Schlingensief originally conceived "Kaprow City" in 2006 as an immersive installation and as his final play at the Volksbühne Berlin. He created a chaotic and acoustically and visually overwhelming stage set on a revolving stage that accommodated the actors and part of the audience. Theatergoers were split up into groups for the performance in the manner pioneered by Allan Kaprow and were confronted with everyday activities. The play premiered on September 14, 2006.

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Allan Kaprow was an American artist (1927-2006). He coined the term “happening” and in 1959 he performed the first such event when he presented "18 Happenings in 6 Parts" in New York City. The audience was split up into groups and each group watched as 18 different everyday activities were performed, such as performers reciting words.

Shortly after Kaprow’s death, Haus der Kunst in Munich showed a solo exhibition at which "18 Happenings in 6 Parts" was performed again. Schlingensief saw the performance. Kaprow’s conception of art was a key inspiration for his "Kaprow City" staging at the Volksbühne, which he subtitled "18 Happenings in einer Sekunde".

Christoph Schlingensief on the American artist, 2009:
“Art is only interesting to me if it draws on life, when it scrapes away at the separation of art and life like the art of Allan Kaprow, who hardly anyone remembers nowadays, did. You have to picture his events something like this: a group of people sits in a cubicle watching someone peeling oranges ; another group in another cubicle watches someone peeling and eating a banana; a third group sees nothing but an empty room. Everyone exits the cubicles upset, ‘What nonsense! What is this?’ Suddenly someone from the banana group hears the word orange. A big discussion ensues: who saw what? The third group is in a real huff and on the verge of revolt: ‘What the hell! What are you complaining about? We didn’t even have tiniest bit of peel. We had nothing at all. We sat in an empty room for hours.’ That is what happens in life over and over again. You see an image and believe that is the world, but you forget that the world is made up of a whole bunch of images.”

aus: Christoph Schlingensief, Ich weiß, ich war‘s, hrsg. von Aino Laberenz, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 3. Auflage 2012, S. 51f.

In 1993 dramaturg Matthias Lilienthal invited Schlingensief to the Volksbühne Berlin, marking the beginning of his career as a theater director. His first play "100 Jahre CDU – Spiel ohne Grenzen", which featured professional and amateur actors, including disabled people, was followed by "Kühnen ’94" (1994), "Rocky Dutschke ’68" (1996), "Rosebud" (2001), "Kunst und Gemüse, A. Hipler" (2004) and his final play at the Volksbühne, the immersive installation "Kaprow City" (2006). Schlingensief’s penchant for referencing himself in his works is evident in how he handled stage props. For example, in "Kaprow City" he reused the large dome from "100 Years of the CDU" (see Kino 1), his first play at the Volksbühne Berlin.

Schlingensief also directed plays at other theaters, including "Hamlet" (2001) at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, which featured reform-minded Neo-Nazis, and the ATTA trilogy, which consisted of "ATTA ATTA" (Volksbühne, 2002), Elfriede Jelinek’s "Bambiland" (Burgtheater, Vienna, 2003) and "Attabambi – Pornoland" (Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2004). He dealt with his 2008 cancer diagnosis in the stagings "Der Zwischenstand der Dinge" (2008) at Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theatre, the Fluxus Oratorio "Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir" (2009), which premiered at the Ruhrtriennale in Duisburg and in "Sterben lernen – Herr Andersen stirbt in 60 Minuten" (2009), a coproduction of Zürich’s Theater Neumarkt and the Schauspielhaus Zürich.

In the autumn of 2007 Schlingensief set up his as yet largest exhibition at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zürich. "Kaprow City", which Schlingensief converted from a stage set into an art object, opened the exhibition "Querverstümmelung" (Transverse Mutilation).

Three quarters of the original theater stage served as the foundational structure of the new artwork, whereby many of the props were removed upon reconstruction and made inaccessible with sheets of foil. Schlingensief named the individual rooms Kino 1 through Kino 7 and presented clips of his film "Fremdverstümmelung" and other short films in them. The Migros Museum acquired the work while Schlingensief was still alive.

