Rainer Fetting
dal 13/4/2011 al 11/9/2011
Segnalato da
13/4/2011
Rainer Fetting
Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
The exhibition shows around 40 works from four decades. It is the first comprehensive presentation - in the four chapters Wall Paintings, Drummer and Guitarist, Role Play and Images of Friendship and The New Berlin - of central work groups by Fetting, which are closely bound up with his creative output here in Berlin. In addition to Fetting's rather small-format paintings dating from the mid 1970s are also on view the well-known Wall Paintings, which were produced only a little later.
Berlin has proved to be one of the most important places in the life and artistic
productivity of the acclaimed painter Rainer Fetting (*1949). As from 1972, he
captured the special atmosphere of the city’s western part, when Berlin
exercised a powerful impact on German society as a result of student unrest
and the gay movement. In this period, Fetting developed into a sensitive
observer of the city and its (art) scenes. His “Wall Paintings” in glowing, bright
colours employ an expressive style of painting to depict Berlin as a dynamic
city of alternative ways of life. After the radical political upheaval of the Wende,
Fetting continued to be fascinated by the new German capital and meticulously
documented the emerging changes here.
The exhibition shows around 40 works from four decades. It is the first
comprehensive presentation – in the four chapters “Wall Paintings”, “Drummer
and Guitarist”, “Role Play and Images of Friendship” and “The New Berlin” – of
central work groups by Rainer Fetting, which are closely bound up with his
creative output here in Berlin.
Born in Wilhelmshaven in 1949, the artist came to Berlin in 1972, studying
painting under Hans Jaenisch at the Hochschule der Künste (College of Arts).
In addition to Fetting’s rather small-format paintings dating from the mid 1970s
– which still sample and adopt various stylistic models with their smudged
areas of colour or parallel fields of open hatching – the exhibition also shows
the well-known “Wall Paintings”, which were produced only a little later. At the
beginning of the 1980s, Fetting – who had already attracted international
attention in path-breaking exhibitions such as A New Spirit in Painting (London
1981) and Zeitgeist (Berlin 1982) – turned his back on Berlin and Germany and
moved to New York. But Fetting is not only the artist of the “old” West Berlin
before the fall of the Wall; with his more recent works he proves himself a
focused observer of the new German capital, to which he returned at the
beginning of the 1990s.
The exhibition under the patronage of Klaus Wowereit, Governing Mayor of
Berlin, is taking place with kind support from the Stiftung Deutsche
Klassenlotterie Berlin.
Image: Gelbe Mauer, 1977 © Rainer Fetting © Foto: Kai Annett Becker, Berlin
Press contact:
Ulrike Andres
Head of Marketing & Communication Phone 030 –789 02–829 andres@berlinischegalerie.de
OPENING: 14.04.2011, 7 p.m.
Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur Stiftung Öffentlichen Rechts
Alte Jakobstraße 124-128 10969 Berlin
Opening hours
Wednesday-Monday 10 am-6 pm
closed on Tuesday
Admission
Day ticket 8 Euro
Reduced 5 Euro
Every 1st Monday of the month: 4 Euro