Tuesday 15 April 2014

Review of Viennese Season: Feminism (VALIE EXPORT, Friedl Kubelka) at Richard Saltoun

15/04/14
Viennese Season: Feminism
VALIE EXPORT, Friedl Kubelka
Richard Saltoun
10 April – 23 May 2014


Following on from Viennese Season: Actionism, which showcased the self-destructive body art of four male Viennese artists in the 1960s, Viennese Season: Feminism turns to consider two female artists who began producing performance, photographic and filmic work towards the end of the same decade. VALIE EXPORT is fairly well known, not least for the reprise of her seminal piece, ‘Genitalpanik’ (1969), an image recording an Action in which EXPORT sits, legs apart, wearing crotchless trousers and holding a machine gun, by Marina Abramović in 2006. Friedl Kubelka, on the other hand, whose work, although still challenging, is far less ‘in your face’, remains less well known. Really, however, with 15 of the 18 works on display being hers, and with a film night (in the artist’s presence) in her honour, this ought better to be considered a solo show. Since she and EXPORT neither collaborated nor knowingly had anything much to do with one another, the latter’s inclusion in the exhibition is, seen positively, contextualising; seen cynically, perhaps just a name to attract visitors across the threshold.









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