Courtesy Capitain and Petzel

The interior of the new Capitain & Petzel gallery in Berlin

Courtesy Capitain and Petzel

Gisela Capitain and Friedrich Petzel

October 2008 Movers+Shakers

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This month, Capitain & Petzel launches in a freestanding glass pavilion with an open, overhanging loft—ideal for unusual installations. “I like the idea of a gallery that is like a vitrine,” says Petzel, who worked for Capitain in the 1980s before founding his own, eponymous gallery in 1994.

A principal goal of the joint endeavor, says Capitain, is to “build a program that represents the artists we show in common . . . who have never had an exhibition in Berlin.” Their international roster includes the German sculptor Georg Herold, the Polish installation artist Monika Sosnowska, the New York– based German painter Charline von Heyl and the American mixed-media artist Kelley Walker. For the first show, “Kunst im Heim” (“Art in Your Home”), on view from October 30 to December 6, artists from both their stables have been invited to respond to the architecture, history and surroundings of the pavilion. Zoe Leonard, Christopher Williams and Wade Guyton are among the participants.

Located on the Karl-Marx-Allee, a landmark boulevard in the Mitte district of the former East Berlin, the gallery is surrounded by Communist-era apartment blocks, fashionable clubs and lindens—but no other galleries. “It’s not part of some art trail,” says Petzel, who adds that he hopes it will become “a destination itself.”