Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. 1939, USA)
Maintenance Art, 1969

K21, Düsseldorf, Germany / Visited 21/01/2020

A lot of things are going on here. There is a framed pitch for an exhibition (one of the formats I am working on), there is re-consideration of the borders of art (a question not as acute nowadays as in 1969, I’d guess, but I am still spending a lot of time considering on what grounds this or that gesture could be regarded as art), there are personal handshakes with some 8500 sanitation workers in NYC.

I haven’t fully processed the latter yet. Surely, it can be quickly sorted into relational aesthetics or social sculpture or community practice or performance – depending on one’s tastes and preferences – but nevertheless, what is “art” there? Is every handshake a piece of art – or just the complete series – or just the documentation derived from those instances? What is the role of the sanitation workers themselves – are they audience, props, collaborating artists? Who is having artistic experience in all this – the artist, the workers, the documentation viewers? Does it matter and how, for whom? And if that would not matter – would it make this an exception from the general rule, or would the general rule be that it makes no sense to dissect art along those lines at all? …or is this no more art than just usage of artistic cover in order to make an odd social project “legit”? Could it have been done without having been framed as art? What would be different?

I do like works that just keep piling up questions.