The Austrian artist Valie Export, celebrated for her bold, witty, and often challenging works in performance, film, photography, and sculpture, has died at the age of 85. She was a key figure in the global feminist art movement, using her body to confront the representation of women and the social structures imposed upon them. "Women must make use of all media as a means of social struggle and for social progress to liberate culture from masculine values," she once wrote.
Early Life and Name Change
Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz, Austria, during World War II, she was one of three sisters. Her mother became a war widow when Waltraud was just two. After being expelled from convent school, she transferred to the School of Applied Arts in Linz. At 14, she took her first photograph—a self-portrait—with a friend's camera. Role-play and performance would later become central to her art.
In 1967, she changed her name to Valie Export, always styled in block capitals, blending her nickname with the Smart Export cigarette brand. In her self-portrait Valie Export – Smart Export (1970), she holds a modified soft pack labeled "Made in Austria: Valie Export," with the motto semper et ubique (always and everywhere). This act severed ties with her father's and ex-husband's surnames, announcing her as an independent entity.
Provocative Early Works
Export's early works included experiments in "expanded cinema." In 1968, she staged Touch and Grope Cinema on the streets of Munich and Vienna, wearing a "cinema" strapped to her chest that allowed the public to touch her exposed breasts. This work challenged the male gaze in traditional movie theaters, exposing the audience to the artist's scrutiny.
In 1969, she performed Action Pants: Genital Panic at an avant-garde film festival in Munich, wearing jeans with the pubic area removed. Later that year, she posed for photographer Peter Hassmann, sitting with legs splayed and holding a machine gun. The photograph was turned into silkscreen prints and fly-posted across Vienna, disrupting erotic conventions.
Feminist Activism and Legacy
Export's commitment to feminism was fueled by sexism in the art scene. She examined women's social roles and the historical invisibility of female artists. In 1970, she wrote Women's Art: A Manifesto, and in 1975 curated Magna, an exhibition of female artists. In 1980, she and Maria Lassnig became the first women to represent Austria at the Venice Biennale.
Her work was not fully appreciated until the early 21st century. Gabriele Schor, director of the Verbund Collection in Vienna, noted: "In 1968, Valie Export was the first female artist to make a provocative, powerful feminist statement in the male-dominated Viennese art scene."
Later Career and Honors
Export co-founded the Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative in 1968 and was a professor at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne until 2005. She received numerous awards, including the 2014 Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts. In 2023, the Albertina Museum in Vienna held a major retrospective of her work.
The Valie Export Center opened in Linz in 2015, housing her archive in the former tobacco factory that once produced Smart Export cigarettes.
Personal Life
Export married Ernst Alois Höllinger at 18 and had a daughter, Perdita. They separated in 1960. Her second husband, Robert Stockinger, died in 2016; her daughter died earlier this year. She is survived by a sister, Elisabeth, and a grandson, Patrick.
Valie Export (Waltraud Lehner), born 17 May 1940, died 14 May 2026.
