, papermakers in Bhutan. Animals, mountains and shelters recur. In 2009 he coined the word SCARCH, sculpture and architecture combined, for his buildings for contemplation, among them the Houses to Watch the Sunset and the tunnel on NotOna island in Patagonia. He has a sculpture park in Sent, and in 2003 set up a foundation in nearby Ardez to keep the valley's cultural heritage there.
His output ranges from monumental outdoor sculpture to small bronzes, polished steel, glass and marble pieces, paintings, works on paper and prints, so the medium, date and edition need establishing for each. Polished steel scratches and dents, glass breaks, and organic materials age, and large outdoor works need a structural assessment before they are moved. A provenance through Thaddaeus Ropac, which represents him, supports a work's history.
At a glance
- Born
- 1948, Sent
Sent, New York and the houses to watch the sunset
He was in the Venice Biennale of 2001, curated by Harald Szeemann, and in the Venice Architecture Biennale of 2021, one of the few artists to show in both. 700 Snowballs was installed on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice in 2013.
The Yorkshire Sculpture Park gave him his first major exhibition in Britain in 2016, and he has had solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld and the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.
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