Christoph Schlingensief, born in 1960, studied philology, philosophy and art history in Munich. He began making films in the 1980s, and became famous with his Germany Trilogy (1989–1992). In the 1990s he worked as a director at the Volksbühne theatre in Berlin. In 1997 he began doing actionist projects in addition to his theatre work. In the run-up to the 1998 German parliamentary elections, Schlingensief founded the “Chance 2000“ political party. He staged his first opera, “Parsifal,” in 2004 at the Bayreuth Richard Wagner Festival, after which he increasingly devoted himself to the fine arts. In 2008 he staged his Fluxus Oratorio “Church of Fear of the Stranger in Me.” His last major commitment was the Opera Village in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Christoph Schlingensief died in 2010 in Berlin.
(Updated: 2014)
