Johannes Nagel, Yewen Dong

The evolution of things is an exhibition that reflects on the principles of temporariness and indeterminacy; conceived and designed before the health emergency, the exhibition discovers a new meaning in this situation of uncertainty and redefinition of social practices.

Yewen Dong uses raw clay as a pictorial material; mixing fresh earth with oil painting, he creates large wall installations in which the geometric composition enters into dialogue with the living nature of the material. Yewen's work is strongly methodical, repeatedly impressing on the surface precise gestures, which she calls "calm", to delineate shapes and volumes. But clay is a living material, it responds to the touch of the hand, and the finished work is therefore the result - often unexpectedly - of the dialogue between the parts.

Johannes wants to verbalize the process of evolution of the form, highlighting all the steps necessary for the realization of the sculpture. The porcelain works are thus characterized by holes, cuts, drippings and outgrowths; they seem suspended in the ecstasy of the unfinished. The body of the work is a storehouse of energy that rebels against the aesthetics and the comforting pleasure that gives perfection. The result is strongly alienating, its objects sometimes look like vases, other times like geological formations or ruins. They are basically rhetorical objects, which reflect on their own nature and role, and for this reason they are highly poetic.