The Kunsthaus Bregenz presents Valie Export / Archive an exhibition on view October 29, 2011 to January 22, 2012.
The exhibition, VALIE EXPORT / Archive, provides the opportunity to rediscover new aspects of an internationally renowned artist whose works are counted among the canon of 20th century art history and represented in many important museum collections. In this unusual and surprising presentation at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, in part, works that hitherto have not been exhibited will be on show.
VALIE EXPORT, “Aufprägung,” 1972 © Museion. Photo: Augustin Ochsenreiter
In addition, for the first time in her long history of exhibitions, VALIE EXPORT is providing insights into her comprehensive archive that, to the present day, remains inaccessible to the broad public. This presentation makes apparent once again that VALIE EXPORT is not only a pioneer of experimental film and cinema, but also the protagonist of a feminist, socially critical art. Apart from that, her projects and texts provide evidence that she has a decisive influence to the present day, not only as an artist, but also as a curator and theorist. Only a few have questioned the conditions and possibilities of the (technical) media, their relation to the (female) body and to society with a comparable intensity and stringency. Deploying her own body which, in a certain way, came toward viewers in flesh and blood, VALIE EXPORT polarized the public. She sensitized it to questions reflecting upon institutions and gender-specificity which, at this time, were only inadequately articulated in a discourse dominated by men. For a long time in Austria, the work of VALIE EXPORT did not gain the attention it deserves, as measured against its international significance. This changed in 2010 with the large comprehensive exhibition at the Belvedere in Vienna and the Lentos Art Museum in Linz. www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at