Valie Export, Austrian artist who turned the male gaze upside down, dies at 85
Austrian performance artist Valie Export, who challenged how women were depicted in art and film, has died at 85 in Vienna.
Valie Export's performances were meant to provoke. In 1960s Austria, they absolutely did. The Austrian performance artist and filmmaker spent decades flipping how women's bodies were seen and consumed—sometimes with shock value, sometimes with humour, always with intent. She died in Vienna on Thursday at 85, just three days shy of her 86th birthday.
Her foundation confirmed the news that evening. Export had built a career on doing the opposite of what Austria's conservative art scene expected. She'd stage performances that made audiences squirm, create films that challenged who got to look and who got looked at, and generally refuse to play by anyone's rules but her own.
What seemed outrageous at the time—confrontational, even dangerous—looks different now. Art historians and critics have spent years reassessing her work, recognising it as serious commentary on how women's bodies are objectified, how power works in representation, and what happens when an artist decides to take control of her own image instead of letting others do it.
Export wasn't trying to be likeable. She was trying to be honest. That's probably why her work has lasted. Trends come and go. Shock for shock's sake fades. But asking hard questions about who controls the image, who decides what's beautiful, who gets to be the subject versus the object—those questions stick around because they haven't been fully answered.
She leaves behind decades of performances, films, and installations that still feel urgent. The kind of work that makes you uncomfortable in a way that's actually useful.
