A portrait of Not Vital How the nomad from the Engadin creates his own eccentric universe

Not Vital, an artist from the Engadin, creates sculptures, houses and spaces all over the world – yet he keeps returning to his homeland. In his childhood home, he creatively blends his homeland, nature and history. 

In Romansh, ‘Randulins’ means ‘swallows’. In the Engadin, this is the name given since time immemorial to those families who emigrate to Italy in search of happiness and a livelihood – only to return every summer to the Swiss mountain villages with their dreams and stories. Not Vital is one such ‘swallow’; he was born in Sent in 1948 into a family of timber merchants. Even as a child, he learnt that one ‘must keep moving’. And that it is possible, despite this, to maintain a deep connection to one’s homeland.

From the Engadin to the World

At the young age of 14, Not Vital left the Engadin to study in Chur. He subsequently settled first in Paris and then in Rome, where he founded a circus and devoted himself to performance art. In 1974, he moved to New York. There, he assisted the mixed-media artist Salvatore Scarpitta and was otherwise surrounded by people who were to transform contemporary art: Warhol, Basquiat, Schnabel, Haring. In this creative hotbed, the young man from the Engadin found his voice, his very own conception of sculpture and language, of architecture and matter. He became a conceptual artist who works by hand: ever since, he has been creating works from wax, plaster, bronze, steel, marble and clay. They are enigmatic, atavistic, often ironic and sometimes resemble totems.