Not Vital’s life philosophy greets visitors as they enter the courtyard of his castle in the Engadin region of Switzerland, in the far eastern part of the country. It is a poem by Korean author Ko Un: “The world is too vast to live in one place or three or four.” It is inscribed in the branches of an imposing bronze tree created by Not. And he has been faithful to the poem. At the moment, Not Vital, one of the most important 21st Century artists, lives in Japan, Brazil and in his ancestral village in this part of Switzerland. But he also has homes in Indonesia, in Chile, in the Philippines, in Niger. And studios in New York and Beijing, among others.
We went to visit him in his fiefdom of Engadine where his Fundaziun Not Vital is located. Because everything in Not Vital’s world is big, the foundation is not in one place, but in three. And, just as he has multiple dwellings, Not Vital likes to sleep in either one of them at any given time.
At the top of a steep hill sits his Castle of Tarasp, a beautiful fortress built in 1040 by the Lords of Tarasp. After an eventful history, the castle was bought by Not Vital in 2016 and he immediately went to work to renovate it. It now houses not only his own works, but also his extensive art collection - from Rembrandt to Warhol and Basquiat, as well as crafts, antiques, photography, and textiles, but not limited to that.
As visitors enter the courtyard, they pass under giant Michelangelo’s David’s PLASTER testicles made by Not and then are faced with a giant stainless steel sculpture reflecting their image. It looks like a rocket ready to lift off, but it’s a sculpture of the tongue of a beef. By changing the scale of the tongue, Not Vital has turned it into an abstract sculpture.
To enter the castle itself, you have to put your fingers in Not’s fingers. The steel door handle leading to the inner sanctum, is a 24 carat mold of Not Vital’s hand. Once you enter the giant castle, you are faced with one room after another of great art covering a large chunk of Western art history. Not Vital likes to mix and match - genres, styles, art, eras. In one room you might find a beautiful Basquiat next to a sculpture of cow dung, for instance. The bronze sculpture had been made to raise money for Nepal after the 2015 earthquake to support the opening of the the first burn unit for children. His idea was to take something that was valuable in Asia, - to build a house, to cook - but none in the Western world, and to turn this relationship upside down. By transforming cow dung into artworks, they immediately became sought after by collectors and very valuables. Warhol silkscreens are next to Chinese boots to go ice fishing.
The castle also houses exhibitions. This year, the guest artist is Andrea Todisco, curated by Daniele Agostini. In rooms at the top of the fortress, Not is curating each summer the work of other artists. In the summer of 2024, it’s the works of an artist who died of Aids very young, Friedrich Einhorn - Barbie dolls cast in bronze, Popeye, other figures from popular culture.
In the land surrounding the castle, Not Vital has built another of his houses to watch the sun set. The first one was built in Agadez, Niger. His obsession with houses started there. It was the foundation of his work which he calls “Scarch”, the blending of sculpture and architecture. “At 9:00am I had bought the land, at 12:00pm, we had started building the tower,” he recounts. Tuaregs, the local people, thought this strange man “had lost his goats” , their way of saying he was strange. Not went on to build a house to watch the moon and another one, in the shape of an upright shell, to escape winds heavy with sands, and, finally, a house to sleep upright !
Moving across the valley from Tarasp, one can either go left to the village of Ardez or right, Not’s hometown of Sent, where he has created a magical garden. In parkin Sent, visitors are faced with a giant lotus flower emerging from a pool, a hairy house, a house that disappears, a bridge made of dozens of cast donkey heads. A house entirely made of Murano glass was built. The park with its trees and paths and tall grasses is a magical environment. It’s like being plunged into a fairy tale.
Let’s go back up the valley and we reach Planta, the third site of Not Vital’s Foundation. In Planta House, built in 1642, the artist is collecting all the books in Romansch, Engadin’s language, written between the 16th and the 19th Century. But it is also filled with artworks from Not’s friends - Ai Weiwei as well as Hiroshi Sugimoto or Gerhard Richter - as well as his.
It is also one of the many houses where Not likes to spend the night when fancy strikes him.
His house in Indonesia, on the island of Florès, oversees three volcanic lakes, each of a different color. “I always have two reasons to select a place, says Not. For this project, it was the name of the island and the lakes.” At the border between Argentina and Chile, miles from anything, Not bought an island made of marble where no one else inhabits. For six years, he worked on creating a magical house, digging a 50 meter long tunnel in the marble. “You’re watching the sun setting from inside the Earth,” he says. “Not a sound, no smell, no phone. It’s the belly of the Earth.” Excavating and digging marble is like the work of a sculptor. This immense and multitasking artist who loves creating homes as well as writing poetry, moving from the biggest to the most humble, is telling us what truly living in this world means.
- Jean-Sébastien Stehli
