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Lot Essay
'One of the first female artists to exploit film and video, Export's work, perhaps more than anything else, is a meditation on the mediated subject. Everywhere in her hybrid practice one discovers the camera's lurking gaze, sometimes discreetly recording her public interventions, while, in others it becomes an explicit (and invasive) instrument of physical deconstruction.' (C. Labelle, 'VALIE EXPORT', in frieze, Issue 60, June-August 2001).
VALIE EXPORT's Body Configurations photographic series is an expansion of these themes. In this series executed during the 1970s and 80s, the artist contorted herself into the spaces created by urban architecture or the natural landscape, literally becoming part of the architectural landscape. 'Historical buildings were selected that possess a particular significance but aren't so domineering that the human figure appears to be merely an accessory,' VALIE EXPORT said of the works, 'it's a play on the ornamental in architecture. I always sought out very austere details in the city, combining them with the body's ornamentalism. Mostly I chose geometrical structures. I work a lot with the triangle symbol, for me this geometrical form is an important expressive medium,' (VALIE EXPORT quoted in, Y. Dziewior 'Interview', VALIE EXPORT: archiv, exh. cat., Bregenz, 2012, p. 88).
VALIE EXPORT's Body Configurations photographic series is an expansion of these themes. In this series executed during the 1970s and 80s, the artist contorted herself into the spaces created by urban architecture or the natural landscape, literally becoming part of the architectural landscape. 'Historical buildings were selected that possess a particular significance but aren't so domineering that the human figure appears to be merely an accessory,' VALIE EXPORT said of the works, 'it's a play on the ornamental in architecture. I always sought out very austere details in the city, combining them with the body's ornamentalism. Mostly I chose geometrical structures. I work a lot with the triangle symbol, for me this geometrical form is an important expressive medium,' (VALIE EXPORT quoted in, Y. Dziewior 'Interview', VALIE EXPORT: archiv, exh. cat., Bregenz, 2012, p. 88).