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‘As important as Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece’
Peaches
I still remember the first time I came across a picture of Valie Export in crotchless pants, legs outstretched, gun in hand. It was a fearless image that took my breath away and is etched in my brain forever.
For many years, his work was an inspiration for my music. He Click-and-touchbad The (Tap and Touch Cinema) performance, in which he tied a small circle to his bare chest and invited passers-by to step through the small curtain, felt very important. Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece. It was up to the viewers to react to him, which would make for painful viewing but always tell. I’m sad that he’s gone.
Peaches is a Canadian singer and producer
‘The female body is not an object of respect’
Florentina Holzinger
I wrote a paper on Valie Export back in high school when I was 14. I have always taken heritage seriously; much of my work that changes what has been, and what that history means to us today.
It’s 1969 when The Scary Organ it happens. Valie walks into an experimental video in Munich wearing crotchless jeans. She walks slowly, line by line, forcing her exposed genitals to face the audience sitting on the floor.
Fast forward to today. We find ourselves in a new place: We are drowning in the traps of algorithmic thirst, free porn on the Internet and more, not to mention rotten politicians who are trying to legislate to go back to the dark ages. So yes: a political imperative to disrupt the way we treat genitalia and actual bodies endure. In fact, it has become faster and more difficult than ever.
Thank you, Valie, for paving the way and for making this reality very clear: the female body is not something to be dignified. It can be a registered trademark – a weapon exported directly against what we choose to wage war on. Rest in peace.
Florentina Holzinger is an Austrian choreographer and theater director
‘Passionate, brave and generous’
Joan Jonas
Valie Export was a very important artist. When remembering him, some words come to mind like brave, mature, innovative, loving, brave and generous. Her body was central, in contrast to male constructions, for example, and as a means of communication. Several works are memorable, such as 1968’s Grope and Touch, 1969’s Genital Panic, and 1976’s Encirclement.
His own words (about Homo Meter II (1976)) explains his thoughts: “When I came out of the street and tied a loaf of bread and gave it as a gift, people were confused, shocked and interested. They did not dare to cut a piece with a knife.”
Joan Jonas is an American actress
‘He made a virtue of disobeying people’
Candice Breitz
Valie showed many of us – with his bad and bad heart – that it wasn’t necessary to follow the rules of those we couldn’t respect. As a feminist, she made a virtue of civil disobedience, always claiming a space that had long been dominated by men. In an action in 1968, he put the religious leadership in charge, dragging the famous curator Peter Weibel through the streets of Vienna on all fours. His legacy will not only live on in his work, but through his strength for those of us who continue in his footsteps.
Candice Breitz is a South African artist
‘He understood the tools of social media’
Shoir Mavlian
Photography played a major role in Valie Export’s activities. In his famous series Body Configurations he placed his body in public urban spaces, in relation to the built architecture. She understood the power of traditional media and became one of the first female artists to critically examine the position of women in mass media through the use of photography and film. At her exhibition at the Photography Center in 2024 she talked about how she took pictures in relation to women’s movements from the 1960s onwards, saying: “We used the aperture of a video camera in a way to see things with our eyes, and our thoughts. Her extensive use of photography as a tool for writing, drawing and asking questions influenced generations of female artists to follow.
