Rainer Fetting, internationally one of the best known
contemporary German artists, hardly needs an introduction. In the late 1970s
he was one of the co-founders of the legendary Galerie am Moritzplatz in
Berlin, together with a small group of young artists – often called “Junge
Wilde” (young wild artists) or “Moritzboys” – who turned to “heftige Malerei”
(ferocious painting) in rebellion against the dominant art trends of the time,
Minimal Art and Conceptual Art. This dynamic new style of figurative painting
enthralled viewers with its fresh and gestural manner of painting, often with
intensive and emotional colors, on large canvasses. In his subject-matters
Fetting addresses themes of the subculture and of contemporary life in Berlin
(Punk bands, lived homosexuality, the Berlin Wall). He thus became one of its
most important visual chroniclers. “Heftige Malerei” was subsequently also the
title of the important exhibition held in 1980 at the Berlin Haus am Waldsee
which brought the international breakthrough. But Fetting, who from 1983 for
many years divided his time between Berlin and New York, was also active in
other media: first in the medium of film, making several feature films, and
later in sculpture (his best-known sculpture is the large figure of Willy
Brandt in the SPD-Headquarters in Berlin).
For his exhibition in the Galerie Deschler, Rainer
Fetting made a very personal selection from his oeuvre. Some of the works
presented here have not so far been published or exhibited. The selection not
only gives an indication of the breadth of his work as an artist, in
juxtaposing early and recent works it also allows the viewer to get a visual
insight into the developments and the continuities of his work.
In October, during the run of the exhibition, Rainer
Fetting’s important artistic oeuvre will furthermore be honored with the publication
of an extensive monograph issued by the Dumont Verlag:
FETTING.
With contributions by Arie
Hartog and Jan Hoet, and an interview by Heinz Stahlhut.
400 pp., hardcover, ISBN 978-3-8321-9203-7, € 68.00
