Philipp Ruch

Philipp Ruch is a philosopher and performance artist. Born in Dresden in 1981, he is the founder of the Center for Political Beauty. He describes himself as a moral hardliner and belongs to the generation of directors who, after Schlingensief, see theater as an artistic form and no longer as an institution. Ruch studied the history of political ideas and completed his doctorate in the history of ancient violence (“Ehre und Rache. Eine Gefühlsgeschichte des antiken Rechts”) with distinction.
In 2015, he published “Wenn nicht wir, wer dann?”, which questions the discursive dominance of scientific interpretation and identifies a series of “toxic ideas” that make any humane self-examination of humanity impossible. In the fall of 2019, “Schluss mit der Geduld” was published on the relationship between imagination and humanity and the end of domestic appeasement policies (“Mit Rechten reden”).
In 2019, the Federal Ministry of the Interior issued an appearance ban against Ruch because, according to a BMI spokesperson, he divides society - mind you, with humanist radicalism. The far-right “Hannibal” network, which has remained unpunished to this day, has him on its death list for “Day X” (“Franco A.”). The state investigated him for 16 months for “forming a criminal organization” (the “criminal organization” meant the ZPS).
His works revolve around the experience of violence and the power of history and fiction. The processing of the shocking experience of the West's inability to act in the face of renewed genocide runs through his entire oeuvre. Numerous productions: GORKI Theater, Münchner Kammerspiele, Theater Neumarkt, Wienwoche, Berlin Biennale, Schauspiel Dortmund, Steirischer Herbst, NGBK.