The Swiss artist Not Vital lifts the boundary between the real and the surreal. In the shapes that he creates in the style of “minimal sculptures,” imbued with fascination for myths, legends, and rituals of different cultures, he interweaves stories and legends from the region around his Engadine birthplace of Sent, Switzerland with those of faraway countries. The central theme of Vital’s works, whether sculptures, architectural constructions, drawings, photographs, or installations is nature – the natural cycle of creation and death, of becoming and passing away.
As a temporary variant of his architectural constructions, Not Vital designed a cone-shaped structure of steelwire mesh for Vienna. Ten meters high, the sculpture Schlafendes Haus (Sleeping House) with a basal diameter of 280 cm got up in the morning and lay down in the evening like a living creature. It stood on a movable steel plate which permitted erecting it and laying it down using a worm drive. The Sleeping House was playfully informed by Not Vital’s fascination with walking the line between reality and surrealism and also was open for viewers to enter during its “wake phases.”
“The construction in Vienna was the second kinetic house I built. It was put up in a place very busy with traffic – not only on the surface, but also underground. Two aspects were very important to me: for one thing, to create a transparent filigree sculpture, and for another, the kinetic shape.” (Not Vital in an interview with Gerald Matt in November 2009)