Joachim Sartorius directed the artists' programme for DAAD (German Academic-Exchange Programme) for eight years; served as general secretary of the Goethe Institut in Munich from 1996 to 2000; and later became the artistic director of Berliner Festspiele. Having been awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1992, he was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2011.