This year, CROSSING EUROPE will dedicate its Tribute section to one of the most important representatives of international media, film, and performance art: VALIE EXPORT. She was born in Linz in 1940, where she also grew up. On the occasion of her 80th birthday, and on the initiative of the VALIE EXPORT Centre Linz in cooperation with CROSSING EUROPE and sixpackfilm, a comprehensive program of VALIE EXPORT’s films and videos will be shown for the first time in her place of birth at this year’s edition of CROSSING EUROPE.
The tribute presents a selection of short and feature-length films from over forty years of being active as an artist. This includes experimental studies, world-famous performance works, feminist media critiques, and Expanded Cinema actions, ranging from 8mm film to large scale image formats, the first video systems to medical image investigations: conceptualized for the cinema hall, the exhibition space, or the television. In the framework of the festival the following feature-length and experimental films will be shown on the silver screen, in attendance of VALIE EXPORT, who will also give a Tribute-Talk.
Tribute to VALIE EXPORT
A native of Linz born in 1940, in 1967 she invented her stage name VALIE EXPORT as an artistic concept and logo, with the stipulation that it should only be written in capital letters. EXPORT is a pioneer of avant-garde and experimental film and one of the most renowned international media artists. She rose to fame as a protagonist of Expanded Cinema in the late 1960s, and some early works are linked to Viennese actionism. In 1977 (and again in 2007) she participated in documenta in Kassel, in 1980 she, together with Maria Lassnig, represented Austria at the Venice Biennale. In 1985 EXPORT’s feature film The Practice of Love was shown in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival.
From 1975 her work has included curatorial projects, international symposia, exhibitions and film programs. EXPORT is co-founder of the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative and has held numerous teaching assignments at home and abroad. Significant work blocks of hers can be found in the collections of important museums, from Centre Pompidou to Tate Modern to MOMA. VALIE EXPORT lives and works in Vienna.
| Thu, 10.09.2020, 21:30 – 22:30 (CET | UTC +2) | VALIE EXPORT – Shorts 1 Moviemento |
| Fri, 11.09.2020 & Sun, 13.09.2020, 18:00 – 20:00 (CET | UTC +2) | UNSICHTBARE GEGNER / INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES Moviemento |
| Fri, 11.09.2020, 21:00 – 22:15 (CET | UTC +2) | VALIE EXPORT – Shorts 2 Moviemento |
| Sat, 12.09.2020, 18:00 – 20:00 (CET | UTC +2) & Sun, 13.09.2020, 20:30 – 22:30 (CET | UTC +2) | MENSCHENFRAUEN / HUMAN FEMALES Moviemento |
| Sat, 12.09.2020, 21:00 – 22:30 (CET | UTC +2) | DIE PRAXIS DER LIEBE / THE PRACTICE OF LOVE Moviemento |
| Sun, 13.09.2020, 14:00 – 16:30 (CET | UTC +2) | DAS BEWAFFNETE AUGE – VALIE EXPORT IM DIALOG MIT DER FILMAVANTGARDE + IM DIALOG Moviemento |
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
VALIE EXPORT – Shorts 1 (60 min)
SELBSTPORTRAIT MIT KOPF / SELF-PORTRAIT WITH HEAD
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1966/67, 4 min
In her earliest preserved cinematic work, VALIE EXPORT presents her-self in slow motion. The makeup and wig tell of disguise and acting, and are simultaneously beautiful and terribly stony like the anonymous woman’s head.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
…REMOTE…REMOTE…
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1973, 10 min
In one of the most radical body actions in the history of art, VALIE EXPORT performs a compulsive, bloody act of self-mutilation triggered by traumas of the past. Photography, sound, and film interact on the formal and the thematic level.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
HAUCHTEXT: LIEBESGEDICHT / BREATH TEXT: LOVE POEM
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1970 – 1973, 2 min
VALIE EXPORT uses deep breaths to breathe the sentence “I love you” on a sheet of glass that to the viewer of the video feigns the illusion of her breathing directly on the surface of the display or screen.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
BODY TAPE
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1970, 4 min
The glass of the TV monitor and the glass plate that is actually touched are experienced as one and the same in Body Tape. This conceptual video presents lan-guage as a hierarchically commanding authority in relation to other human forms of expression.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
HYPERBULIE
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1973, 7 min
The naked artist crawls through an obstacle course of electrified wires, touch-ing them deliberately and frequently. The violence and pain the woman inflicts upon herself causes her nakedness to be devoid of any eroticism.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
BODY POLITICS
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1974, 3 min
A demonstration of the predetermined nature of common behavior between the sexes: connected by a rope tied around their bodies, man and woman move on two escalators.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
ASEMIE – DIE UNFÄHIGKEIT, SICH DURCH MIENENSPIEL AUSDRÜCKEN ZU KÖNNEN / ASEMIE OR THE INABILITY TO EXPRESS ONESELF THROUGH FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1973, 7 min
EXPORT holds that everything not in accordance with the norms of com-munication is considered pathological and compulsive even though these “disorders” belong to the reality of the human being. One of these alleged pathologies serves as the origin of this action.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
THE VOICE AS PERFORMANCE, ACT AND BODY
VALIE EXPORT, AT 2007, 11 min
The documentation of a performance at the 2007 Venice Biennale shows how a laryngoscope was inserted through the nose, into the throat of the artist, so the glottis – the inside – would be brought to the outside during the act of speaking.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
SEHTEXT: FINGERGEDICHT / VISUAL TEXT: FINGER POEM
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1973, 2 min
Words are just one form of human expression, sign language being one of many others that are underrepresented in our society. The meaning of what is shown can be read in its full wording only at the very end.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
MANN & FRAU & ANIMAL / MAN & WOMAN & ANIMAL
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1970-73, 8 min
Instead of the holy trinity: father, son, holy spirit, instead of the profane trinity: mother, family, state, instead of the social trinity: father, mother, children, the film treats the real trilogy in three sections. What unites man and woman (not alone for sure, but what is being concealed) is the history of nature.
