Art world tributes have been paid to the Austrian artist VALIE EXPORT, who died 14 May, three days before her 86th birthday. Her death was confirmed by Thaddaeus Ropac, who represents her. Born in 1940 in Linz as Waltraud Lehner, EXPORT developed a radical artistic language that centred the female body.
Writing in The Guardian, the author Hettie Judah said that she was a “punk, intellectual, feminist, theorist, brave as hell, vulnerable, funny—Valie Export was a hero to many women. Since the 1960s, she was driven by a fierce conviction that art and media would play an essential role in women’s liberation: that women must picture their own reality in the name of social progress.” The UK artist Penny Davis wrote on Instagram that “she was a feminist artist so marginalised I only learned about her work in the last decade.”
The Geneva-based culture writer Nazli Kok Akbas commented on Instagram that “through radical performances, experimental film, photography, and media interventions, EXPORT transformed the female body from an object of representation into a site of political agency and resistance.”
Museums and institutions have also paid homage. Neuenationalgalerie in Berlin said online that it was “deeply saddened” by the passing of the artist, adding that documentation of her 1968 performance Tap and Touch Cinema features in its current collection presentation Extreme Tension (until 25 April 2027). Stella Rollig, director of the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, said in a statement: “We were closely connected for many years; until the very end, we were in exchange about the preparation of the exhibition Feminist Futures Forever, in which her work plays a central role.”
VALIE EXPORT, Geburtenbett (1980)
© VALIE EXPORT. Courtesy Valie Export
In 2019, EXPORT showed her acclaimed “birth bed installation” (Gerburtenbett, 1980) at Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in London. The sculpture—consisting of a pair of women’s legs mounted on a rusted steel bed with a stream of red neon running from between them—was coupled with a looped video of a Catholic priest saying mass.
“#MeToo has been helpful, but we have only achieved 10% of the mission of feminism,” she said in an interview with The Art Newspaper on the occasion of the exhibition. The pay gap remained a key factor, according to the artist. “There seem to be fewer achievements now, particularly economically, if you look at the wage disparity, that’s a major problem.”
VALIE EXPORT, Einkreisung (1976)
© VALIE EXPORT. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac
Her important works include TAPP und TASTKINO (Tap and Touch Cinema) which was staged across ten European cities from 1968 to 1971. For the piece, she invited passers-by, mostly men, to touch her breasts through curtains affixed to a box, prompting questions about the male gaze and the power of the patriarchy. In her Body Configurations (1972-76) series, she slotted her body in and around the urban landscapes of Vienna, wrapping herself around buildings and other landmarks, melding with the built environment. In recent years, her work has been featured at the Kunsthaus Bregenz and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among other institutions.
