VALIE EXPORT
Austrian
Valie Export is a leading European figure in the
experimental, restless mix of artistic media that
characterized late twentieth-century contemporary
art practice. She has done drawings, texts, films,
video, and performances documented through pho-
tographs that explore feminist topics, especially the
power relationships between men and women and
female sexuality. Binding all of Export’s work is a
concern with puncturing or deconstructing media
representations that shape the viewer’s perceptions.
Although Export came of age as an artist during the
heyday of theWiener Aktionismus(Vienna Action-
ism) group and Body Art, her status as a woman set
her apart from the particular activities of these
artists who used their bodies as an extended medium
to create transgressive actions meant to question the
status quo and shock the public. Arising from the
societal upheavals caused by and following World
War II, and dealing openly with sex, aggression,
and destruction, the Actionists inspired Export to
delve into these difficult subjects.
Early in her career Export, rebelling against tradi-
tional forms in cinema that she believed were mer-
cenary, helped define the concept of ‘‘expanded
cinema.’’ Her concept re-examined the processes of
shooting, film editing, and projecting film in works
featuring numerous screens and installations with
mirrors that allowed the illusion of duplication, as
inAbstract Film n 1 , 1967, orSplit Screen Solipsis-
musfrom 1968. The theory of expanded cinema also
included interactive works that went beyond passive
viewing. Export’s Tapp und Tast Kino(Tap and
Touch Cinema) is such a work. A film performance,
the artist strolled through the streets of Vienna, her
chest covered by a box fitted with curtains. Her
frequent artistic partner Peter Wiebel invited pas-
sersby to reach through the curtain into the box
and touch the artist’s breasts, the artist remaining
indifferent to men’s touches. Export also realized
more playful works likePing Pong, Ein Film Zum
Spielen.The viewer is invited to play a Ping Pong
game in which the opponent is a television screen,
emphasizing the split in the reality of contemporary
life by presenting both a real and virtual ball and the
power relationships between the media (artist-film-
maker) and the consumer (player).
Export’s involvement in a wide variety of artistic
media can perhaps be explained by her first artistic
act in which she took the name by which she is
known. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz, Austria, in
1940, she attended a convent school and then stu-
died at the Textilfachschule (Technical School for
Textile Industry) in Vienna. She married, became a
mother, divorced, and then completed her studies
in 1964, with a specialization in textile design. In
1967, she created her pseudonym, Valie being the
diminutive of Waltraud, and Export being an
excerpt from the popular Austrian cigarette brand
AustriaExport. In taking this pseudonym, Export
created a reflection on consumerist ideology and
grounded her artistic identity in photography and
graphic design. Export prefers that her name be
printed in capital letters, emphasizing it as a brand
name. In 1970, she created the black-and-white pho-
tographic workValie Export Smart Export, where
her face is partially hidden by a pack of cigarettes
where the AustriaExport logo is replaced with a
close-up of her face encircled by the words ‘‘Semper
and Ubique, Immer und Uberall,’’—‘‘always and
everywhere.’’ She aggressively thrusts the cigarette
pack forward toward the viewer, her face frozen
into a defiant mask with closed eyes and a lit ci-
garette between her lips. This appropriation of
masculine codes remained at the center of her sub-
sequent works.
Export’s impact of photography has been signifi-
cant in its manifestation as preserving a documen-
tary trace of performances realized in public area.
One of her best-known actions, the tattooing of a
garter fastener on her thigh in 1970, is known chiefly
by its photographic documentation. From her 1969
actionAktionshose: Gentitalpanik(Action Pants: Ge-
nital Panic), for example, there are only a few pic-
tures, posters, and text that remain. This action
consisted of walking the aisles in an art movie
house wearing pants in which the crotch area had
been cut out, exposing her genitals, radically rever-
sing the conventional relationship of the female sex
to consumers of movies. During 1968, she created
her threeIdentita ̈tstransfer(Identity transfer) works,
where she presented herself adorned with attributes
associated with men, such as a chain bracelet or a
chain hanging down an open shirt. The photograph
commemorating one of these actions shows her hairEXPORT, VALIE