ruffled, wearing a leather jacket, tight jeans, and with
a gun in one hand. Export plays with posture, spread-
ing her legs so that her sex is obvious, revisiting the
codified image of the rebel and proposing a feminist
version of male chauvinism. The artist does not play
with dressing-up, so cherished by artists like Marcel
Duchamp, but presents herself as a woman who
assimilates the criteria defining masculinity. In her
male garments, masculine posture, and with the ulti-
mate masculine fetish, the gun, as an accessory, she
presents her female sex like a weapon in order to
explode the cultural taboos about ‘‘unladylike’’
behavior of spreading the legs wide as well as to
invoke Freudian theories about fetishism.
From 1972 to 1982, Export conceived perhaps her
best-known photographic works, the seriesKo ̈rper-
konfigurationen(Body Configuration)inwhichshe
considered the relationships between her body,
architectural elements, and geometry. In these im-
ages, she lays herself in various configurations out in
the urban landscape to both accentuate the ar-
chitectural space and serve as a constraint to it. In
Aus dem Geometrischen Humanoiden Skizzenbuch
der natur(From the Geometric Humanoid Sketch-
book of Nature) of 1974 she positions her hand to
‘‘hold’’ the landscape. In these pictures, the body is
not always charged with a political message, but
suggests its inability to submit to and thus adapt
to the architecture, by extension, its inability to
submit and adapt to the social and political archi-
tecture that shapes society. In 1989, she realized her
first digital photographic works, and has continued
experimentation with this medium.
THOMASCyrilSeealso:Body Art; Feminist Photography; Photo-
graphy in Germany and Austria; Wiener Aktio-
nismus
Biography
Born Waltraud Lehner Ho ̈llinger, Linz, Austria. Student at
Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Decorative Arts) in Tex-
tile Department, Linz, 1955–1958. Realizes first paint-
ings and photographic self-portraits:Metamorphosen der
Identita ̈t(Identity Metamorphose). Creates nameValie
Export, 1967; launches ‘‘expanded cinema.’’ Founding
member Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative; member
Wiener Institut fu ̈r direkte Kunst, founded in Vienna
by Gu ̈nter Brus and Otto Mu ̈hl. Awarded prize from
City of Vienna for the encouragement of cinematic art,
- Signs Women’s Art manifesto at the MAGNA
exhibition, 1972; conceives and organizes exhibition
MAGNA,Feminismus: Kunst and Kreativita ̈tat the Gal-
erie na ̈chst St. Stephan, Vienna (St. Stephen’s Cathedral
Gallery). Represents Austria (with Maria Lassng) at the
Austrian Pavillion,Venice Biennale, 1980. Appointed
professor at the Hochschule der Ku ̈nste, (Academy of
Arts) in Berlin, 1991–1995. Professor of multimedia and
performance art at the Kunsthochschule fu ̈r Medien,
(Academy of Media Art), in Cologne, 1995. Oskar
Kokoschka Prize, 2000. Living in Vienna and Cologne.Individual Exhibitions
1971 Bedeutungsvera ̈nderugen; Gallery Klewan, Vienna,
Austria
1975 VALIE EXPORT, Works from 1968–1975; Muse ́e d’art
moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris, France
1977 Ko ̈rpersplitter aus dem hippokratiischen Gesicht der
Gegenwart; Galerie na ̈chst St. Stephan, Vienna, Austria
1980 Video, Projekte, Fotographien; Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
VALIE EXPORT; Biennale di Venezia, Pavillon of
the Federal Republic of Austria, Venice, Italy
1986 Body Works; Eubie Blake Museum, Baltimore, Maryland
1992 Fotodokumentation: Entwuˆrfe zu Videoinstallationen
und skulpturen der 70er Jahre; Freie Ku ̈nstlergruppe,
Fribourg, Germany
1993 Alltagsgeschichten OBJECTIV gesehen Brechtlaus;
Berlin, Germany
1997 Split Reality: VALIE EXPORT; Museum moderner
Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, 20er Haus, Vienna, Austria
1998 VALIE EXPORT editionen 1971–1998; Gallery Olivier
Schweden, Munich, Germany
VALIE EXPORT: Werkschau III; Wien Fotogalerie,
Vienna, Austria
1999 Medial Anagrams III; Museum of Modern Art, New
York, New York
VALIE EXPORT, Konzeptuelle Fotographie der 70er
Jahre; Gallery Wilma Tolksdorf, Frankfurt, Germany
2000 VALIE EXPORT, Body Configuration 1972–1976;
Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, Inc., New York,
New York
2001 Ob/De+Con(Struction); Santa Monica Museum of
Art, Santa Monica, California
VALIE EXPORT; Dum umeni mesta Brna, Brno,
Czech Republic
2003 VALIE EXPORT; Centre national de la photogra-
phie, Paris, FranceGroup Exhibitions
1996 Fe ́minin-masculin, le sexe dans l’art; Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, France
1989 Out of Actions—Aktionismus, Body Art & Perfor-
mance, 1949–1979; MAK, Vienna, Austria; Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California, and travel-
ing to Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona, Spain;
and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
2000 Hypermental-Wahnhafte Wirklichkeit, 1955–2000 von
Salvador Dali bis Jeff Koons; Kunsthaus Zu ̈rich, Zurich,
Switzerland
Art in Central Europe, 1949–1999; Fundacio ́n Joan
Miro ́, Barcelona, Spain
2003 The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography,
1960–1982; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MinnesotaSelected Works
VALIE EXPORT-SMART EXPORT, 1967
Cutting, 1967–1968EXPORT, VALIE