Valie Export
«Body Superimpositions with Historical Reproductions»

In this videotape, art history – which both records and portrays the male view of woman – is a historical foil serving to set off a contemporary one. The discrepancy between the historical archetype and contemporary self-portrait in the cycle titled ‘Sistine Chapel’ is a critical reference to the oppressive tradition of idealized female images. Valie Export also superimposed past images of women over contemporary female postures in the videotape ‘Stille Sprache’ (‘Silent Language’), 1974, and stated: ‘I examine the historical development conveyed by the expression of specific postures. The paintings of the past harbour an archive of postures which went unnoticed and is of immense value for understanding the emotional states and mythologies of the different periods.’