Christoph Schlingensief on the occasion of the exhibition "Querverstümmelung" at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zürich, 2007:
“I wholeheartedly embrace the sheltered confines of the museum after my experiences in theater. I don’t have to worry about whether 400 people show up that evening and whether I’ll be cheered or jeered two hours later. I can now do what I’ve always done, and I can do it alone, just like in the editing room. In a museum I get the sensation that everyone outside is in a deep sleep and that I can work. I really like that […] And what I enjoy most is the realization that the images still entertain me when I get home.”

The "Kaprow City" installation marked a new phase in Schlingensief’s work as an artist, a phase in which he contemplated the artwork as an entity independent of the artist. He had grown tired of being pigeonholed as a provocateur and used the “sheltered confines” of the museum to reflect upon his own role and presence. Previously known for being involved in his works as a protagonist, he was now able to set up the installation and leave it to exist on its own as an autonomous work of art independent of his person.

aus: Monopol, 1/2008, Christoph Schlingensief im Interview mit Cornelius Tittel, Theater war noch nie mein Ding

Schlingensief first gained notoriety in the fine arts when he was invited to documenta X in 1997. The police arrested him there during his performance "Mein Filz, mein Fett, mein Hase" because the performance included a banner emblazoned with the words “Kill Helmut Kohl.”

In 2003 he presented "Church of Fear" at the 50th Venice Biennale. He had numerous highly regarded art exhibitions in Germany and abroad, including "Ragnarök" at the Museum der bildenden Künste in Leipzig (2006), "Chicken Balls – Der Hodenpark" at the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg (2006), "18 Bilder pro Sekunde" at the Haus der Kunst in Munich (2007) and "Querverstümmelung", centered around the installation "Kaprow City", at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zürich (2007/2008). Works for the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London ("Stairlift to Heaven", 2008) and the solo exhibition "Der König wohnt in mir" at the Kunstraum Innsbruck (2008) followed.

His final and unfinished works were a film with the working title "Kunst (das Wesen der...)" and his design for the German Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. He was posthumously awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Contribution on the Biennale’s opening day.

Schlingensief repeatedly mentioned Joseph Beuys and his idea of social sculpture, Paul Thek, Paul McCarthy, Diether Roth and Allan Kaprow as formative influences.

One idea for the "Kaprow City" play was to shoot a film about Princess Diana’s final hours before her death in the early morning hours of August 31, 1997 as a result of a serious car crash in a Paris tunnel. His casting of actor Jenny Elvers-Elbertzhagen in the role of Diana led to an extraordinary media circus in the lead-up to the premiere.

In preparation for the play, outdoor footage was shot using Diana doubles in Teupitz, Brandenburg. That footage was incorporated into the play, as were photographs taken during the shoot. These and many other props in the artwork, such as the neon "Ritz" sign – the Paris Ritz belonged to the father of Princess Diana’s boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed, and is where the two of them had spent that evening – still allude to that storyline, including the would-be car wreck in Kino 6.

Interview with Christoph Schlingensief, 2006
Max Dax: “Tell me, do you remember where you were when Princess Diana died?

Schlingensief: “I was in the Orangery in Kassel performing the action 48 Stunden Überleben für Deutschland (Surviving 48 hours for Germany) at documenta X. When the rumor of Princess Diana’s accident started circulating I grabbed the microphone and said, ‘Princess Diana is dead! She finally bit the dust.’ We didn’t know the details of her death so we imagined her death in an improvised freestyle speech. I was arrested on the spot and taken away in handcuffs. Respectable and reproachful museumgoers had complained to the police. Many saw that as a scandal.”

Dax: “What is the nature of the scandal?”

Schlingensief: “It’s the opposite of whitewashing. People constantly accumulate filth. A scandal allows them to point to someone else’s mountain of trash.”

Dax: “Did Princess Diana’s death touch you?”

Schlingensief: “To be honest, no. I don’t care two figs about royal families.”

Dax: “Then why that performance?”

Schlingensief: “The only thing that interests me is the camera that was removed from the tunnel, and the surveillance cameras in general. There was apparently a video of the crash in the tunnel but it vanished.”

