HOMOMETER II
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- HOMOMETER II
- 1976
- 6 b&w photographs
- 24 × 17,7 cm
“HOMO METER II” (1976) was a performance in which VALIE EXPORT walked down Vienna’s Mariahilferstrasse with a round loaf of bread, which was hung from her neck by a string and rested against her stomach, and invited passersby to carve themselves a slice. In the original “HOMO METER” performance of 1973, however, the artist had had two loaves of bread tied to her legs and dragged them behind her at the seashore. During EXPORT’s 1976 street action, people were disturbed and often did not dare to cut off a piece with a knife —seeing as the loaf was meant to be an extension of her body and a symbol of women’s subjugation to nurturing and reproductive functions. What was important to the artist here was confronting people with an artistic gesture in public space, as the same action would have been differently perceived within the confines of an art gallery. Being a woman performing alone out in the street also referred to the status of making art as a woman during the 1970s, when EXPORT became a pioneer of socially and publicly engaged critical art practices. W.S.