Zeitung, Fundaziun NV Nr.13 Not Vital

In 1983 Liliana Brosi, a gallerist from Chur, visited me in New York with the idea of making a show at her gallery of young American artists. In the 3 days she was there, we were able - thanks to my friend Allen Frame - to organize 21 artists who brought their works to my loft on 712 Broadway. Liliana also had another request. She wanted to take the whole show back to Switzerland, flying Swissair. So, we made it happen. In the 80s everything was possible in New York, it seemed. Among the artists who brought their works to the loft was the photographer Darrel Ellis, whom I had already known for a while. When I first met him, I immediately felt close to him, his work, his smile, the way he looked at everything around the loft, with his eyes always directed inwards, his questions and, again, his smile. I was able to acquire some of his photographs and Darrel also worked for a short while in my studio as an assistant. He always did things his way. Trying to divide the circumference of a circle of 121 inches by 11 he simply said that the result would be 1. He always saw everything as a whole and didn’t want to divide. Darrel’s photographs - based on negatives that his father did before Darrel was born - were genuinely personal. He added enough to make these works his. A frame, a splash of color, a cut, always 1 item that transformed the work into something completely new. It was Richard Brintzenhofe, who persuaded Darrel to draw from his father’s photographs. He did. And he did it well but to me his drawings were never as strong as his photographs, maybe because that 1 element that he so well added to his photographs was missing. Visiting Darrel at the MoMA where he was working as a guard was like a gift. He was in his own world and while pointing out 1 detail in a Cézanne painting, he would smile. I am so proud to show his work in my foundation in Ardez. Darrel, I can see you here in the snowy mountains of Switzerland pointing to a bird flying in the sky and, not saying anything at all, you would simply throw a smile.

Not Vital 2020