Michael Schindhelm

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Schindhelm (born October 1, 1960 in Eisenach ) is a German-Swiss author , cultural advisor, theater director and filmmaker.

Schindhelm during a reading
Michael Schindhelm in Long Island / USA 2008

Life

After graduating from high school in 1979 in the special chemistry classes in Merseburg , he studied at the Voronezh State University ( Russia ) and completed his studies with a degree in quantum chemistry . From 1984 to 1986 he was a research assistant at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin . There he worked in the Theoretical Chemistry department (head: Lutz Zülicke ), where he shared the office with Angela Merkel, who also worked there . Merkel remembered this time in her first speech as Federal Chancellor at the ceremony for the Day of German Unity on October 3, 2006 in Kiel. He then worked as a translator, author and dramaturge until 1990 .

Act

In 1990 Schindhelm became assistant to the director of the Nordhausen Theater and, after the founding of the Nordhausen / Loh-Orchester Sondershausen GmbH, director. In 1992 he was appointed artistic director of the Gera city theater . From 1994 to 1996 he was General Director of the Altenburg-Gera Theater , then, from 1996 to 2006, Director and Artistic Director of the Theater Basel (1999, Theater of the Year and Bavarian Theater Prize, again Bavarian Theater Prize in 2001). He also acted as co-president of the Basel Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2005 .

From April 1, 2005 he was General Director of the Berlin Opera Foundation ( Komische Oper , Staatsoper Unter den Linden , Deutsche Oper ). After having resigned in November 2006, Schindhelm resigned from office on February 15, 2007 because, in his opinion, due to the poor budget situation in the state of Berlin, there was not enough money for the culture or the work of the foundation.

From March 2007 Schindhelm worked as a cultural manager in Dubai ( UAE ), and since March 2008 cultural director of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Schindhelm resigned from this position in the summer of 2009 when it became clear that the opera house and other cultural sites he had planned would not be realized due to the global economic crisis. Schindhelm criticized in an interview that the cultural commitment in Dubai should ultimately only benefit the financing of large real estate areas, without any intrinsic cultural value.

Schindhelm has been working internationally as a cultural advisor for public institutions since summer 2009. Among other things, he is working with the Dutch architecture firm OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) on the master plan for the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong . Together with the think tank AMO, he developed the training and research profile for the Strelka Institute in Moscow in 2010 and headed the research area for public space there (from 2010 to 2012). In 2011/12 he developed a concept for culture and sport as part of the planning for the innovation city Skolkovo (Russia).

Schindhelm also supports Welthungerhilfe in projects related to global philanthropy and has been a member of the Board of Trustees since January 2013.

Schindhelm has been a consultant to the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) for international projects since 2013 and curates a series of lectures on global culture.

In March 2018 Michael Schindhelm was elected curator for Dresden's application for European Capital of Culture 2025.

In addition, Schindhelm has worked as a writer, librettist and translator (from Russian) since 1990. Since 2000 he has published seven novels and non-fiction books. “Lavapolis”, published simultaneously in German by Matthes & Seitz Berlin in 2014 and in English by Sternberg Press, is the transmedial fiction about a parallel society that unfolds on the lavapolis website and in appearances at the 2014 Venice Biennale. His book about the experiences in Dubai was published in German under the title Dubai Speed in 2009 and in English under the title Dubai High in 2011 . He wrote the libretto for the opera Schwarzerde by the composer Klaus Huber (Basel, 2001), as well as for the opera Worlds from Mercury Light by the composer Cong Su (Berlin, 2006). In 2003 he shot the documentary Song of the Steppe together with Jörg Jeshel in the Gobi desert . Between 2003 and 2008, he and Christoph Schaub produced the documentary Bird's Nest about the construction of the stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing . From 2004 to 2006 Schindhelm conducted the TV talk of the salon on Swiss television .

His film The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg premiered in February 2016 . The film tells the life of the Swiss entrepreneur, philanthropist and art collector Uli Sigg, who in 1979 concluded the first joint venture between a western company and the communist government of China and later became the Swiss ambassador to China and collector of the world's largest collection of contemporary Chinese art. In 2012 Sigg donated a substantial part of the collection to the M + Museum in Hong Kong.

Schindhelm was criticized when it became known in 2000 that he was an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR in the 1980s . As a result, honorary councilors appointed in Switzerland (2001) and Germany (2004) assessed these contacts and unanimously came to the conclusion that these contacts do not question Michael Schindhelm's work in public offices.

Works

Movie

  • Song of the steppe . Together with Joerg Jeshel. A musical journey through the Gobi desert. (2003)
  • Bird's Nest . Together with Christoph Schaub. A four-year accompaniment of the architects Herzog and de Meuron and the artist Ai Weiwei during the construction of the Olympic stadium in Beijing. (2008)
  • The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg . The life story of the entrepreneur, diplomat and art collector Uli Sigg in the light of the modernization of China. (2016)

literature

  • Dominique Spirgi: Michael Schindhelm . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 3, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1606 f.
  • Boris Hoge: “ End of the story”, memories of Russia and self-construction in Michael Schindhelm's “Roberts Reise”. In: Ders .: Writing about Russia. The construction of space, history and cultural identity in German narrative texts since 1989. Heidelberg: Winter 2012, pp. 238–259.

Web links

Commons : Michael Schindhelm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/bulletin/bulletin-2000-bis-2009/rede-von-bundeskanzlerin-dr-angela-merkel-797168
  2. ↑ Eckhard Fuhr : How Michael Schindhelm failed in Dubai . Welt Online , November 14, 2009
  3. ↑ "A Modern Babylon". This is how dreams sink into the desert sand: For two years the German Michael Schindhelm tried to turn the boomtown Dubai into a cultural metropolis. In the SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, he explains why his plans failed - and the city is still a cell of confidence in the Islamic world. In: Spiegel Online . October 16, 2009. Retrieved November 28, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Master plan concept OMA West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, September 2010@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.openbuildings.com
  5. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Interview on public space. Strelka Institute, Moscow, November 2010 (English)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.strelkainstitute.com
  6. ^ Travels in a Quiet Land . Spiegel Online , Reise mit Welthungerhilfe, October 2010 (English)
  7. ^ Dresden: Michael Schindhelm becomes curator for Dresden's cultural capital application. Retrieved March 18, 2018 (German).
  8. ↑ Stasi employee future director? Spiegel Online , January 24, 2001.
  9. ↑ Klaus Georg Koch: The exam . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 23, 2004.
personal data
SURNAME Schindhelm, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Eisenach