In 1997 Klaus Biesenbach invited Schlingensief to documenta X to perform an action in the Hybrid WorkSpace in the Orangery. It was Schlingensief’s first action in the context of the fine arts. He took part with the performance "Mein Filz, mein Fett, mein Hase, 48 Stunden Überleben für Deutschland" on August 30/31, 1997.

aus: Welt am Sonntag, 37/06, 10. September 2006, Christoph Schlingensief im Interview mit Max Dax, Ich glaube an die Peinlichkeit

Christoph Schlingensief on Princess Diana’s death, 1997
Schlingensief: “I believe catastrophes exist so that I realize I’m still alive. If someone’s timeline is interrupted but mine continues, then I can use that to get my bearings. That’s why we are drawn to catastrophes. Like when Princess Di crashed against the roof pillar. 2.5 billion people cried. And in the end it was just a dog biscuit or a Sacher torte or whatever else that crashed against that pillar.”

Carla Mühlens: “What is that supposed to mean?”

Schlingensief: “What happened is a mystery to me: a woman is traveling from one Ritz to another, and then suddenly she’s gone and everyone’s in mourning. I mean, how many people walk from one garbage can to the next? If they die nobody notices.”

aus: Marie Claire, 12/1997, Christoph Schlingensief im Interview mit Carla Mühlens, Der Überzeugungstäter, abgedruckt in: Christoph Schlingensief, Kein falsches Wort jetzt, hrsg. von Aino Laberenz, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 2020, S. 91

Christoph Schlingensief, 2009:
“Almost everyone believes they have a monopoly on the truth, that they see the one true, correct image. I’ve never believed that. I have always believed that the society we see isn’t the society that is present at all, that those who are seen are only the people who pose as something, in the most literal sense; they’re constantly putting on a show to prove they exist. The problem isn’t necessarily the act of putting on a show; the problem is that not everyone has the opportunity to do that, not everyone has the scope to put themselves on stage and thus into life.”

aus: Christoph Schlingensief, Ich weiß, ich war‘s, hrsg. von Aino Laberenz, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 3. Auflage 2012, S. 57

Schlingensief’s pursuits in cinema, theater and artistic spaces were entangled with “actionistic,” political and often provocative projects that made him known to a wider audience. Between 1997 and 2003 he worked as a TV presenter, going on air with formats that were critical of mainstream media like "Talk 2000", "U3000", and "Freakstars 3000", a variety show featuring the non-disabled. For the 1998 parliamentary elections Schlingensief founded the party "Chance 2000". The media frenzy culminated during the action “bathing in Lake Wolfgang.” Schlingensief called upon all of Germany’s six million unemployed citizens to swim in Lake Wolfgang at the same time. Helmut Kohl’s vacation house was located on the lakefront. The aim of the action was to raise the lake’s water table enough to flood Kohl’s vacation house, or at least his bathhouse. At the Wiener Festwochen in 2000 Schlingensief put on the performance art action "Bitte liebt Österreich" inspired by the TV reality show "Big Brother", which had debuted that same year on German television. Asylum seekers stayed in a container next to the Vienna State Opera. The audience could vote on which of the residents had to leave the country. In 2002 Schlingensief’s "Aktion 18 – Möllemann-Aktion" in Düsseldorf targeting FDP politician Jürgen Möllemann drew a wave of media attention.

At the age of twelve Schlingensief began experimenting with his father’s Double-8 camera. He founded the Amateur Film Company Oberhausen. Under his direction they made several Super-8 movies with plotlines. In 1981 he moved to Munich and unsuccessfully applied to the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film. At the end of 1982 Schlingensief moved back to the Ruhr and began assisting experimental filmmaker Werner Nekes.

In 1983/84 he made his first feature-length film "Tunguska – Die Kisten sind da". Films such as "Menu Total" (1986), which first brought him greater renown as a director, "Egomania – Insel ohne Hoffnung" (1986) and "Mutters Maske" (1987/88) followed. From 1989 to 1992 he filmed his highly regarded German trilogy, which consists of "100 Jahre Adolf Hitler – Die letzten Stunden im Führerbunker", "Das deutsche Kettensägenmassaker" and "Terror 2000 – Intensivstation Deutschland".

