Opening at proyectoamil
October 22, 2025, 19h

Exhibition duration
October 22, 2025 – February 14, 2026

proyectoamil
Lima

proyectoamil and the Museo de Arte de Lima – MALI present the first exhibition in Peru of renowned Swiss artist Not Vital (Sent, 1948). His multidisciplinary practice moves fluidly between sculpture, painting, architecture, and installation. Rooted in an ongoing dialogue with nature and diverse cultures, Vital’s work creates forms that resonate with and adapt to the spaces they inhabit.

His pieces transform the way we perceive our environment. Using materials that range from the ephemeral and delicate—such as coffee or salt—to the enduring and precious—such as marble or gold—Vital creates experiences that blur the boundaries between art and landscape. In all of them, he combines a playful dimension with a sober elegance. His practice, shaped by his Swiss upbringing but deeply influenced by his travels around the world, reflects a fascination with cultural exchange, landscape, and materiality.

The exhibition at proyectoamil brings together a group of self-portraits, sculptures, collages, drawings, and photographs that highlight the breadth of his artistic practice. The series of oil self-portraits explores a minimalist and abstract vision of the human figure. Among the sculptures is the Cow Dung series, part of an ongoing project, that has contributed its sales to the burn unit of a hospital in Kathmandu. The work explores the paradox of transforming a material considered worthless in Switzerland into a prized object in the art market.

More than forty collages and drawings on paper and blackboard accompany the sculptures and paintings. These works were created in Lima during a 2017 residency and are inspired by the landscape of the Engadin Valley in Switzerland, where Vital grew up and still lives part of the year. The exhibition also includes a series of photographs of his project NotOna, a house-sculpture built on an island near the Marble Cathedrals in Lake General Carrera, in Chilean Patagonia. This work forms part of Vital’s dream of building houses from which to watch the sunset on every continent.

At the Museo de Arte de Lima, Vital will present a site-specific intervention titled Snowball Wall. The work is activated through a performative action in which the artist throws plaster balls against the wall, staging a kind of snowball fight. Vital turns to plaster because, at a certain stage of its hydration, the material resembles snow—not only in its appearance but also in its texture and malleability. Upon impact, the balls shatter and leave relief-like imprints, creating a wall marked by multiple traces.

Vital’s work is held in numerous prestigious public collections around the world, including the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, France); Kunstmuseum Bern (Bern, Switzerland); the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (New York, USA); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA); the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA); the Museum der Moderne (Salzburg, Austria); the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (Aichi, Japan); and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark), among many others.

This project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Embassy of Switzerland in Peru.