Sale: 541 / Contemporary Art Day Sale, June 09. 2023 in Munich Lot 161

 

161
Rainer Fetting
Prinzenbad, 1980.
Dispersion on burlap
Estimate:
€ 50,000 / $ 54,000
Sold:
€ 69,850 / $ 75,438

(incl. surcharge)
Prinzenbad. 1980.
Dispersion on burlap.
Belatedly signed, dated, titled and inscribed with technique and dimensions, the work number "L 473“ and "2017 nachträglich signiert“ on the reverse. 240 x 190 cm (94.4 x 74.8 in).

• Shadowy male figures in front of a glowing red background – Fetting allows us a peek into the 'Prinzenbad', a popular meeting point for homosexual men in Berlin.
• Important early origin in the year of the seminal exhibition "Heftige Malerei".
• His atmospheric Berlin paintings form a central group in Rainer Fetting's œuvre.
• Works by the artist from the 1980s are part of the collections of, among others, the Tate Gallery, London, the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
.

This work's authenticity was kindly confirmed by the artist.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Folker Skulima, Berlin.
Private collection Northern Germany.

With the large-format painting "Prinzenbad" (1980), Rainer Fetting gives us an intensive insight into life in Berlin around 1980. The depicted public pool in Prinzenstraße, popularly known as "Prinzenbad", which still exists today, becomes the scene of the almost dystopian scenery.

The four male nudes, which form the exposed foreground, are framed by the silhouette of Berlin with the television tower and the outdoor pool, which is shown almost entirely as a red area. There is an exciting affinity between the "Prinzenbad" and the series of large-format shower pictures by Fetting, which were mainly created in the late 1970s. In an interview, the artist named a work by the sculptor Berthold Schepers (cf. Fetting, Cologne 2009, p. 122), who, like Fetting, was one of the co-founders of the Galerie am Moritzplatz, as the source of inspiration for these scenes. Around 1978, Schepers developed his so-called “light shower” for an exhibition, which can be understood as a reference to the gas chambers in Auschwitz during Nazi dictatorship. Fetting then takes up this connection as well as the multi-layered motif of the shower to develop his large-format, multi-figure shower and bath pictures. In this context, the painting "Soldatenbad" (1915) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner provides Fetting with a further incentive to deal with the aforementioned motifs (see above). He saw Kirchner's painting, which was in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York between 1956 and 1988, during one of his early stays in the US metropolis. [AM]



161
Rainer Fetting
Prinzenbad, 1980.
Dispersion on burlap
Estimate:
€ 50,000 / $ 54,000
Sold:
€ 69,850 / $ 75,438

(incl. surcharge)