Christoph Schlingensief

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Christoph Schlingensief bigraphy, stories - Director

Christoph Schlingensief : biography

24 October 1960 – 21 August 2010

Christoph Maria Schlingensief (24 October 1960, Oberhausen – 21 August 2010, Berlin ) was a German film and theatre director, actor, artist, and author. Starting as an independent underground filmmaker, Schlingensief later began staging productions for theatres and festivals, which often were accompanied by public controversies. In the final years before his death, he also worked for the Bayreuth Festival and several opera houses, establishing himself as a Regietheater artist.

Early life and education

Christoph Maria Schlingensief was born on 24 October 1960 in Oberhausen, a city in the industrial Ruhr area characterised by its predominantly Catholic population. His father was a pharmacist and his mother a pediatric nurse. As a child he worked as an altar server and already made short films with a hand-held camera.

Having passed his Abitur exams, he twice failed to gain admission to the University of Television and Film Munich. From 1981 he studied German language and literature, philosophy and art history at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, but also dabbled as a musician and finally dropped out in 1983 to work as an assistant to the experimental filmmaker Werner Nekes.William Grimes (August 25, 2010), New York Times. After working as a teacher at Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, he became a production manager on Hans W. Geißendörfer’s TV series Lindenstraße.Hugh Rorrison (August 24, 2010), The Guardian.

Projects

1990s

  • 1990–1993 he directed a series of films known as the Germany-trilogy.
  • 1993 he directed his first stage piece "100 Years of CDU " at the Volksbühne Berlin
  • 1994 Kuhnen "94, Bring Me the Head of Adolf Hitler! at the Volksbühne Berlin
  • 1996 Director of the movie United Trash
  • 1996 Rocky Dutschke at the Volksbühne Berlin
  • 1997 My Felt, My Fat, My Hare, 48 Hours Survival for Germany (Dokumenta X, Kassel)
  • 1997 Passion Impossible, Wake Up Call For Germany, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and Station Mission for the Homeless
  • 1998 Chance 2000, an Election Circus, Prater Garden, Berlin and other locations nationwide
  • 1999 Freakstars 3000 at the Volksbühne Berlin

2000s

  • 2000 Foreigners out! Schlingensiefs Container (Opera Square, Vienna in association with the Burgtheater)
  • 2001 Hamlet, This is Your Family—Nazi Line in Zürich, Switzerland, and at the Volksbühne in Berlin in collaboration with Ubermorgen
  • 2002 Atta Atta—Art Has Broken Out! at Volksbühne in Berlin
  • 2003 founded the "Church of Fear" at the Venice Biennale
  • 2003 directed Bambiland by Elfriede Jelinek at the Burgtheater in Vienna
  • 2004 directed Richard Wagners Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus
  • 2004 created Kunst und Gemuese at Volksbühne in Berlin
  • 2005 premiered The Animatograph in Reykjavík, Iceland which continues in various manifestations up to the present
  • 2006 directed Area 7, a St Matthews Expedition at the Burgtheater in Vienna
  • 2006 premiered Kaprow City a performative installation at the Volksbühne in Berlin
  • 2007 directed The Flying Dutchman at the Amazon Theatre, Manaus
  • 2007 created a new talk show series for Arte television, The Pilots
  • 2008 Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir (Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord) 2010
  • 2009 Mea Culpa – eine ReadyMadeOper (Burgtheater, Wien)
  • 2009 Sterben lernenhttp://www.temporaere-leichenhalle.ch/ dead link –>
  • 2010 Remdoogo – Via Intolleranza II (Bayerische Staatsoper, München)

Venice Biennale

In 2011, the jury of the 54th Venice Biennale awarded the international exhibition’s highest honor, the "Golden Lion for best national pavilion", to Germany for its display of work by Christoph Schlingensief. ARTINFO.COM Organized by curator Susanne Gaensheimer, who completed the exhibition after Schlingensief’s death, the German pavilion was transformed into a replica of the church where the artist spent his teenage years as an altar boy in order to present "Fluxus Oratorio," the second of his three-part final work, created after he had undergone surgery to remove a lung. The exhibition presented multimedia documents — from videos to x-rays — relating to his battle with terminal cancer. A side room showed footage and a maquette made as part of Schlingensief’s project to build an opera house in Burkina Faso, while another wing displayed a selection of films from throughout his career. In an interview with Berliner Zeitung, artist Gerhard Richter had previously criticised Schlingensief’s appointment as "a scandal", associating the selection of the multitasking director with “the decline of painting.” Artforum.