Cast & Outcast
Johannes Nagel (DE)
9 April – 17 May 2025
Exhibition opening on Wednesday, 9 April from 16.00 to 19.00
The artist will be present for the opening event
Art historian Jorunn Veiteberg gives the opening address at 17.00
Johannes Nagel is a star on the international ceramic art scene, whose work was previously presented in a duo exhibition at Peach Corner in 2022. Now, Peach Corner follows up with the solo exhibition Cast & Outcast, which shows a series of new pieces by the German ceramic artist. Nagel is known for a wild and diverse body of work based on his use of experimental and groundbreaking porcelain casting techniques. In an improvisational and spontaneous artistic approach, he digs cavities in sand and fills them up with liquid porcelain or performs rough cuts into plaster blocks and casts the rugged resulting form. This initial phase is often followed by a painterly process, as he adds rich, saturated colours and textures to the cast objects. The result is a collection of objects that contain a uniquely unpolished and impactful beauty.
In an introduction to this exhibition, Johannes Nagel writes,
Recently, I came across the work of Lambros Malafouris, a Greek-British cognitive archaeologist, who views artists or craftsmen and their materials as “partners” who take turns “leading the dance” of artistic creation. Malafouris writes that throwing pottery on the wheel is an example of material engagement, in which human and material agency are inextricably intertwined. He argues that “while agency and intentionality may not be properties of things, they are not properties of humans either: they are the properties of material engagement, that is, of the grey zone where brain, body, and culture conflate.”
This collaboration (without calling it that at the time) was at the heart of what I was looking for, embracing not chance but rather a dance with matter. This dance or struggle is quite visible in the works I am presenting here. Some of the pieces come out of the kiln as self-confident beauties. They are a success from this initial, very physical moment of interacting with a material, the subsequent painterly confrontation with glazes and colour and through firing.
And some are just not right. They don’t come to life and require more layers of reflection, energy and glaze. Sometimes these pieces accumulate character and a beauty that grows from the struggle rather than immediate serendipity. They are the outcasts in the show. The cast and the outcast – only together do they represent what I am looking for. My intention is not the perfection of the ultimate expression, it is to articulate a concept of the evolution of things.
Johannes Nagel (b. 1979) studied fine art and ceramics at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, Germany. In addition to working freelance since 2008, he was an assistant professor in his field at this university for several years. He regularly presents his work internationally in solo and group exhibitions and is represented in numerous public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Design Museum, Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich), Keramiekmuseum Princessehof (Leeuwarden) and Museum Ariana (Geneva).