Artistic Labour of the Body

Artistic Labour of the Body examines VALIE EXPORT’s and Elfriede Jelinek’s use of the body and psyche as artistic material to explore Adorno’s concept of artistic labor.

By deploying the body as artistic material, their works challenge women’s reduction to reproductive function or sexual object, articulating a feminism beyond “innocence”. Gush demonstrates how their art critiqued post-war Austria’s culture of disavowal, where unprocessed legacies of Nazism perpetuated Austria’s victimhood myth, while also exploring the complex identifications within this critique. The book reframes post-war artistic practices that revealed the body as both a site of patriarchal-capitalist violence and of resistance.