Valie Export, Avant-Garde Icon and Feminist Trailblazer, Dies at 85
Austrian artist Valie Export, a pioneering feminist performance artist, sculptor, and filmmaker, died at age 85, according to her gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, which did not provide a cause of death or list survivors. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz, she adopted the name Valie Export in 1967 and became known for “Expanded Cinema” works that used her own body as an artistic medium, positioning her among early performance artists alongside Joseph Beuys and Allan Kaprow. Her best-known actions include “Aktionhose Genitalpanik” (1968), staged in a Munich cinema, and the related 1969 photographs that fueled rumors about the original performance. Export also co-founded the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative in 1968 and produced influential films and performances in the 1960s and 1970s that helped shape radical, embodied feminism in Europe.
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This story was covered in Auction Fever, Restitution Fights, and Workers Rising