The plots and dialogues in his films are sometimes drawn from well-known feature films like Veit Harlan’s "The Great Sacrifice", Pier Paolo Pasolini’s "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom" and Tod Browning’s "Freaks" (1932), which inspired Schlingensief in the making of some of the films shown in "Kaprow City". Other important role models Christoph Schlingensief named include the photographer Eedweard Muybridge and directors Luis Buñuel, Werner Schroeter and Werner Maria Fassbinder.

To transform "Kaprow City" from a stage set into a work of art Schlingensief closed off the once freely accessible rooms with sheets of transparent foil and labeled them Kino 1 through Kino 7. One of the reasons he put a stronger emphasis on the filmic aspect was the black-and-white film "Fremdverstümmelung" (2007). Sequences from the film are shown in Kino 1, 2, 5 and 6. Schlingensief filmed the grainy and flickering film full of superimpositions and cross-fades shortly before the Zürich premiere of "Kaprow City" with a newly purchased 16-millimeter Bolex camera from the 1930s. Its simplified technology provided him with the kind of filmic images he was after.

Yet another reason Schlingensief gave for his renewed and intense interest in the medium of film was the death of his father, a passionate amateur filmmaker who had captured his son’s imagination with unintentional superimpositions. Schlingensief presents three of Hermann Josef Schlingensief’s films, "Neuschwanstein" (Kino 2), "Doppelbelichtung" (projected from Kino 7) and "Christoph Waschung" (Kino 7) in "Kaprow City".

Documentary footage of the theatrical performance of "Kaprow City" in Kino 1 and Kino 4 and a projection onto the rear wall of the installation constitute the third filmic level present in the work.

Christoph Schlingensief on multiple exposure, 2009:
“For example, I had to act as six children for my parents. At least I always had that feeling because my mother and father actually wanted six kids [...]. Of course, that‘s my own problem. It’s unlikely everyone has to struggle against six people within them. Nonetheless, I believe that those layers lie dormant within all of us, that all of us are not all that clearly defined and sturdily built. That’s why I think multiple exposures in film are a big hit. The fact that a medium exists that allows things to be combined that don’t belong together and for new images to be created is terrific.”

aus: Christoph Schlingensief, Ich weiß, ich war‘s, hrsg. von Aino Laberenz, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 3. Auflage 2012, S. 45f.

Schlingensief often expressed how important biological family and “extended” family were to him. He counted friends and people with whom he had worked for years among the latter. Dramaturgs Carl Hegemann and Jörg van der Horst, costume designer Aino Laberenz, set designer Tobias Buser, camerawomen Meika Dresenkamp and Kathrin Krottenthaler and others were involved in the production of the play "Kaprow City" and in its transformation into an art installation.

Schlingensief’s extended family also included a number of actors, such as Bernhard Schütz, Udo Kier, Alfred Edel, Sophie Rois and Martin Wuttke and Fassbinder favorites Margit Carstensen, Irm Hermann and Volker Spengler as well as the musicians Helge Schneider and Patti Smith.

From 1992 on Schlingensief worked with actors with physical or mental disabilities such as Kerstin Grassmann, Horst Gelonneck, Helga and Achim vom Paczensky and Karin Witt. They played important roles in Schlingensief’s productions, including the play "Kaprow City" and the film "Fremdverstümmelung", which was made to accompany Moritz Eggert’s concert performance of the opera "Freax". Sequences from the film including "Die Blinden", "Zirkus Tenero", "Doppelte Kreuzigung", "Tischtanz Karin" and "Seiltanz" are shown in the installation "Kaprow City".

