Christoph Schlingensief
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christoph Schlingensief (born October 24, 1960 in Oberhausen) is a German film director, theatre director, actor, author, artist, and talkshow host. As a young man he organized art "events" in the cellar of his parents house and artists such as Helge Schneider or Theo Jörgensmann performed in his early films. There is no artist working in Germany today who has earned the term "political" for their work or been as prolific in their output as much as Schlingensief although the derogatory terms his detractors have invented could fill a lexicon. His work has not shirked difficult issues and for over twelve years he has regularly used handicapped people in his work for which he has often been called a "scandal-maker" although as he suggests, the real scandal-makers are sitting in Government office.
Contents |
[edit] Career
He has created numerous controversial and provocative theatre pieces as well as films, his former mentor being filmmaker and media artist Werner Nekes. One of his main works, the so-called Germany-Trilogy consists of the movies "Hundert Jahre Adolf Hitler"(a hundred years of Adolf Hitler), "Das deutsche Kettensägenmassaker"(the German chainsaw-massacre) and "Terror 2000" which deal with three turning points in 20th century German history. While Hundert Jahre Adolf Hitler is about the last hours of Adolf Hitler, Das deutsche Kettensägen-Massaker depicts the German reunification of 1989 and shows a group of East-Germans who cross the border to visit West-Germany and get slaughtered by a psychopathic family with chainsaws. Terror 2000 uses the theme of the 1970´s Red Army Faction terror in Germany which in many ways brought an end to the revolutionary movement of 1968. His films are to be taken seriously in the same way that Hans-Juergen Syberbergs film, "Hitler, a film from Germany" demands debate and analysis. Schlingensief is an extremely "provocatively thoughtful" artist and some of his major targets have been the legacy of the third reich in German and Austrian identity, thus it came as a surprise when he directed Parsifal at the Wagner-Festspiele in Bayreuth although this was at the invitation of the Wagner family and as always Schlingensief created highly original images for the opera not entirely pleasing to the opera buffs. As noted by the press a few weeks previously he had observed a Neo-Nazi rally in Berlin and ironically suggested using the word "Judensau" (literally: Jewish Pig) in public again. This of course to be understood in the context of the "actions" taken by the artist previously in his work "Aktion 18" to undermine the increasing verbosity of German FDP politician Jurgen Moellerman who himself was making open anti-semitic comments, while ludicrously denying that he was in fact doing this and claiming that Schlingensief was infringing on his personal space by demonstrating outside his office. One of Schlingensiefs central tactics is to call politicians bluff in an attempt to reveal the inanities of their "responsible" discourse, a tactic he calls "playing something through to its end". This strategy is most notable in his work "Please Love Austria" at the time of the outlandish FPO and OVP coaliton in Austria, a work which attracted international support, a media frenzy and countless debates about art practice. Schlingensief has also directed a version of Hamlet, subtitled, "This is your Family, Nazi-line, " which premiered in Switzerland, the so-called neutral territory equated with the Denmark of the opening line in Shakespeares play where there is something foul afoot. Events around the piece questioned and attacked Switzerlands "neutrality" in the face of growing racism and extreme right wing movements. It also involved former members of Neo Nazi groups, allowing them to play out their own weaknesses in the terms of the characters in the drama, and led to him founding a centre for former members to "de-brief". His work has covered a variety of media including installation and the ubiquitous "talk show" and has in many cases led to audience members leaving the theatre space with Schlingensief and his colleagues to take part in events such as "Passion Impossible, Wake Up Call for Germany" 1997 or "Chance 2000, Vote for Yourself" in which he formed his own party where anyone could candidate themselves in the run up to the federal election of 1998 in Germany. With his demands for people to "prove they exist" in an age of total TV coverage and "act, act, act" in the sense of becoming active not "actors", his work could be considerd a direct legacy of Brechts as it demands involvement as opposed to passivity and merely looking on as is the case in traditional text-based theatre. In an age of extreme media fatigue his is a fresh voice albeit and undisputedly containing echoes of the past, often humourous and subversive yet never cynical. His influences include Joseph Beuys and his idea of "social sculpture", and artists Allan Kaprow and Dieter Roth.
[edit] Projects
[edit] 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 Volksbuehne Berlin
- 1994 Kuhnen "94, Bring Me the Head of Adolf Hitler! at the Volksbuehne Berlin
- 1996 Rocky Dutschke at the Volksbuehne 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 Volksbuehne Berlin
[edit] 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 Berlin
- 2002 Atta Atta—Art Has Broken Out! at Volksbühne 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 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 Berlin
- 2007 directed The Flying Dutchman at the Amazon Theatre, Manaus
- 2007 created a new talk show series for Arte televison, The Pilots
[edit] References
Roger Boyes for The Times in Berlin: German audience vents fury at Diana-Nazi parody play. Times Online, September 14, 2006.
