In 1977 Rainer Fetting, Helmut Middendorf, Salomé and Bernd Zimmer founded the collectively operated "Galerie am Moritzplatz" in the subculture art scene of the isolated city of Berlin. The group was joined by the Swiss artist Luciano Castelli a little later. From then on, the Berlin artists made a name for themselves as "Neue" or "Junge Wilde" and also as "Moritzboys": "We wanted to translate feeling, rhythm and spontaneity into color." (Quoted from: ex. cat. Rainer Fetting. Berlin, Berlinische Galerie, BERLIN 2011, p. 65). The joint creation as a liberation from the partially still prevailing traditional art concept, painting together, as well as making films and playing concerts was in line with the attitude and the esprit of the young painters at that time. Joint works seemed like a logical, completely natural consequence. They can be found in Rainer Fetting‘s and Luciano Castelli's oeuvre as early as in the late 1970s. For example, in 1980 Fetting created some monumental wall paintings for the music club "SO36" together with Helmut Middendorf and Bernd Zimmer, while Castelli worked with Salomé on, among others, large-sized diptychs such as "Rote Liebe" or "Seiltänzer" (1979). In the same year Castelli and Salomé also founded the punk band "Geile Tiere" (with Rainer Fetting on drums). In 1982 Luciano Castelli and Rainer Fetting finally teamed up and created the series of large-format "Brothel Pictures", of which the work offered here is a prime example.

The works by the "Moritzboys" testify to a preference for large formats and in the work offered here, Rainer Fetting and Luciano Castelli fill a monumental canvas with broad, expressive brushstrokes. They create an highly erotic scene inspired by pornographic magazines. Like the clearly aroused male nudes placed in the background, the viewer becomes a voyeur of the sexual acts of three couples in the foreground. Reminiscent of the multi-layered structure of a history painting, Fetting and Castelli let the rampant orgy take place on several image levels, its uninhibited energy is also reflected in the dynamics and expressiveness of the broad brushstrokes as well as in the blurred, rough contours. In a particularly characteristic way, the work conveys the essence of the figurative art of the New / Young and Wild Ones, which was so innovative at the time and which has not lost any of its boisterous, impulsive power, contemporary relevance or art-historical importance. [CH]