Christoph Schlingensief on his relationship with his parents, 2009:
“My parents have always been a huge corrective force in my life. All the things they had to endure! Especially in the beginning when I made my films. It was always created a huge predicament for me when my father saw the films. Menu Total, for instance, my second feature film, in which a little boy wipes out his entire family because he fears his parents’ and grandparents’ rituals, and afterwards he plays Hitler. […] When the film came out everyone thought, ‘Oh good God, Schlingensief! Tough homelife, Nazis everywhere, incest, perversions here and there.’ Obviously, that was all nonsense.”

aus: Christoph Schlingensief, Ich weiß, ich war‘s, hrsg. von Aino Laberenz, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 3. Auflage 2012, S. 69

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As he often pointed out, Schlingensief was a Catholic. He dealt with questions of truth, fear as a productive force, God and salvation. They were questions he constantly related to himself.

Schlingensief dealt with his father’s gradual loss of eyesight and death (2007) as well as his own hereditary eye problems (glaucoma, optic disc drusen) in the installation "Kaprow City". By putting foil sheets in front of the entrances of each “Kino” he denied people both free access and an unimpeded view of the rooms that lay behind the foil. He “clouds people’s vision,” as it were.

"Kaprow City" was still being exhibited at the Migros Museum in Zürich when Schlingensief was diagnosed with lung cancer. He subsequently took an aggressive approach to dealing with his illness, addressing it in theater and opera stagings such as "Der Zwischenstand der Dinge" (2008) at Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater, "Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir" (2009) at the Ruhrtriennale in Duisburg, "Mea Culpa, eine Readymade-Oper" (2009) at the Burgtheater in Vienna, "Sterben lernen!" (2009) at Zürich’s Theater Neumarkt and Schauspielhaus, as well as in his blog and the book "So schön wie hier kanns im Himmel gar nicht sein! Tagebuch einer Krebserkrankung" (2009). A few months after it was published Schlingensief began recording his thoughts and memories once again. He took account of his life in the book "Ich weiß, ich war’s", which was published posthumously in 2012.

Christoph Schlingensief on his eye problems, 2007:
“My father was blind at the end of his life, and so was his father. I have the same eye illness, the drusen illness. Deposits form on your optic nerves that no longer get washed away. Where that happens the images you see are dulled. I have that and glaucoma, which increases pressure on the optic nerve. You have to administer drops once a day. My father did that for 15 years before he went blind. Recently, in particular, when I’ve had these major eye problems, I’ve been thinking a lot about the images that were sold to me as precise when I was a child, as an ideal, as facts. There is no such thing as a precise, unambiguous image. That’s a lie.”

aus: Monopol, 1/2008, Christoph Schlingensief im Interview mit Cornelius Tittel, Theater war noch nie mein Ding

Christoph Schlingensief on his cancer illness, 2009:
“I am only now discovering that it was already present as fear that hadn’t articulated itself. Cancer isn’t just a chemical mishap, it is something spiritual to me. It has a face. The cancer arose while I was concerning myself with Mr. Wagner’s work of farewell to the world and of salvation. My stories "Kühnen" and "Parsifal" contain repeated references to the question of salvation; thankfully they’re not always serious. That’s why "Das deutsche Kettensägenmassaker" is a funny movie. But I took Wagner’s longing for death to heart.”

aus: Theater heute 1/2009, Christoph Schlingensief im Interview mit Eva Behrendt, Ich gieße meine soziale Skulptur, abgedruckt in: Christoph Schlingensief, Kein falsches Wort jetzt, hrsg. von Aino Laberenz, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 2020, S. 281

Proceeding from the idea of an “immersive film spool” or “actionist photographic plate,” Schlingensief developed the concept of the Animatograph, or “soulwriter.” This long-term project allowed him to fuse all of the art forms he employed in his work – theater, opera, film, installations and performance art – and to both literally and figuratively create a multidimensional space. A revolving stage containing various backdrops, stage props and media forms invited visitors to use the Animatograph to become part of the staging themselves “because everyone who views the Animatograph exposes it, and it exposes everyone who steps into it (Schlingensief).”

