Van Gogh at the Berlin Wall

In this vibrant, expressive nighttime scene, an elongated figure strides toward the Berlin Wall. A guarded concrete barrier, the wall separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989 both physically and ideologically. According to the painting’s title, the figure is none other than 19th-century Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, an artist Rainer Fetting admired. Fetting co-founded an artist-run gallery in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of West Berlin, a protective space for alternative lifestyles. His work captured the atmosphere of West Berlin, where student protests and the LGBTQIA+ rights movement demanded societal change despite the constraints of the wall.