Overview
'My artistic work centres on the human body as medium of information, as signal bearer of meaning and communication. In this sense my artistic self-representation is also the representation of society.'
A pioneer in conceptual photography, film and performance art, VALIE EXPORT produced one of the most significant bodies of feminist art in the post-war period. Her groundbreaking films and performances in the 1960s and 1970s introduced a new form of radical, embodied feminism to Europe, examining the politics of the body in relation to its environment, culture and society. The multidisciplinary nature of EXPORT's ‘Expanded Cinema’ practice, and her use of her own body as an artistic medium, position her as one of the earliest performance artists alongside Joseph Beuys and Allan Kaprow.
Through her artistic representations of the self, EXPORT questioned the (female) body as signifier and bearer of information, challenging viewers by examining the politics of eroticism, the male gaze and liberation. In the Body Configurations she began in 1972, EXPORT used her own body to visualise the internal accommodations made to nature, architecture and culture. Contorted in response to architectural landmarks or the natural environment, the artist undermined the physical boundaries between self and surroundings. As she explained, 'This analogy between scenic and bodily arrangements, these common forms of revealing mood, have served since the beginning of pictorial art as projection surfaces for expression: external configurations, whether they are in the landscape or in the picture […] serve as the expression of internal states.'
A pioneer in conceptual photography, film and performance art, VALIE EXPORT produced one of the most significant bodies of feminist art in the post-war period. Her groundbreaking films and performances in the 1960s and 1970s introduced a new form of radical, embodied feminism to Europe, examining the politics of the body in relation to its environment, culture and society. The multidisciplinary nature of EXPORT's ‘Expanded Cinema’ practice, and her use of her own body as an artistic medium, position her as one of the earliest performance artists alongside Joseph Beuys and Allan Kaprow.
Through her artistic representations of the self, EXPORT questioned the (female) body as signifier and bearer of information, challenging viewers by examining the politics of eroticism, the male gaze and liberation. In the Body Configurations she began in 1972, EXPORT used her own body to visualise the internal accommodations made to nature, architecture and culture. Contorted in response to architectural landmarks or the natural environment, the artist undermined the physical boundaries between self and surroundings. As she explained, 'This analogy between scenic and bodily arrangements, these common forms of revealing mood, have served since the beginning of pictorial art as projection surfaces for expression: external configurations, whether they are in the landscape or in the picture […] serve as the expression of internal states.'
VALIE EXPORT lived and worked in Vienna, where she co-founded the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative. From 1968, she took part in numerous international exhibitions, including documenta 6 and 12 (1977 and 2007) and the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1980. Her work was exhibited at MAK Center for Art and Architecture at Schindler House, Los Angeles (2024); C/O Berlin Foundation (2024); Albertina, Vienna (2023); Fotomuseum Winterthur (2023); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2023); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2020); Pavillon Populaire, Montpellier (2019); Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (2017); Belvedere Museum, Vienna (2010); Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2009); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007).
EXPORT taught at a number of international institutions, including the University of Wisconsin, San Francisco Art Institute and University of the Arts in Berlin. From 1995–2005 she was professor of multimedia and performance at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. In 2019, she was awarded the Roswitha Haftmann Prize in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the visual arts. VALIE EXPORT received the Max-Beckmann-Prize of the City of Frankfurt 2022.
With the purchase of her legacy, the VALIE EXPORT Center Linz was founded in 2015, laying the foundations for an international research centre for media and performance art. In 2024, the artist established the VALIE EXPORT FOUNDATION, a non-profit that aims to preserve and research the artist's work.
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