The original Animatograph was created for the staging of Wagner’s "Parsifal" (2004) at the Bayreuth Festival, for which Schlingensief “illuminated” the revolving stage with film projections. He incorporated the experiences he had there in the Animatograph "Iceland Edition: House of Obsession", which was presented at the 2005 Reykjavik Arts Festival. Further animatographs followed, including the "German Edition: Odins Parsipark" in Neuhardenberg (2005) and the "Africa Edition: The African Twin Towers" in Namibia (2005/06). Schlingensief also described "Kaprow City" at the Volksbühne Berlin in 2006 as an “animatographic” installation.

Christoph Schlingensief on the role of the Animatograph in the play "Kaprow City", 2006:
“Brain cells, nerve cells, photoreceptor cells, prison cells – all of these are already arranged in this Animatograph [editor’s note: Kaprow City at the Volksbühne Berlin]. Here, you are blinded; this is where the images return; this is the darkness without which there is no movement. […]

The zoetrope is not an exercise in demarcation, it is, rather, borne of a great integrative need; it provides evidence that information slumbers in the darkness, but in today’s flashy world the images can no longer emerge because they constantly have other images overlapping them. That is why the Animatograph is also an avowal to the strategy of overpainting and to the subversion of that strategy. That means that if truth could exist at all it could only be in what has been painted over. If I want truth I have to scrape away at it, and, in doing so, I am once again changing the surface.”

aus: Programmzettel zu Kaprow City an der Volksbühne Berlin, 7. September 2006

Schlingensief’s Wagner stagings earned him a name as an opera director, and in 2007 he was commissioned to direct Moritz Eggert’s opera "Freax" at the Bonn Beethovenfest. The opera is based on Tod Browning’s film "Freaks" (1932), which Schlingensief revered. In the film a dwarf and disabled circus performers play the main roles. However, due to differing opinions regarding the role of people with disabilities in the performance, Schlingensief pulled out of the project. He felt that disabled people should play the main roles in an opera about disabled people. In the end, his black-and-white film "Fremdverstümmelung" (External Mutilation) was shown in the intermission at the premiere of the opera, which took place as a concert performance. Schlingensief incorporated scenes from the film in the artwork "Kaprow City".

While at the 2003 Venice Biennale presenting "Church of Fear – 1. Internationaler Pfahlsitz-Wettbewerb", Schlingensief received a call to direct Wagner’s "Parsifal" in Bayreuth for the 2004 to 2007 seasons. Parsifal’s sentence “Here, time becomes space” served as the underlying idea for the production. A large revolving stage installed in the Festpielhaus especially for the opera was the centerpiece of the production. It allowed Schlingensief to transform the static space of the theater into a moving “cinematic” space.

In the spring of 2007 Schlingensief directed Wagner’s "The Flying Dutchman" in the Teatro Amazonas at the XI. Festival Amazonas de Ópera in Manaus, Brazil. A few months later he erected "Trem Fantasma", a ghost train through the history of opera, on 1,200-square-meter grounds in São Paulo. After that he directed "Jeanne d’Arc – Scenes from the Life of Saint Joan" (2008) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and "Mea Culpa – Eine ReadyMadeOper" (2009) at the Burgtheater in Vienna. In 2010 he was supposed to direct Jens Joneleit’s opera "Metanoia" at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. On August 21, two days before rehearsals were set to begin, Christoph Schlingensief died of cancer at the age of 49.

Christoph Schlingensief on his staging of "The Flying Dutchman" in Manaus, Brazil, 2007:
“I see Wagner as someone who roams between worlds, as someone who has evaded appropriation both biographically and musically. He was a freedom fighter who manned the barricades as well as the composer of anti-Semitic writings; he composed+O115 operas that verge on being pedestrian like Die Meistersinger as well as transcendental operas like Parsifal or The Flying Dutchman. It is the contradictions that make Wagner interesting, not the idle banter about Gesamtkunstwerk or who has the power of interpretation. Contradiction charges him with energy. The German Wagner according to German purity law and Manaus shrouded in his plume of mist don’t fit together, they repel each other – and that creates a pure energy.”

aus: Navio fantasma – ópera fantástica, Christoph Schlingensief im Interview mit Martina Merklinger, 25. Juli 2007