Snapshots of Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a New York-based artist known for her feminist and service-oriented artwork, has created Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art, a sanitation-focused exhibition on view at the Queens Museum in New York.

Featuring works like Peace Table, 1997, a suspended cobalt glass table that was originally installed at LAMoCA and served as the site for convenings on peace (slide 23), and Ceremonial Arch Honoring Service Workers in the New Service Economy, 1989-1994, an archway made of thousands of dirty work gloves and various trash materials (slides two, three and four), the exhibit brings the history of New York City sanitation to life.

Since the late 1960s, Ukeles has developed multiple sculptural installations, performances and writings centered on the role of women in society, cultures of work and labor and community and urban resilience. One of her most well-known exhibitions, Manifesto for Maintenance Art, 1969!, explored the role of maintenance in Western society.

In addition to the Queens Museum exhibition, which runs from September 18, 2016, to February 19, 2017, Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art also has an accompanying publication, which includes an essay by Patricia C. Phillips, interviews of four sanitation commissioners by Tom Finkelpearl, contributions by Larissa Harris, Lucy Lippard and Laura Raicovich, writings by the Ukeles and more than 300 color images.

Here, Waste360 showcases a variety of snapshots from the Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art exhibition.