Extraordinary and extravagant, the works of the Swiss-American artist Not Vital blur the boundaries between reality and the surreal.

On May 21st, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park inaugurated Vital‘s first UK solo exhibition, which happens to be his largest museum project to-date. Ranging from land art to classic portraits, the exhibition reflects the artist’s nomadic and diverse practice, featuring new site-specific works on display in the Park‘s indoor and outdoor spaces, alongside different pieces from the last 30 years of his career. A large group of monochrome portrait paintings will be shown in Europe for the very first time, and work in the open air include Let 100 Flowers Bloom, made up of 100 stainless steel lotus buds on three-metre long stems, displayed along the Terrace. Vital will also create a site-specific aluminium bridge at Yorkshire Sculpture Park as a long term legacy of the show. The artist’s work is inextricably linked to his hometown, Sent, a remote village in the 
Swiss Alps, yet his practice is crucially fed by global travelling experiences and an enduring sense of enquiry and wondering. The exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park gives a unique insight into Not Vital‘s exploration of material, place and identity, and celebrates the artist’s enigmatic appeal, which makes him able to turn ordinary things into something extremely precious and unique.