V. Export – English

VALIE EXPORT.

AN APPROXIMATION TO A LONG CAREER

The exhibition that was jointly dedicated to VALIE EXPORT, during the winter, by two important Austrian museums, the Galerie Belvedere of Vienna and the Lents Kunstmuseums of Linz, -respectively situated in the cities where the artist was born in 1940 and where she currently lives-, gave us the opportunity of exploring the works of whom is considered to be one of the pioneers of feminist art in Europe.

Extracted from a well-known brand of cigarettes, her name-logo is written with capital letters.

VALIE EXPORT started her artistic career in the mid sixties in Austria, when the feminist movement still only had a timid effect on the European context. That was the same period as other parallel artistic movement, and on occasions connected to the feminist movement, proposed to go beyond the production of a mere artistic object and transcend the context of the museum with the aim of developing new practices that would involve political and social dimensions. Answering the spirit of that moment, many of the works of VALIE EXPORT could be interpreted as mere forms of Body Art, like the series of photographs where the artist, posing different postures, adapts her body to the topography (Körperkonfiguration, since 1972). VALIE EXPORT could also be described as a video artist (Medienkünstlerin), which was, also, how she then defined herself. Her first experimental filming dates from that period and which stem from not lineal narrations, as well as the photographic works with overlaid images that result in completely disjointed visions. Her first video installations also correspond to this period, like Adjuntgierte Dislokationen (1973-1978), with images captured by several cameras at different moments from the same place and projected in such way that they create a different perception of the real physical sapace. All these were groundbreaking at that time and illustrated the will to shun all classical forms of experimentation and representation of the reality (perhaps this explains the reason why the artist adopts another name, like a way of total rupture with all that represents tradition).
But the most outstanding is not so much that interdisciplinary and versatile character of the work of VALIE EXPORT, but the movement she is associated with: one of the most reproduced images of the artist, where she shows a tattoo on her leg imitating a garter for stockings (Body Sign, 1970), has become one of the most famous icons of feminist art. Something similar happened with the Genital Panic (1969) images: a frontal portrait of the artist wearing crotch-less jeans and carrying a machine gun. Such a provocative image and loaded with different questions (is she showing us her body and its aggressive force?; is she defending her body with a rifle, which is also a phallic symbol?) and that form the current perspective, reveals to us the necessity of that feminist movement to take position through the new languages and forms of expression. Beyond that established, but, above all, the necessity of using the most radical provocation in order to be heard.

The Genital Panic images form part of the Expanded Cinema, a series of legendary actins carried out by VALIE EXPORT where she proposes replacing the manipulative effect produced by the virtuality of cinema with the direct experience of reality. Dressed and armed that way the artist went onto the stage of a public cinema in Munich provoking the foreseeable scandal of the public. “There was –in her own words- no other more effective way for these actions than using my own body”, as she mentioned in a interview with Ingrid Brugger (Brugger, I (ed), Jahrhundert der Frauen, exhibition catalogue Kunstforum, Wien, 1999). The body, the same support, traditionally through which , through the entire history of art and from a male point of view, feminism is identified as the representation of beauty, eroticism, virginity or maternity, in these actions became an element associated to fighting and a main arm form the feminism point of view to intervene in the public sphere. Also, the Aus der Mappe der Hundigkeit (1968) action remains in the memory of many; here the artist leads her colleague Peter Weibel round the streets of Vienna as if he were a dog with a lead and on all fours. Very different reactions from the public also accompanied the consequent public scandal. The sexual connotations of the action were evident: does she refer to men submitting to women?; was this a criticism to a form of matriarchy? Later the artist ambivalently defined her action, proclaiming that it was “a form of invalidating the myth of the erect vertebral column (is she referring to the so-called “biological evolution”?)in our animal community”.

Parallel to the feminist movement that during the past decades has been centring her interest on more intellectual questions, like the cultural construction of genders of the analysis of sexism implicit in our common language, the work of VALIE EXPORT has formally become more sophisticate and has more analytical character in relation to the subjects it has always treated: the body and the identity, physical and mental violence, language as a form or power, etc. This can be seen in the Salzburger Zyklus 01-12 (2001) work that, following the guidelines of her firstKörperfigurationen, establishes the relationship between architecture or space and the individual that occupy it, now including digital images and including texts among the split images.

The Glottis installation (2007-2010) is formed by thirty monitors that the artist, during the Galerie Belvedere exhibition, placed in the centre of the so-called Marble Hall, one of the most representative halls of the Lower Belvedere. This result in a spectacular videoinstallation. In contrast with cold nudes form stone and stucco that adorn the walls of the halls, the screens reflected violed-red rough textured, carnal holes that now and again contracted to produce sound noises. These were images taken with a laryngoscope of the interior of the so-called glottis or vocal organ, the hole that activates what, on reaching the throat, becomes our voice. Taking a distance from the objectives of contemporary semiotics, the artist focuses her attention on human language, paying attention to the primitive element that produces it. This way, she shows us, the fascinating anatomic simplicity of this physical organ, which on the other hand is capable of generating the most complex human language, something that is beyond just simple communication.

The work was also included in the Die-un-endliche/ähnliche Melodie der Stränge (1998), that, like the previously described installation, repeats on different screens similar images: movement, up & down, of a sewing machine needle –feminine activity by excellence-, which refers us to the monotonous routine and dehumanised work of industrial production. That way, the unceasing movement of the needle becomes an aggressive element and refers us to idea of the exploitation and slavery of work. Lastly, thought as a permanent work for the Belvedere, we can highlight Die Doppelgängerin (2010) sculpture: some double scissors made from aluminium and five meters high, installed at the beginning of the main avenue in the gardens of the Belvedere. The monumental character of the sculpture, in classic symmetries of façades and surfaces, makes it sovereign among the imposing baroque architecture surrounding it. It is a very beautiful piece that establishes a balanced conjunction between its aesthetic and symbolic function.

On the other hand, VALIE EXPORT is authoress of several theory works about art and feminism. Over recent years, the artist has been curator of several exhibitions, among which, that of the Austrian pavilion in the 2009 edition of the Biennale di Venezia.

Translation: Nigel Greenwood

(Lápiz n° 267 Summer 2011)