VALIE EXPORT, Feminist Provocateur of the Avant-Garde, Dies Aged 85
VALIE EXPORT, who was one of the most audacious artists of the 20th century – a pioneer in performance, film and video art with an unapologetically feminist lens – has died aged 85. In a statement, her gallery Thaddaeus Ropac described her films and performances as ‘a new form of radical, embodied feminism […] examining the politics of the body in relation to its environment, culture and society.’
Born Waltraud Lehner, she adopted an artist moniker to unshackle herself from Western patriarchal naming practices and to embody a specific type of aspirational cool: ‘EXPORT’ was coined after a brand of cigarettes; ‘VALIE’ was a childhood nickname. The all-caps stylization of VALIE EXPORT, perhaps a statement of her self-determination.
Like Fluxus and the happenings, the 1960s Viennese Actionist scene was dominated by men. This post-war period bred new approaches to art, often foregrounding the dematerialisation of the art object. The preoccupation with the body in much of this decade’s art arose from a revolt against social norms, expressed through performances characterized by human fluids, violent sexual acts and aggression. EXPORT, whom one could describe as Europe’s more punk counterpart to US artist Carolee Schneemann, stood apart as the only woman operating within the male-dominated spheres of Viennese Actionism – using her body to express something intellect and political activism sometimes failed to do when challenging patriarchy.
