VALIE EXPORT's 1966-80 Text-Performance 'Gedichte' Published in ArtReview

ArtReview's January/February 2020 issue featured archival poetry from Austrian avant-garde feminist artist VALIE EXPORT's text-performance work 'Gedichte' (1966-80). The publication included the German-language poem 'Metallene Gesten' alongside an English translation by Jennifer Taylor. This work originally existed as a 7-minute, 48-second black-and-white video with sound from 1966. Courtesy for the material was credited to both the artist and Sixpack Film in Vienna. The poem presents fragmented, visceral imagery exploring bodily experience, memory, and alienation through metaphors of water, heat, and organic decay. Lines describe drinking water in summer heat, sweat between feet, and unrecognizable faces, moving to images of a blind goldfish pond, unreadable signs on wooden boards, and an empty sea urchin. The text-performance represents an early multimedia exploration within EXPORT's pioneering feminist practice.