Smart EXPORT (Self-Portrait). Valie Export, 1968/1970, photograph by Gertraude Wolfshwenger

Because she is so cool and I love this famous image even though I am quitting smoking. There is both humour and  seriousness in her work that I really admire.

And because she is really smart and a feminist and I have much to learn from her.

Quote from Valie Export –

“Since 1972, my drawings, photographs, and actions have been concerned with the presentation of postures as the expression of inner states, represented both in nature and in architecture as adaption, assimilation, imposition, etc. in or on the environment. Parallels such as landscape and mind, architecture and mind, are mediated by the body, partly because the body is a revelation, as is landscape. Landscape is a revelation of space and time, or, more precisely, the arrangement of elements, such as trees, rocks, hills, etc. are that. Arrangements of the body’s elements are postures, revelations, or expressions of inner states; this analogy between arrangements of landscape and body, these common forms of revelation, have served visual art from the beginning as surfaces for projecting expression: external configurations, whether in the landscape or in a picture (which thus becomes landscape) serve as an expression of internal states. This is why landscape is no less common as a motif in painting (and film) than the body. This why people speak of “scenic atmospheres.” A landscape represents an atmosphere, just as body posture expressions do. Expressions are formed not only by the face. So a state of mind can be expressed first by the configuration of landscape components, secondly by the configuration of body components and thirdly-which is the innovation in my work- by the configuration of body elements in the landscape.”

Also because I really like the Body Configurations from 1972 – 1976 by  Valie Export and they very much relate to my own work. Here are eleven of them:

These are all Valie Export’s images and her text that I downloaded from this site:

http://loves.domusweb.it/body-configurations-by-valie-export-1972-76/