Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ “Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!”
Artists have been standing up for the environment for a long time. We remember Mierle Laderman Ukeles' "Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!", which challenges traditional distinctions between art and maintenance work. In her manifesto, Ukeles describes an art practice that reveals the invisible labor of daily upkeep and care — in domestic spaces, public spaces, and institutions. (Below are some of our favorite excerpts, but click the link for her original spacing and the full version!)
Ukeles was also a resident in New York City’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY) for about 40 years in a totally unpaid position for most of that time. Ukeles is one inspiration for MJN’s art practice and resources on composting. Check out youth activist group Veggie Nuggets’ PSA on the topic here.
“A. The Death Instinct and the Life Instinct:
The Death Instinct: separation; individuality; Avant-Garde par excellence; to follow one’s own path to death—do your own thing; dynamic change.
The Life Instinct: unification; the eternal return; the perpetuation and MAINTENANCE of the species; survival systems and operations; equilibrium.
B. Two basic systems: Development and Maintenance. The sour ball of every revolution: after the revolution, who is going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?
Development: pure individual creation; the new; change; progress, advance, excitement, flight or fleeing.
Maintenance: keep the dust off the pure individual creation; preserve the new; sustain the change; protect progress; defend and prolong the advanced; renew the excitement; repeat the flight....
C. Maintenance is a drag; it takes all the fucking time (lit.). The mind boggles and chafes at the boredom. The culture confers lousy status on maintenance jobs = minimum wages, housewives=no pay.
clean your desk, wash the dishes, clean the floor, wash your clothes, wash your toes, change the baby’s diapers, finish the report, correct the typos, mend the fence, keep the customers happy, throw out the stinking garbage...”
