I have known Gisela Capitain since her early days as a galerist in both

professional and private contexts. We share many friends and our relationship is
born by mutual trust. Having been asked by Gisela to say a few words about her
this morning - and this is classic Gisela: she asked for approximately 8 ½
minutes - is a pleasure and an honor.

“Nobody likes art dealers or galerists”, I recently read on Bamberger’s art
business site. He continues: “Artists don't like dealers because they keep half the
price of every work they sell. Buyers don't like dealers because they charge too
much. Even dealers don't like dealers, but that's another story. Do galleries do
anything other than inject themselves into art business transactions, jack prices,
and extract money?" Let us briefly explore this statement taking our
distinguished FEAGA award winner of 2014, Gisela Capitain, as our case study.

Gisela Capitain was born in Selb, a small porcelain-manufacturing town in
Oberfranken, right on the border with the Czech Republic. Her charismatic
father, “ein echter Berliner”, and her lovingly devoted mother raised three girls.
Gisela was shy and fair skinned - and a typical middle child. As any true girl of
the 1960ies would, she studied philosophy and anthropology at the Freie
Universität in Berlin.

In the end, always practically minded, she continued her education to become an
elementary schoolteacher. This may have turned out to be her most useful
professional experience: learning to keep a cool head with a firm hand while
dealing with these unruly specimens of artists, collectors and curators called the
“art world”.

The most decisive moment in her professional life was most certainly meeting
Martin Kippenberger at the legendary Bar “Exil” in Berlin - over a card game
called Mau-Mau. Gisela lost and she had to pay back her gambling debt that
same evening with a bottle of red wine. This established the foundation for a
close professional relationship and friendship that connected Kippenberger and
Capitain until his untimely death in 1997 and even beyond: she protects his
legacy and represents his estate to this very day - with as much devotion as
competence.

In 1978, when they opened the Berlin art space called Kippenbergers Büro,
it was Gisela who was able to understand his absurd, sometimes rather rude
humor and follow his linguistic fury. She became, so to say, his partner and
created a semblance of order in the Kippenberger universe. She however
stipulated one condition for their partnership: no relationship-stress!

All her criteria for contemporary art have been defined with Kippenberger and
his high standards from this time. It is a matter of multi-layerdness, complexity
and intelligence. Of an awareness about form and formal languages throughout
art history, about the level of skill one possesses in the expressive form, the
scope of perception, the vividness and density with which one recognizes
situations and knows how to reproduce them. “Think today, finished tomorrow.”
“Heute Denken, morgen fertig”, was Kippenberger’s and ultimately Gisela's
maxim.

The essential insight Gisela learned from this period was that no matter what
you do, it always requires your utmost and undivided attention and
concentration. Lukewarm was out of the question. Ultimately it was also
Kippenberger who convinced Gisela to find the courage to give up working as a
school teacher - in 1983 she joined Max Hetzler and Baerbel Graesslin in their
Cologne gallery.

In the early 1980ies Cologne and the Rheinland were the center of the German
art world. With Europe's most important galleries and artists, the Bookstore
Walther König and not to forget the Broadway Bar, Cologne had created a
propitious situation for contemporary art. The "Hetzler boys", as Kippenberger,
Oehlen, Förg, Büttner, Kiecol, Mucha, Meuser and Herold were called, were
connected beyond their age by something called „Haltung“ which can be
translated as “taking a stand”. It was this concept of "Haltung" which also set
the standard for Gisela.

The Hetzler boys always appeared in groups, singing and dancing, all very loud
and above all provocative. It was an exclusive macho boys club – women were
only tolerated as objects of conquest. However Gisela was always the exception,
she was respected and very much admired - not least for her independent spirit,
her quick tongue and her superb dancing skills.

In 1986 she opened her own gallery, initially showing works on paper, a so-
called “grafisches Kabinett” parallel to the Hetzler program. By the end of the
1980ies she was ready to leave: not only the exclusive format of works on paper,
but the exclusive context of the Hetzler Boys as well. In a very thoughtful
process she started to work with many important international positions.
Determined to show women artists like Zoe Leonard, Rachel Khedoori, Maria
Brunner, Karla Black, Charline von Heyl, Laura Owens, Anna Gaskell, Monika
Susnovska or Elfie Semotan, but also other artists from her generation like
Williams, Steven Prina, Franz West or Christopher Wool. A bit later she added
Marcel Odenbach, Johannes Wohnseifer, Seth Price, Kelly Walker, Wade
Guyton, and others to her program. All artists were and remain reassured by her
dedication and know that they have found a close ally and personal friend in
Gisela.

In 2008, Gisela decided to stay in Cologne but opened a branch gallery in Berlin
with Friedrich Petzel who joined her again after having built up his New York
gallery, this time not as her assistant, but as her partner.

An important criterion that comes to mind when thinking about Gisela’s work as
a galerist is precision. When I served on the acquisition committee of the
Nationalgalerie in Berlin, it was some years ago, we acquired a series of works
by Christopher Williams. As soon as they were installed at the Museum
Hamburger Bahnhof, the curators’ phones started ringing: "Hier Gisela Capitain.
Don’t you know that Chris Williams' center alignment is always 135cm?” I have
no idea how she found out so quickly that the work had been installed, but I do
know that nothing can be hidden from her ears and eyes for long.

Gisela shares - with the great art dealers of the last century - her unconditional
loyalty to the artist's work. Over good times, better times and of course bad
times as well. One of her strengths is that she remains comfortable when her
shows are met with incomprehension. She has enough stamina to accept
transitory failure. For Gisela, working with an artist is a confession of faith. Ein
Bekenntnis! She doesn't only exhibit work that she may or may not end up
selling, she is also taking a stand, a position with her commitment. Clients know
that they can trust her judgment and take the extra step it may need to come to
terms with the work of an artist. Their trust is ultimately always rewarded.

Honoring personalities like Gisela Capitain this morning at the Basel Art Fair
signals to all of us here that galerists like her do so much more than "inject
themselves into art business transactions, jack prices and extract money". The
criteria we finally admire in a galerist and find so amply with her are: Personal
commitment, loyalty, precision, and intellect. I am sure that everyone here will
join me in applauding the jury in their decision to award Gisela Capitain with
this marvelous recognition.