Bregenz, Austria.- The Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB) is proud to present "VALIE EXPORT/Archive", on view through January 22nd 2012. An art collector of ArtKabinett network will wish to know more about this important photographic retrospective.
This exhibition 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. 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.
In contrast to this retrospective, the presentation at the KUB will concentrate mainly on the artist’s archive.
Her most important works, such as TAPP und TASTKINO, Aktionshose: Genitalpanik and BODY SIGN ACTION, will not simply be presented separately as autonomous pieces, but in conjunction with the reference materials relevant for their making.
For her films, for instance, VALIE EXPORT not only wrote visual scripts but also made drawings and Polaroids.
Display cabinets in a display conceived by Kuehn Malvezzi together with the artist bring together photos of the film-shooting, posters, scripts as well as reviews of the individual feature films.
This diversity illustrates the complex process of their making and reception. In this sense, in Bregenz many of VALIE EXPORT’s main works will be placed in the context of their genesis by means of preparatory conceptional drawings, statements, and collages, as well as photos.
In 57 large cabinets, in which VALIE EXPORT has together with Yilmaz Dziewior arranged materials from her archive according to works and themes, a panorama is unfolded that not only lays out the artist’s multifaceted core oeuvre, but also provides an eloquent account of experimental art from the 1970s through correspondence, newspaper clips, and texts.
For instance, in 1971, some of the protagonists of this art, including Günter Brus, Robert Filliou, Birgit and Wilhelm Hein, Arnulf Rainer, and Carolee Schneemann, invited VALIE EXPORT to participate in a book project with the title Acta Occidentia Scientia which, however, was only published in the 1990s.
In Bregenz this project will be presented not only in the form of a finished book, but also through an extensive file of materials as well as in detail with letters from Yvonne Rainer and Michael Snow.
