PUBLICATIONS

The catalogue of the exhibition of the work of Not Vital at Kunstmuseum Luzern in 1988. This Swiss artist from the Canton of Grisons felt particularly close to nature and to animals and thereby discovered a predisposition and sensibility for materic lines and forms. The catalogue documents his first exhibition in an international context, presenting drawings, photographs, and etchings in addition to sculptures. Not Vital was subsequently to enjoy an international art career that took him to establish sudios in New York, the Italian city of Lucca , Peking and beyond, but not without frequent return to the remote village of Sent from which he came (in Switzerland’s Engadin, close to both Italy and Austria in the Alps of the Canton of Grisons where Rhaeto-Romansch, Switzerland’s fourth official language, still continues to be spoken and written). While imbued with a marked sense of cultural identity, this region is also highly open to other cultures. At present, Not Vital fuses her work with a reflection on this cultural minority, promoting its value by way of various cultural activities throughout her valley and in its cultural center in the Municipality of Ardez. The logic of her interventions centers not only on the preservation of the local culture but also on the notion of confronting it with international art. Not Vital, in fact, spends a considerable part of the year abroad: in New York as well as in Lucca, and by now for fifteen years in China as well, where at present she maintains her largest studio. For many years she has been highly supportive of initiatives in the Third World, producing works in the service of humanitarian causes.

Exhibition catalogue, Kunstmuseum Luzern, March 25 - May 8, 1988. Edited by Martin Kunz. Texts: Martin Kunz, and Matthias Frehner