Upon reflection from my formative assessment from 07/05/21, Jane mentioned I could explore further into performance as it is a space I aim to continue to develop and work with, especially relation to my sculptural performances.
Valie Export is a visual experimental artist who I tried to touch on back at the beginning of Level 5 but didn’t understand or really enjoy, until now. I decided to revisit as performance is my practice. Export is avant-garde Austrian artist and known “for provocative public performances and expanded cinema work.” (Tate, n.d.). She explores the realism of women that is hidden and glamorised on the screen of the cinema, similar to my artwork which explores the sexualisation of women upon the screen. Her original name was Waltraud Hollinger but chose to change it to break away from the identity attached to her husband and father of the patriarchy. I found this interesting as she wanted to be her own women and have her own control which is reflected in her practice.
I was struck by her two pieces, Action Pants: Genital Panic (1969) and TAP and TOUCH Cinema (1968–71). Action Pants: Genital Panic, see below, was positioned in an experimental film theater, she walked out into the theatre with a live audience, wearing a leather jacket, messy hair and “wearing crotchless pants, putting the seated audience at eye-level with her exposed vagina.” (Chernick, 2017). She is confronting the gaze of the audience and “challenging the public to engage with a “real woman” instead of with images on a screen” (MoMa, 2017). This invites extra gazes which aren’t often present in the cinema film – there is the obvious male gaze (male audience to woman in film) and the female gaze (the possible self comparison/yearn of woman to woman on screen). But Export explores the gaze from herself being present to the audience watching, she has the ability to now look back at everyone gazing at her, to exchange the discomfort/unnatural gaze which women upon the cinema screen often receive without being present. “The artist’s body activates the live context of watching” (MoMa, 2017), “while they are all exposed genitalia at face-level” (Tate, n.d.). It’s really quite concerning to observe the images below, to see this aggression that is present in the messy hair and the leather jacket as well as the crotchless trousers alert this control anger, as well as the fact “she holds the gun at chest level, apparently in readiness to turn it on the viewer towards whom her gaze is directed” (Tate, n.d.). It may have been even more concerning seeing it in person, being in a space with someone who is holding a gun, in front of you with their genital on show. Especially a stigmatised female form which suggests the vulnerability of women. These images are anything but vulnerable.
Reflection 26/05/21: Ana Mendieta uses a similar use of terror/aggression in her Rape series to Export to gain a response and attention, where she is displayed as a victim of rape. The use of the gun from Export completely lowers the aura of the work to a serious level and the vagina on display comes not the problem, like Mendieta.
The use of the gun “defends her female body with the male phallic symbol of the gun. Her self-exposure emphasises her lack of a penis, demonstrating the symbol of power to be a prosthetic and its possession to be a product of role play, positing action over biology.” (Tate, n.d.). It’s this aggression which is shared in my work of To Bite B&W Repeat projected in various spaces. The use of the aggressive large teeth act as a focal point of dominance as it’s something the breast (the female) doesn’t have in the film – the dominance/control. The use of the large projections I create from this film cover the space, make the space feel and those in it feel consumed, much like Export’s work, I could imagine feels like her territory while you’re viewing in the space. With her present in the cinema, could possibly change the entire feeling of the cinema space – on edge.
Valie Export, Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969.
Export was a very aggressive and confrontal artist, her work exploits the use of the cinemas representation and control of the female form. My works shares this relation to the way she works, by proposing intimate areas of the female form on show, in an unnatural space/situation of female consumption by the male. Action Pants: Genital Panic confronts all problems with the direct gaze from viewer to screen at the cinema which doesn’t explore the reality of the female form.
Export created a following series TAP and TOUCH Cinema, see below, “an experimental screen-free ‘film’ confronting the social, political and sexual positioning of the female body, whilst fracturing the boundaries between cinema and real life.” (Todd, 2016). This performance pieces of her “wearing a wooden box fronted by a curtain on the upper half of her body, Export invited people to reach inside and feel her breasts.” (Tate, n.d.). “Destabilised ideas around pleasure and the sexual value of the female body, where the participant’s reaction and interaction with her body took centre stage in a public sphere” (Todd, 2016). There is this interesting play on the fact you can only watch through a screen of the cinema, but instead here with Export “forced people to encounter in public parts of the female body that they would normally touch or view in a private space or in darkness, where they would not be observed by unknown others” (Tate, n.d.) almost as though she is forcing the viewers/people to come into contact and directly observe what is hidden and shown on the cinema space.
” “My gaze as well as the gazes of the visitors – who were both men and women – were incredibly powerful, extremely powerful and intense.” Reclaiming the female body and the terms by which it was viewed (and felt), EXPORT shamelessly rebelled against the oppressive and submissive images of women that characterised the visual culture of the 60s and 70s.” (Todd, 2016). Becomes an interesting relation to the audience and the work/artists, a connection of bodies and gazes’. Considering both gazes’ is something I am currently evaluating especially in relation to the way Matt and Srin both viewed my artwork as though the breasts being eaten was a watching eye. This introduces this gaze of work to audience.
I have touched on a cinema box with my exhibition proposal exploration – Sweet Box has this similar appeal of having to bend down and viewing a more intimate small space/unusual projections of To Bite B&W Repeat. It almost makes me think that seeing a film projected so small may have more attraction/engagement, the same way Export forces people to not only view her body but to feel the realism that isn’t present within the cinema.
Valie Export, Tap and Touch Cinema, 1968/1989.
After my research of female performance artists this last year, I have discovered many of them preferred public places, to be seen and to gather and engage with “new and different forms of reception developed” (Tate, n.d.) this would be something to consider for taking my practice even further after my degree – think about showing my artwork in placement/outside environment to gather responses from unknown individuals as I have learnt from Srin, form my last group crit, who hadn’t seen my work, to find it very disturbing and uncomfortable/concerning to watch. The way Export approached various countries (10) in regards to collecting research/observations from people who would touch her breasts must result in various responses as many people/countries find the female form ‘too much’ to be on show. Export said “aggression was part of my intention” (Tate, n.d.) and this was present in both of her performances especially in regards to the use of the gun being potentially used at a gazer who caught her gaze in Action Pants: Genital Panic.
