Johannes Nagel
Germany b. 1979
‘A vessel has as its reference its own stylistic history and the function. To conserve, or serve out or to present certain content, is an orientation towards basic human needs. The manufacture of vessels is a self-evident cultural technique for all of mankind, and analogue to the role of the figure in sculpture, we can maintain that the ritual is the concrete opposite of the vessel. And so, the ‘vessel’ can today be a theme, in which function and ritual, our own history and the future may be reflected.’
‘Any object that we design and produce is makeshift, is improvised, is inappropriate and provisional.’ - David Pye
The subject of Johannes Nagel’s work is, specifically, the improvised and provisional. The objects are finished in that the porcelain is painted (glazed) and fired. Most objects are somehow vessels, pots. What else are they? The attempt to confuse the connotations that technology and material provoke. At times constructive composing, at times wilful destruction, sometimes vases, sometimes fragments or alienated object.
Using work techniques such as burrowing into sand to form negative figurations for casting, Johannes Nagel successfully performs his work directly and manually, lending the process of searching a tangible presence. The joints and fissures, the blots of colour and unfinished painting appear provisional as they point from the finished object back to the process. It is not the perfection of the ultimate expression that is intended, but to verbalize a concept of the evolution of things.
The artist works from his own studio and lives in Halle.
