Categories
Subjects
Authors
Artists
Venues
Locations
Calendar
Filter
Done
January 7, 2020 – Review
Valie Export’s “The 1980 Venice Biennale Works”
Orit Gat
The two acts for which VALIE EXPORT is most famous are naming herself off a pack of cigarettes and a performance that involved wearing a pair of trousers with the crotch cut out, exposing her vulva. The Austrian artist, so associated with this bold punk aesthetic, represented her nation at the Venice Biennale in 1980, a rare occasion of recognition for a woman artist at the height of her career rather than its tail end, coming at the peak of her most prolific decade. Collecting these pieces together again, almost 40 years after they were shown at the Austrian Pavilion, makes clear how over time, the shock element of EXPORT’s art has faded, yet what remains is an always-pertinent critique.
EXPORT’s work is a reflection on the place women are afforded—that is, must fight for—in the communities in which they live. On view is “Body Configurations” (1972–76), a series of black-and-white photographs that show EXPORT adjusting her body to the city—lying with her back arched to match a curve in the pavement in ABRUNDUNG I [Rounding I] or sitting against the corner of a building, her hands stretched to touch its two sides in VERFÜGUNG I [Available I] (both works …