Pottery, but not as you know it

By Jonathan Griffin

The title of Ron Nagle’s exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery in Los Angeles, “Ice Breaker”, implies that this selection of 19 new sculptures constitutes an introduction to Nagle’s work, that it’s something of a conversation starter. In fact, the 77-year-old San Franciscan has been speaking for decades, even if his inimitable artistic voice has not always been heard. Nagle is a ceramicist capable of invoking the sacred and the profane in the same breath. He applies radiant colour fades to scatological or suggestive forms with titles like “Knob Job” and “Urinetrouble”. He sticks cartoon decals onto porcelain. His sculptures are small, but as the critic Dave Hickey has written, “Nagle’s trick is false modesty.” His tiny pieces pack a punch. In recent years, following a contemporary fashion for ceramics, the art world has begun to listen to him. A highlight of the 2013 Venice Biennale was a group of his sculptures, which had been paired with anonymous Tantric paintings from Rajasthan.

As a kid, Nagle was an avid hobbyist, building model aeroplanes and balsa-wood puppets. He did the stage makeup for school plays. He was captivated by the glamour of custom hot rods, and observed car fanatics meticulously applying dozens of coats of lacquer to their vehicles, sanding between each one. In high school he even experimented with making jewellery. All of these influences he incorporated into his aesthetic when, finally, he discovered clay.