Rainer Fetting stands as a pivotal figure in contemporary German art, celebrated as a leading "Neue Wilde" artist. Born in Wilhelmshaven in 1949, Fetting forged a distinctive pictorial language, marking him as one of his generation's most significant painters. His art provides a powerful response to the complexities of his time, transforming urban brutality into chromatic poetry and questioning the nature of reality.
Rainer Fetting: A Neue Wilde Artist's Unique Vision
Rainer Fetting's journey into art began with carpentry and stage design before he enrolled at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts (now Universität der Künste) from 1972 to 1978. In 1977, he co-founded the Galerie am Moritzplatz alongside artists like Salomé, Helmut Middendorf, and Bernd Zimmer. This self-help initiative aimed to showcase their vibrant, figurative paintings, challenging the prevailing minimalism and conceptual art of the era.
Origins and the "Neue Wilde" Movement
The artists from Galerie am Moritzplatz quickly became known as the "Moritzboys" and later gained international recognition as the "Junge Wilde" or "Neue Wilde." This movement, which emerged in Germany in the late 1970s and early 1980s, reacted against the intellectual coldness of much contemporary art. Fetting, while aligned with this visceral rebellion, pushed its boundaries further, exploring territories where the intimate, political, corporeal, and urban converge.
Forging a Singular Pictorial Language
Fetting’s style, developed during his Berlin years, has consistently evolved without ever betraying its core coherence. His art isn't about seeking originality for its own sake, but rather an inner drive to invent the appropriate visual means for his artistic purpose. His work avoids the traps of both pastiche and radical modernist rejection, showcasing a remarkable synthesis of continuity and innovation.
The Mastery of Technique and Color
Fetting's technique is characterized by a unique approach to color application, where paint flows freely yet maintains drawing precision. This mastery allows him to translate a specific vision of the world.
Impasto, Precision, and Resistance
His generous use of impasto is not decorative but conveys a world where matter resists and forms are not easily subdued. This resistance in his pictorial matter mirrors the political and social resistance Fetting has consistently shown against contemporary conformism. His brushwork, described as both brutal and sensual, plows the canvas, creating colored furrows that embody the emotions of a generation navigating Germany's past and an uncertain future.
Acid Chromatisms and Emotional Power
Fetting's use of color is particularly striking. His "acid chromatisms" – screaming yellows, electric reds, and synthetic blues – reflect an acute perception of the industrial and media age's visual changes. Yet, he avoids mere denunciation; even his most artificial colors retain a powerful emotional resonance, redeeming them from their technological origins and preserving a human element.
Bridging Tradition and Modernity
One of Fetting's major strengths lies in the tension he creates between academic knowledge and expressive freedom. His work demonstrates a deep understanding of art history while firmly engaging with contemporary aesthetic challenges.
Classical Drawing Meets Expressive Freedom
Despite the expressiveness of his gestures, Fetting’s drawing reveals a classical training. His figures, even when deformed, maintain an anatomical accuracy that speaks of years of dedicated observation. This balance allows him to avoid both nostalgic adherence to the past and a complete break from tradition.
Influences and Reinvention
Fetting openly acknowledges his lineage from artists like Vincent van Gogh, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and other masters of Expressionist figuration. However, he never merely reproduces their styles. Instead, he digests, transforms, and reinvents each influence to serve his unique personal narrative. This ability to metabolize past legacies without being alienated by them is a hallmark of a great artist, demonstrating that modernity lies in constant reinvention, not systematic rupture.
Geographical Contexts and Stylistic Evolution
Fetting's art is deeply influenced by the places he inhabits, showcasing his remarkable ability to adapt his style to different geographical and cultural contexts.
Berlin, New York, and Sylt
His Berlin cityscapes, like "Alte Fabrik Moritzplatz" (1977) and landscapes of reunification, reveal a profound understanding of space as a social construct. Berlin, a city of division and rebuilding, becomes an architectural laboratory in his paintings. His years in New York, facilitated by a DAAD scholarship, enriched his palette with new luminosity, while his stays on the island of Sylt refined his perception of atmospheric phenomena. This stylistic plasticity reflects a continuous engagement with reality in its diverse forms.
