Christoph Schlingensief

12:12 / Video

7 Tage Entsorgung für Graz – Künstler gegen Menschenrechte (Chance 2000 für Graz)
Performance 
Am Eisernen Tor
4.–10.10.1998

German film director and theater maker Christoph Schlingensief (1960–2010) was invited to steirischer herbst three times. For his performance 7 Tage Entsorgung für Graz – Künstler gegen Menschenrechte (Chance 2000 für Graz; 7 Days of Disposal for Graz—Artists against Human Rights [Chance 2000 for Graz]), Schlingensief left the theater hall and for seven days occupied the lawn at Am Eisernen Tor, where ten years earlier Hans Haacke’s memorial to the victims of National Socialism had been subject to an arson attack. Graz was proclaimed a “Sandler-Hochburg” (citadel of bums): as part of a competition, citizens were able to donate a pole sitting time-out to homeless people. Schlingensief was present as host and met the complaints of the onlookers with his usual cynicism. The sequence shows the artist donating 7000 shillings to the crowd, following a credo of the piece: “Throw your money away and save the market economy.”