Valie Export, Groundbreaking Feminist Artist Who Questioned the Nature of Art, Dies at 85
Austrian artist VALIE EXPORT, a pioneering feminist figure known for challenging the conventions of art and cinema, died on May 14 at age 85, according to confirmation from Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery and AFP. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz in 1940, she adopted the name VALIE EXPORT in 1967 to assert a self-made identity independent of her father’s or husband’s surnames, later producing works such as the “Identity Transfer” self-portraits (1968) that interrogated gender roles. Export said in a 2020 Tate interview that “the center of my work is the body, and moreover, the female body,” reflecting a decades-long focus on embodiment and expanded cinema. She was influenced by the cultural climate around the Viennese Actionists after moving to Vienna in 1960, though she distinguished her practice from Actionism itself.
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This story was covered in Mergers, Loot, and Museums in War Mode