Valie Export

Valie Export
Manfred Werner - Tsui · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Name	VALIE EXPORT
Birth date	1940-05-17
Birth place	Linz, Austria
Occupation	Performance artist, media artist, filmmaker, educator
Years active	1967–present

Valie Export Valie Export is an Austrian artist whose avant-garde performance, film, photography, and installation work reshaped feminist art, media critique, and conceptual practice from the late 1960s onward. Working within the contexts of Vienna, Munich, New York City, Berlin, and international biennials, she engaged with institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and Documenta to challenge representations of the body, public space, and spectatorship.

Early life and education

Born in Linz, EXPORT studied at the Wiener Kunstschule and later at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna where she encountered currents from the Wiener Aktionismus circle, including interactions with figures associated with Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, and Otto Muehl. She moved to Munich to attend the University of Television and Film Munich and worked in film and photography influenced by contacts in the Fluxus network and exchanges with artists from Italy, France, and Germany such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, and Marcel Broodthaers.

Artistic career and major works

EXPORT’s career began with radical performances and film projects performed in public contexts and screened at venues like Wiener Festwochen, Documenta 6, and the Venice Biennale. Early works such as "Action Pants: Genital Panic" (1969) confronted spectators in Munich and provoked debate in publications like ARTnews, Studio International, and Der Spiegel. Her filmography includes collaborations shown at Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale, and screenings at MoMA and the Anthology Film Archives. EXPORT’s photographic series and installations were acquired by collections at the Neue Galerie, Stedelijk Museum, and the Guggenheim Museum. Major projects engaged with media institutions including ORF, ZDF, BBC, ARTE, and distribution through Les Films du Losange, SALA, and various festival programmers.

Themes and methods

EXPORT’s practice interrogated the representation of women in Cinema, Photography, and Advertising by using the body as an experimental site in relation to Public space and Mass media. She employed methods drawn from Performance art, Body art, Video art, Installation art, and Feminist theory while dialoguing with thinkers from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, Laura Mulvey, and Simone de Beauvoir. Her tactics included appropriation of iconography from Hollywood, Pop Art, and Commercial photography, deploying interventions in contexts such as Film festivals, Galleries, and Streets to disrupt conventional spectatorship and to critique institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, Tate, and national broadcasters such as BBC.

Exhibitions and performances

EXPORT’s solo and group exhibitions traversed institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Neue Galerie Graz, and the Pinakothek der Moderne. She performed at the Documenta exhibitions in Kassel and participated in editions of the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Art Biennial, the Whitney Biennial, and the São Paulo Biennial. Retrospectives of EXPORT's work were mounted at venues such as Kunsthalle Basel, Haus der Kunst, Serpentine Galleries, Kunstverein, and university museums like the Hammer Museum and the Getty Center. Her performances were discussed in periodicals including Artforum, Frieze, The New Yorker, Die Zeit, and Le Monde.

Awards and recognition

EXPORT received honors and prizes from institutions like the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art, the Grand Austrian State Prize, the Praemium Imperiale, and accolades from organizations such as the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). She was invited as a visiting lecturer at universities including University of Vienna, Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the Royal College of Art, and held fellowships from bodies like the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the DAAD. Her work has been featured in major survey publications by publishers Tate Publishing, MIT Press, Phaidon Press, and Hatje Cantz.

Legacy and influence

EXPORT’s interventions influenced generations of artists connected to movements and practitioners such as Marina Abramović, Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman, Joan Jonas, Ana Mendieta, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Sherrie Levine, Carolee Schneemann, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Martha Rosler. Her critique resonated across feminist and queer practices within institutions like Feminist Art Program, Womanhouse, Lesbian Herstory Archives, and academic programs at UCLA and Goldsmiths. EXPORT’s methodologies informed scholarship in journals including October, Signs, Differences, and Women & Performance, and are cited in textbooks published by Routledge and Oxford University Press. Museums, biennials, and academic curricula continue to reference her work in dialogues around Performance art, Media art, Contemporary art, and curatorial practice at venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, New Museum, and SFMOMA.

Category:Austrian artists Category:Performance artists Category:Feminist artists