Valie Export
26 Apr - 15 Jun 2013
VALIE EXPORT, Fragmente der Bilder einer Berührung, 1994, installation
installation view, Belvedere Vienna, 2010
© VALIE EXPORT, Photo: Markus Krottendorfer
Courtesy Charim Gallery Vienna, Galerie ŻAK | BRANICKA, Berlin
installation view, Belvedere Vienna, 2010
© VALIE EXPORT, Photo: Markus Krottendorfer
Courtesy Charim Gallery Vienna, Galerie ŻAK | BRANICKA, Berlin
VALIE EXPORT: Bilder der Berührung [Images of Contingence]
Opening April 26, 2013, 6 to 9 pm
ZAK | BRANICKA is delighted to present Bilder der Berührung [Images of Contingence], an exhibition of works by VALIE EXPORT for the Berlin Gallery Weekend 2013. The exhibition highlights the artist’s groundbreaking expressions of physical contact and it’s implications in various mediums, including installation, drawing, photography and archival materials.
The title of the exhibition was taken from the installation work, Fragmente der Bilder einer Berührung [Fragments of Images of Contingence] from 1994. This work consists of wire-hung light bulbs that are rhythmically immersed into cylinders filled with milk, used oil or water. This rhythmic movement, which can be seen as an allusion to a sexual act, is employed again in a second installation, Die un-endliche/- ähnliche Melodie der Stränge [The un-ending/ -ique melody of cords] from 1998. Here, the movement of the sewing machine’s needle is just as piercing, or stabbing, and disturbing as the light bulb immersed in the liquid in the previous work.
VALIE EXPORT’s works create a dictionary of the iconography of the human body, particularly a woman’s body, e.g., its meaning, symbols and delivery. Individual parts of the body transmit messages, but the capacity to “touch” is even more telling: it is a testimony not only of carnality, intimacy and sensuality, but also of aggression and violence.
The motif of touch appears again in VALIE EXPORT’s series of drawings from the early 1970s. Hands that protect or caress, hands that suffer, and hands that create suffering are depicted. Aside from the above mentioned works, photographs and videos (including her most famous work Tapp- und Tastkino [Tap and Touch Cinema] from 1968) created in various decades of the artist’s long-standing career and glass cases filled with the archival materials and documentation from EXPORT’s oeuvre compliment the exhibition.
Opening April 26, 2013, 6 to 9 pm
ZAK | BRANICKA is delighted to present Bilder der Berührung [Images of Contingence], an exhibition of works by VALIE EXPORT for the Berlin Gallery Weekend 2013. The exhibition highlights the artist’s groundbreaking expressions of physical contact and it’s implications in various mediums, including installation, drawing, photography and archival materials.
The title of the exhibition was taken from the installation work, Fragmente der Bilder einer Berührung [Fragments of Images of Contingence] from 1994. This work consists of wire-hung light bulbs that are rhythmically immersed into cylinders filled with milk, used oil or water. This rhythmic movement, which can be seen as an allusion to a sexual act, is employed again in a second installation, Die un-endliche/- ähnliche Melodie der Stränge [The un-ending/ -ique melody of cords] from 1998. Here, the movement of the sewing machine’s needle is just as piercing, or stabbing, and disturbing as the light bulb immersed in the liquid in the previous work.
VALIE EXPORT’s works create a dictionary of the iconography of the human body, particularly a woman’s body, e.g., its meaning, symbols and delivery. Individual parts of the body transmit messages, but the capacity to “touch” is even more telling: it is a testimony not only of carnality, intimacy and sensuality, but also of aggression and violence.
The motif of touch appears again in VALIE EXPORT’s series of drawings from the early 1970s. Hands that protect or caress, hands that suffer, and hands that create suffering are depicted. Aside from the above mentioned works, photographs and videos (including her most famous work Tapp- und Tastkino [Tap and Touch Cinema] from 1968) created in various decades of the artist’s long-standing career and glass cases filled with the archival materials and documentation from EXPORT’s oeuvre compliment the exhibition.