VALIE EXPORT

VALIE EXPORT works with various media, including film, video, photography, installation,and performance; her cinematic and conceptual approach is also associated with the concept of Expanded Cinema. She gained international recognition for her feature films Praxis der Liebe (Practices of Love), Unsichtbare Gegner (Invisible Opponents), and Menschenfrauen (Human Women). She also creates essay films that address specific themes; these works are artistically sophisticated yet simultaneously tailored to an audience socialized by mass media. In the 1980s, the ORF commissioned the artist to produce several such films for the ​“Kunststücke” series.

In Tischbemerkungen November 1985 (Table Remarks November 1985), VALIE EXPORT portrays Oswald Wiener. The film opens with an intimate shot of Wiener in the bathroom shaving and showering, and follows him to his various places of work in Vienna, Berlin, Iceland, and his adopted home of Canada. The entire film is accompanied by Wiener’s voice as he speaks about his own life story, thoughts, and theoretical concepts. This audio track is used instead of a traditional voice-over — as is customary in documentary film. In addition to the footage, VALIE EXPORT also uses photographic and archival material, which she assembles in the form of a riddle or puzzle, gradually piecing together individual parts into a whole, a portrait.

The experimental documentary Das Unsagbare Sagen (Saying the Unsayable) is another collaborative work by the three artists. The function of language as a tool of thought can be suspended — whether due to illness resulting in the loss of the ability to speak or to understand language (aphasia), or through deliberate artistic interventions. The film was shot based on a screenplay by Oswald Wiener and explores the phenomenon of glossolalia, a form of speech characterized by incomprehensible, strange sounds and neologisms. The film features footage of patients at various stages, religious communication rituals, and baby babbling, which are combined with literary text fragments and hand-drawn animations. VALIE EXPORT, Ingrid, and Oswald Wiener also worked with extreme close-ups, setting the film apart from conventional TV documentaries.

Oswald Wiener – «Tischbemerkungen November 1985 », 1985
Documentary, digital file, 4:3, color, stereo
45 min.

Das Unsagbare Sagen, 1992
with Ingrid and Oswald Wiener
Documentary, digital file, 4:3, color, stereo
45 min.

All works Courtesy VALIE EXPORT / sixpackfilm, Vienna