Export’s performances scandalised Austria in the 1960s, but are now recognised for exposing the objectification of the female body
Valie Export, the Austrian performance artist and film-maker who inverted the male gaze in ways that were provocative, shocking and often outrageously fun, has died aged 85.
The artist’s own foundation announced on Thursday evening that Export died in Vienna earlier the same day, three days before her 86th birthday.
She is best known for low-budget performances that scandalised Austria and Germany in the late 1960s, but have since been recognised as milestones in feminist art for exposing the objectification of the female body.
Most notorious was 1968’s Tapp und Tastkino (Tap and Touch Cinema), for which Export strapped a model theatre stage to her chest and invited shoppers in Vienna’s city centre to touch her bare breasts through a tiny curtain. Her artist colleague Peter Weibel rallied passersby through a megaphone, and timed each “action” with a stopwatch.
