1. Christoph Maria Schlingensief was a German theatre director, performance artist, and filmmaker.
13 Facts About Christoph Schlingensief
1. 2.
Christoph Schlingensief's father was a pharmacist and his mother a pediatric nurse.
3.
Already as a young man Christoph Schlingensief had organized art events in the cellar of his parents' house, and local artists such as Helge Schneider or Theo Jorgensmann performed in his early short films.
4.
Christoph Schlingensief created numerous controversial and provocative theatre pieces as well as films, his former mentor being filmmaker and media artist Werner Nekes.
5.
Christoph Schlingensief soon became a figure of considerable celebrity and notoriety in Germany, thanks to several popular television projects.
6.
Broadcast in 1997, Talk 2000 was a talk show with celebrity guests in which Christoph Schlingensief sometimes interrupted interviews to discuss his own personal problems.
7.
Christoph Schlingensief 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 Shakespeare's play where there is something foul afoot.
8.
Christoph Schlingensief's work 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 Christoph 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 the Last Chance Party where anyone could become a candidate themselves in the run up to the federal election of 1998 in Germany.
9.
Christoph Schlingensief's influences included Joseph Beuys and his idea of social sculpture, and artists Allan Kaprow and Dieter Roth.
10.
Christoph Schlingensief died on 21 August 2010 in Berlin, Germany, at age 49.
11.
Christoph Schlingensief was one of the greatest artists who ever lived.
12.
Christoph Schlingensief was not really a stage director, he was everything: he was the artist as such.
13.
Christoph Schlingensief has coined a new genre that has been removed from each classification.