A new documentary titled 'Maintenance Artist,' premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, profiles New York City artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who has served as artist-in-residence at the city's Department of Sanitation since 1977. The film traces her radical practice, which began with her 1969 'Manifesto for Maintenance Art' and includes performances like 'Touch Sanitation Performance' (1980), where she shook hands with all 8,500 sanitation workers, thanking each for keeping the city alive. Ukeles' work elevates overlooked labor—trash collection, street-cleaning—as a form of public art.
The documentary matters because it brings renewed attention to Ukeles' pioneering concept of 'maintenance art,' which challenges traditional hierarchies in the art world by centering care, upkeep, and the invisible workers who sustain urban life. As museums and institutions increasingly reckon with labor equity and public engagement, Ukeles' decades-long collaboration with a government agency offers a powerful model for art that is truly public and socially embedded. Her archive is being donated to the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, ensuring her legacy endures.