Critical Writing Index

Location and Dislocation: The Media Performances of Valie Export

by Mechtild Widrich

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Sept. 2011, v. 33, no. 3, pp. 53-59

In October 2010, a retrospective of Valie Export's work opened up in two galleries in Austria, Gallery Belvedere and Lentos Kunstmuseum, reevaluating her controversial persona. The exploration of public and private space is the theme that brings together all of Export's various endeavours in performance, film, media installation and monuments. She has been a media pioneer since the 1960s, when she championed "expanded cinema," and has created several multi-camera performance pieces, such as the Adjunct Dislocations series. Export's work emphasizes that "seeing is not a disembodied activity, but always an act performed by bodies in space". Furthermore, Export's work is not simply about performance, but about the image of performance, as interpreted by the artist herself and the public.

ITEM 2011.105 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Adjunct Dislocations IValie Export

Adjunct Dislocations IIIValie Export

GlottisValie Export

The Endless/Similar Melody of CordsValie Export

Body Sign ActionValie Export

Action Pants: Genital PanicValie Export