VALIE EXPORT Die Doppelgängerin, 2010

A pioneer in performance, film, video and installation art, VALIE EXPORT has produced one of the most significant bodies of feminist art in the post-war period. The over four-metre-high sculpture Die Doppelgängerin (2010) consists of two gigantic scissors, intertwined to form a figure that is as graceful as it is menacing, and which triggers the most diverse associations. Traditionally, scissors have been associated with so-called ‘feminine’ spheres – sewing, tailoring, housework, fashion – but also with violence and fear: they recall the surgical instrument as well as suggesting male castration and of imagined ‘female’ violence. The symbolic scissors also reference film editing, montage and de-contextualisation, a nod to the subtle interweaving of associations often found in the artist’s work.