Space as Social Construction and Human Experience
Fetting's art doesn't just represent urban environments; it unveils their underlying structures and how they shape human existence. His views of Berlin and New York explore themes of displacement, the impact of artificial light on biological rhythms, and the strangeness of a city in perpetual reconstruction. His portraits also adhere to this spatial logic, with bodies inhabiting specific environments that define them. His sculptural works, such as the statue of Willy Brandt at the SPD headquarters, reject the smooth aesthetics of official monuments, offering rough, deliberately imperfect volumes that bear the stigmata of history, akin to deconstructivist architecture.
Fetting and the Simulacrum: Resisting Hyperreality
Fetting's work can be profoundly understood through the lens of Jean Baudrillard’s "Simulacra and Simulation" (1981), though Fetting’s approach offers a powerful counter-narrative.
Beyond Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulation"
While Baudrillard posits a world where simulacra (copies without originals) replace reality, Fetting actively seeks a primal truth beneath layers of artifice. His depictions of the Berlin Wall, like "Erstes Mauerbild" (1977), don't just document; they imbue the media-symbol with tangible materiality, restoring its physical weight and violence. He resists Baudrillard's "hyperreality," giving substance back to what might otherwise be just an image.
The Authenticity of the Creative Gesture
This resistance is also evident in Fetting's self-portraits, such as his 1974 depiction of himself as Gustaf Gründgens, which question the construction of identity in a society of multiplied roles. In his New York paintings, he captures the city's image-driven excesses but maintains a critical distance, portraying New York as a life-sized theater. Ultimately, Fetting's art demands pictorial truth, not through external faithfulness but through the sincerity of the creative act. Each brushstroke affirms a subjective presence, refusing to dissolve into the anonymity of mass images, offering art's resistance against the inauthentic.
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Notable Works and Public Impact
Fetting’s extensive oeuvre includes expressive figurative paintings and bronze sculptures, securing his place among internationally recognized contemporary German artists.
Iconic Paintings and Sculptures
Key works include his Berlin cityscapes, portraits, and figurative pieces like "Van Gogh At The Wall." His bronze sculptures are also significant, most notably the 3.40-meter-high sculpture of former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, located in the SPD party headquarters in Berlin. He also created portrait sculptures of Henri Nannen and Helmut Schmidt, which delve into psychological complexity rather than mere glorification.
Major Exhibitions and Collections
Fetting's work has been featured in numerous prestigious solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Highlights include "A New Spirit in Painting" (London, 1981), "Zeitgeist" (Berlin, 1982), and "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture" (MoMA, New York, 1984). His art is held in significant public collections, including:
- Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
- Museum of Contemporary Art/ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany
- Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, USA
- Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
FAQ: Understanding Rainer Fetting's Art
What defines Rainer Fetting's artistic style?
Rainer Fetting's style is defined by his expressive figuration, bold use of "acid chromatisms" (vibrant, often artificial colors), and generous impasto. He combines classical drawing precision with expressive freedom, creating a singular pictorial language that is both coherent and continuously evolving. He is recognized for his unique fusion of tradition and modernity, particularly within the "Neue Wilde" movement.
How did Rainer Fetting contribute to the "Neue Wilde" movement?
As a co-founder of the Galerie am Moritzplatz in Berlin in 1977, Rainer Fetting was a central figure and main protagonist of the "Neue Wilde" (or "Junge Wilde") movement. This group of young artists, including Salomé and Helmut Middendorf, reacted against the minimalist and conceptual art prevailing at the time, advocating for a return to raw, emotional, and colorful figurative painting.
What themes does Rainer Fetting explore in his artwork?
Rainer Fetting explores a range of profound themes, including urban mutations, the impact of architectural spaces on human experience, and the construction of identity. He often depicts cityscapes (especially Berlin and New York), portraits, and nudes. A recurring theme is the search for authenticity and "pictorial truth" in a world increasingly dominated by media and simulacra, often engaging in dialogue with philosophical concepts like those of Jean Baudrillard. He also addresses political and social resistance, and the tension between tradition and modernity.