“The work of VALIE EXPORT has always impressed me. It is politically explosive and socially explosive,” says Ulrike Hanstein. The 46-year-old has been in charge of the VALIE EXPORT Center since Monday. At the beginning of the year, her predecessor Sabine Folie took over the management of the art collections of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Associated with the office is a professorship for art and media studies at the University of Art and Design Linz, which the center runs together with the Lentos art museum.
Hanstein comes from Erfurt, earned her doctorate in film studies and worked as a researcher in Jena, Weimar, Leipzig and Vienna. Most recently she was a professor of film studies at the film school in Cologne. Her focus is on performance art, video art, experimental film and feminist art practices. The scientist, who has lived in Cologne until now and is moving to Linz next week, also developed performance projects. Recently she has devoted herself to the question of how performance art in particular can be documented and archived. The EXPORT Center can become a treasure trove for Hanstein: “A lot is documented here that relates to work processes, networks and the conditions under which the art of VALIE EXPORT was created.” This also has historical relevance. As a professor, she wants to use the archive to work on questions of artistic production with the students.
“A stroke of luck”
Art university rector Brigitte Hütter sees Hanstein’s appointment as a “stroke of luck” because she has been dealing with issues that are essential for the EXPORT Center for years. The center was created in 2017 when the city of Linz bought the artist’s legacy and expanded it into a research center for media and performance art. The archive contains catalogs raisonnés, studies, sketches and a library by the artist.
VALIE EXPORT, who grew up in Linz, is considered a pioneer of media and performance art; her works such as the “Tapp- und Tastkino” or the “Aktionshose: Genitalpanik” are considered classics of this art movement. (hes)
Source: Nachrichten
