Die vielen Häutungen der Valie Export
Valie Export, the Austrian media and performance artist known for using her body as a site of social critique, has died at age 85 in Vienna. Her final works include a black-and-white photo series of her forearm resting on a stone snake sculpture at the University of Vienna, exploring themes of skin, transformation, and mimesis. From the 1970s onward, she created iconic "Body Configurations" in which she placed her body on streets and against buildings along Vienna's Ringstrasse, tracing architectural forms to expose institutional power and patriarchal authority.
Export's death marks the loss of a pioneering figure in feminist and conceptual art. Her work, which treated the body not as a fixed entity but as a permeable surface inscribed with history and social conditions, influenced generations of artists. By making visible the power structures embedded in architecture and everyday spaces, she challenged male-dominated art movements like Tachism and Informel, insisting that bodily expression is always culturally coded. Her legacy endures in contemporary artists such as Florentina Holzinger, who continue her exploration of bodily agency and resistance.