(VALIE EXPORT)
TAPP UND TASTKINO
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1968, 2 min
The title of EXPORT’s probably best-known performance in public space already is a reference to Expanded Cin-ema. The picture of the action became an iconic photograph, as it deprives touching the female breast of its sexual fantasy.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
Zu den Terminen / See schedule
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
UNSICHTBARE GEGNER / INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1976, 110 min
Dancing a forlorn quickstep along the interface between dreams and waking, Anna surfaces to that sinister sound of white noise on the radio informing her that aliens, or at least Invisible Adversaries, have invaded human beings. Noticeably blasé about this looming revelation, she seems to regard it as yet more evidence of the way that modern life disfigures its artists, men dump on women, the police hit you on the head, and Kreisky’s Austria represses everyone.
(TimeOut London)
Zu den Terminen / See schedule
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
VALIE EXPORT – Shorts 2 (65 min)
GEDICHTE / POEMS
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1966 – 1980, 8 min
Poems, written and performed by VALIE EXPORT //
I was born at the hospital which belongs to the city of Linz
I suckled at the breast which belongs to my mother (…)
ADJUNGIERTE DISLOKATIONEN / ADJUNCT DISLOCATIONS
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1973, 10 min
This film – originally only present-able as a triple projection – is based on a performance at various locations. VALIE EXPORT moves around, with two cameras tied to her body and the third one following the performer.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
FACING A FAMILY
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1971, 5 min
In her first work for TV, EXPORT warns of the loss of communication within the family caused by television. While watching the tube, the child has to keep their mouth shut. The film was devised as an intervention to be shown during the news.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
I TURN OVER THE PICTURES OF MY VOICE IN MY HEAD
VALIE EXPORT, AT 2009, 12 min
The distilled version of the public performance is reduced to the medical images of VALIE EXPORT’s glottis, philosophizing, in a broken voice, about the libidinous relationship towards her voice: oh how intense the utterance.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
KEIN PERFEKTES PAAR ODER DIE UNZUCHT WECHSELT IHRE HAUT / LUST
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1986, 12 min
A commissioned TV work on one of the 7 deadly sins, indecency, is used by VALIE EXPORT to make a statement on the capitalization of the world and the human body and acted out, for a change, as a shrill comedy.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
SYNTAGMA
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1983
The discrepancy between a wom-an’s physical sensation and the object-ness of her body as soon as it is looked at or (re)presented in images is most clearly demonstrated in Syntagma. The piece of a true master!
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer | sixpackfilm)
Zu den Terminen / See schedule
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
MENSCHENFRAUEN / HUMAN FEMALES
VALIE EXPORT, AT 1979, 116 min
In Human Females, EXPORT ad- dresses the sociopsychological conditions of women and the clash of changing gender identities in contemporary society through the story of journalist Franz S., who is dating four women at once, following a tightly clocked schedule. Little by little the women catch wind of Franz’s game. (MoMA)
“VALIE EXPORT achieves in Human Females what Godard strove for but failed in his Every Man for Himself – a human view of a woman’s place in a man’s world.”
(Seattle Film Festival)
Zu den Terminen / See schedule
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
DIE PRAXIS DER LIEBE / THE PRACTICE OF LOVE
VALIE EXPORT, AT/DE 1984, 90 min
VALIE EXPORT’s third feature is an anti-romance in which the heroine, between two relationships, gradually discovers that both are impossible, not because the subjective processes of “love” are defective, but because the social matrix in which both her male lovers operate is corrupt: in this film, the male world and its power structures cancel the possibility of love beyond the matter of sexuality. Export makes use of techniques drawn from her earlier experimental cinema, video and conceptual photography to expand the possibilities of narrative feature filmmaking.
(Gary Indiana)
Zu den Terminen / See schedule
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
Credit: sixpackfilm
DAS BEWAFFNETE AUGE – VALIE EXPORT IM DIALOG MIT DER FILMAVANTGARDE
Zoltan Pataky, AT 1984, 135 min
IM DIALOG
David Wittinghofer, AT 2020, 12 min
In her three-part series VALIE EXPORT takes a look at the themes of “staged space – staged time”, “real movement – movable reality”, and “structural film”. Using numerous examples from films by, among others, Wojciech Bruszewski, Sergey Eisenstein, Maya Deren, Kurt Kren, Yvonne Rainer, Alfred Hitchcock, Linda Christanell and Marc Adrian, narrative and non-narrative forms of story-telling are examined and compared. The advanced level of this film is also indicated by the numerous quotes from Christian Metz, Charles S. Peirce, Vsevolod I. Pudovkin and Ferdinand de Saussure.
(Dietmar Schwärzler, sixpackfilm)
Zu den Terminen / See schedule
