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Nage's use of a wide range of materials and pre-existing objects, anything from tin cans, rope or plastics to neon tubes and pieces of furniture, with generally human figures that he constructs, occasionally fragmentedly, out of fibre glass placed over an easy-to-model wire mesh support that he then paints, clearly takes Pop Art as its basic reference. But it may in fact be truer to talk about figuration where different expressive attitudes converge: pathos, melancholy, truculence, humour and angst.

Although made under the influence of the installations and reliefs of Georges Segal and Larry Rivers, these remarkably original sculptures also refer to film, comics, poster art, caricature and advertising. Nagel introduced new forms in Basque art and, above all, a new vision of the region's current reality. In this respect at least, he is not far removed from Vicente Ameztoy, with whom he has produced the occasional artwork.

84008 is executed with new techniques Nagel brought to his work in the 1980s: flat two-dimensional forms with tapering profiles that recall Cubism and which he regularly resorted to for a number of years. From the late'80s, Nagel began to use lead as the main material for his works. [Javier Viar]

Selected bibliography

• Nagel [Folleto]. Barcelona, Galería Maeght, 1988. n° cat. 10. (Con el título El rapto del Centauro)
• Lucie-Smith, Edward. Andres Nagel. New York, Rizzoli, 1992. pp. 36, 51, il.
• Guía Artistas Vascos. Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2008. pp. 174-175.
• Gida Euskal Artistak. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa, 2008. pp. 174-175.
• Guide Basque Artists. Bilbao, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 2012. pp. 174-175, n° cat. 96c.
• Viar, Javier. Historia del arte vasco : de la Guerra Civil a nuestros días, 1936-2016. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2017. pp. 425, 427-428, il.