Christian Michelides

After serving as an assistant director for plays of Eugène Ionesco and Thomas Bernhard in 1975 at Austria's National Theater, the Burgtheater, he achieved his high school diploma in 1978.

Thereafter he studied arts, philosophy and history of theatre, as well as directing in Milan, Vienna and New York, while still publishing articles in Austrian and Italian journals.

In the 1980s, Michelides was a collaborator for the newly founded magazine WIENER; he then joined the ad agency GGK Wien and the marketing team of the Swiss watch Swatch in Biel.

He presented five young American photographic artists (John Dugdale, Marcus Leatherdale, Robert Mapplethorpe, Todd Watts and Joel-Peter Witkin) for the first time in Europe.

Michelides disclosed the membership of Thomas Bernhard in a conservative party organization called the Bauernbund;[1][2] he also revealed that Rudolf Augstein had published in the Nazi paper Völkischer Beobachter.

Michelides was the founder of the initiative "Häfn human" that counselled and visited prison inmates;[8] he fought against discrimination of asylum seekers and of people with HIV and AIDS, and he participated in grassroots organisations such as Club Plus,[9] Selfhelp Vienna and Social Work from Underneath.