“A ménage à trois between artist, venue, and visitor”: Not Vital At YSP — Reviewed

Not Vital Snowball 1999, Yorkshire Sculpture Park

A true understanding of inside and outside space, of the man-made and natural: Emma Sumner expresses her love for Swiss artist Not Vital, as he unveils a major new show on the rolling hills of Yorkshire Sculpture Park…

I’ll preface this review with a confession: I have written about my love for Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) on many occasions. I’ll freely admit it: I’m enamoured with its open, rolling hills punctuated with the world’s best sculptors. And so to YSP’s latest exhibition by the unfathomable Swiss artist, Not Vital, whose work now fills the Underground Gallery and appears across YSP’s grounds. Did I fall in love again this time?

Not Vital’s first major UK exhibition, it is a real celebration of key works from the artist’s last 30 years; exhibiting huge and delicate sculpture both old and new, in plaster, silver, gold, marble and glass. Some have been made especially in response to YSP’s indoor and outdoor spaces.

“Subdued in tone, each beautifully illustrates the tension and importance of self-portraiture”

For those unfamiliar with his practice, Not Vital is an artist who works across an eclectic range of media. Having travelled extensively since the age of 18, Vital has created numerous monumental projects around the world: ranging from houses for watching the sun set in Agadez and the Amazon Rainforest; to developing his own Patagonian island called NotOna. Many of these projects have been directly informed by the local community and Vital’s work with artisans – including Tuareg silversmiths in Niger and glass-blowers in Murano. He develops work which is an experimental and collaborative exploration of the role he and his collaborators play within our global society.

Not Vital Pelvis 2008, Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2016

As soon as visitors enter YSP’s grounds, Vital is present: his gigantic stainless steel Pelvis (2008), above) frames the green landscape from the top of Country Park; while Big Tongue (1996-7), below) stands proudly in Bothy Garden. Both cast from the body parts of an animal, the works are an investigation of our relationship with creatures and how their lives entwine with our own. It is quite a strange yet satisfying experience seeing the local sheep graze underneath their shadows.

Not Vital Tongue 2008, Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Inside the Underground Gallery, the works exhibited display Vital’s signature muted palette of grey, black and silver tones; reminiscent of his home landscape in the Swiss Alps. Minimal displays give the impression that everything exhibited has been carefully selected for a very specific reason. Filling one of the gallery walls is a site-specific, 12-metre-wide painting entitled The Last Supper (2015), while another space holds a series of self-portraits in chunky carved black frames, exhibited for the first time in Europe. Subdued in tone, each beautifully illustrates the tension and importance of self-portraiture within Vital’s work, which he uses as genre to playfully try on different identities.

“Not Vital really gets YSP’s merging of inside and outside space, of the man-made and natural”

Despite his extensive travelling, Vital’s roots are still firmly planted in his home village of Sent, where he has established his own sculpture/architecture park. Full of buildings and structures pulled straight from Vital’s imagination; including Disappearing House, which vanishes underground at the push of a button, and the precarious Donkey Bridge, constructed from a series of sculpted donkey heads on seven metre poles, which users have to carefully navigate to reach the other side. Bridges have been a long time fascination for Vital, and as a lasting legacy of this exhibition, Vital has created a exquisitely simple, curved aluminium bridge which will draw visitors deep into the YSP’s lakeside area.

To refer back to my earlier confession of love for YSP, many people might think my romance with the park will mean I’ll see each of their exhibitions through rose-tinted review glasses (I wished they really existed). Maybe so. But as someone who has seen the park change and grow, this exhibition seems to have something extra special. Not Vital is perhaps YSP’s perfect match: an artist who really gets YSP’s merging of inside and outside space, of the man-made and natural. The atmosphere, attention to detail and sympathetic navigation of place and memory makes this exhibition feel refreshingly like a true ménage à trois between artist, venue, and visitor.

Emma Sumner

See Not Vital at Yorkshire Sculpture Park from 21 May 2016–2 January 2017 — FREE

WATCH: Timelapse Of Huge, Steel Lotus Buds Installation At Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Images from top: Snowball (1999); Pelvis (2008); Big Tongue (1996-7). All artworks by Not Vital, images courtesy Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2016

Posted on 13/07/2016 by thedoublenegative