Groundbreaking contemporary German artist Johannes Nagel’s rst solo exhibition in the Unites States, BLUMENROT, opens Novemebr 20th at Jason Jacques Gallery. Nagel has committed to an exploration of the many ways to produce vessels— his works, which range in size from the smaller-scale to the monumental, take on the historic and contemporary meaning of the “vase” head-on with physical and theoretical methods of deconstruction, heavily informed by twentieth century art, criticism, and theory. “Blumenrot,” meaning red of or for owers, is a reference to the red color traditionally used for oral ornamentation by the Meissen porcelain factory; it is also a nod to the artist’s deep-seated interest in the societal function of the vase.

And we’d like to shout-out a quick congratulations— most recently, Nagel has been awarded the Keramikmuseum’s 2019 Westerwald Prize, one of the highest awards for ceramics in Europe.

Nagel’s oeuvre develops from his ability to embrace chance and gesture: rough-hewn, anti-academic, and improvisational forms gure heavily in his practice. A self-imposed distance from the potter’s wheel has brought Nagel to use his hands and relate to clay in novel ways, for Nagel works with a sand casting technique he developed himself, allowing indeterminacy to take the lead as his vessels are formed within the void of the casting cavities he digs out with his own hands. Thus, he questions the underlying logic of pottery making with his analytic, and procedural work, suspending the idea of “intent” in favor of an un- known aesthetic journey.