Biography 017

Christiane Fichtner - Biography

Born 25 May 1974
Mother is a prompter at the city theater in Gelsenkirchen, father an ear specialist at the clinic in Essen.

1980-1993 Schooling, final grade 1.2 (excellent), vice school representative and member of the school government. Despite finishing school with excellent marks, Christiane wants to follow her childhood dream of studying at an art college. Her father cannot hide his disappointment. He regards her behavior as a rebellion against her parents instead of seeing her artistic talent.

1994 She is not accepted to art school on her first try and she cannot get in to any other college.

1994 to 1995 Various odd jobs because her parents refuse to support her. She moves into a shared apartment where she makes instant soup and coffee on a camping stove. In her free time, she reads about European art history and East Asian picture making traditions.
She applies to several art colleges again in 1996. Accepted only to the art college in Bremen through a random drawing of applicants.

1996-1998 Study of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Bremen (Hochschule für Kunst).

1997 She becomes good friends with an exchange student from France who is a singer in the band Pas sur la bouche. She designs costumes for the band. Thanks to a record contract with the label Damage from Paris and an ensuing tour, her costumes frequently get good reviews in the press.

1998 Graduates with a Master of Fine Arts degree, part-time job as a costume designer at Bremer Theater. Becomes friends with the prop woman Bianca Lech. She discovers her bisexual side. She flourishes in the liberal world of the theater. She launches her own fashion label UNISEX.

1999 Student in Rolf Thiele’s master-class. For her final school project, she marries the gay AIDS activist Gary Wayout in a public performance. Instead of exchanging rings, the bride and groom pierce one another. This performance receives much publicity, not least because Gary is HIV positive and contact with his blood poses a risk.

2000 While hitchhiking, she meets a Kenyan architectural student who finances his studies by transporting German luxury limousines to his home country. She decides to accompany him. She travels around Kenya and Tanzania for one year, realizing several art projects along the way. One of her projects is a documentary of different styles of braiding hair. This work is published as Flechtwerk (Braid Work) by Revolver publishing house. Christiane Fichtner does a performance for the presentation of the artist’s book at the Frankfurt Book Fair in which she braids her own hair together with the hair of a woman from Kenya who is to be deported in a few days’ time.

2001 Exhibition “Der Fremde ist der Gast, der bleibt” (The Foreigner is the Guest Who Stays).

2002 Travels to Kho Tau, a small island in Thailand. Starts her own cocktail bar on the beach. The bar becomes a hotspot for artists and art lovers because of her abstract drawings of coral reefs and flotsam and jetsam and her beach performances.

2004 Entry denied to the USA where she is due to travel to New York to the opening of a group exhibition in which she is participating. Her art work for the group exhibition is to give a green card to each visitor.

2005 Leaves her long-time boyfriend, who is having a dry spell as an artist and cannot deal with his girlfriend’s success. Dependency on alcohol, alcohol rehabilitation in Berlin.

2006 “Luftschnappen” (Gasps of Air), an art performance in a public space, Volkspark Friedrichshain, Berlin.

2007 Member of the group of artists ENAF. The group consists of recycling artists and art theorists. Their demand: Stop the overproduction of artworks! There are too many artworks in the world! The many forms of Christiane Fichtner’s unique crossover style not only break down hierarchies, but they also declare war on all elitist concepts of art and aesthetics.

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