Mierle Laderman Ukeles

I Make Maintenance Art One Hour Every Day, 1976, 720 collaged dye diffusion transfer prints with self-adhesive labels, graphite pencil, collaged acrylic on board, and self-adhesive vinyl on paper, Variable, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase, with funds from the Photography Committee and The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, 2017.164a-b, ©️ Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York

Listening to the Hum of Living

Commentary by Michael Wright

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Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s readymades—and the way Duchamp and the artists he inspired named art for themselves—Mierle Laderman Ukeles nevertheless uncovered a problem. By elevating ordinary things to the status of art objects, such artists often obscured the social structures that make museums and galleries possible in the first place. 

So Ukeles reconceptualized her approach to art-making, and developed Maintenance Art. Maintenance Art unearths the systems that sustain the art world, and provokes consideration of the invisible labour that makes it possible. 

In I Make Maintenance Art One Hour Every Day (1976), Ukeles collaborated with over 300 maintenance workers at the original Whitney Museum. For more than five weeks, she asked custodians, plumbers, and other labourers to name an hour out of their work shift as a time when they were undertaking ‘maintenance art’, and to document these moments with a camera.

Ukeles was transferring her ‘naming authority’ as an artist to those without a voice, and by the end of the project, she covered a museum wall with documentation of these new artists. The resulting collage of images both uncovered and dignified an invisible working class that maintained the life of the museum as viewers walked through its halls.

Peter’s vision of a sheet unfurling above Joppa functions in a way that is comparable to Ukeles’s grid of images. Heaven opened to reveal a bounty of ‘unclean’ animals and, three times, a voice said ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat … What God has cleansed, you must not call common’ (10:13, 15). If Jewish food codes can be interpreted as shaping who eats together as much as what is eaten, then Peter’s vision likewise presented him with more than just food. Like I Make Maintenance Art One Hour Every Day, it revealed a community of outsiders (those who eat unclean food) as those he must now accept. It provoked him to reorient his social values.

Ukeles wrote in her manifesto that she was ‘trying to listen to the hum of living’ (Ryan 2009). Maintenance Art, then, is the practice of a certain kind of vision—to see all people, especially those obscured by hierarchies and the built environment, as part of a shared life. Whether pondering Maintenance Art or receiving a mystical vision, we too are invited to change the way we see others. To join in a ‘hum of living’ that’s much larger than the social boundaries that can limit our worlds.

 

References

Ryan, Bartholomew. 2009. ‘Manifesto for Maintenance: A Conversation with Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 18 March 2009’, Art in America, available at https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/draft-mierle-interview-56056/ [accessed 14 October 2022]

Ukeles, Mierle Laderman. 2014. ‘Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969: Proposal for an Exhibition CARE’, in Feminist Art Manifestos: An Anthology, ed. by Katy Deepwell (London: KT Press)

See full exhibition for Acts of the Apostles 10:1–48; 11:1–18

Acts of the Apostles 10:1–48; 11:1–18

Revised Standard Version

Acts of the Apostles 10

10 At Caesareʹa there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, 2a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms liberally to the people, and prayed constantly to God. 3About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” 4And he stared at him in terror, and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5And now send men to Joppa, and bring one Simon who is called Peter; 6he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” 7When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those that waited on him, 8and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

9 The next day, as they were on their journey and coming near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. 10And he became hungry and desired something to eat; but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11and saw the heaven opened, and something descending, like a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth. 12In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13And there came a voice to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14But Peter said, “No, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” 16This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

17 Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision which he had seen might mean, behold, the men that were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood before the gate 18and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20Rise and go down, and accompany them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” 21And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?” 22And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house, and to hear what you have to say.” 23So he called them in to be his guests.

And on the following day they entered Caesareʹa. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his kinsmen and close friends. 25When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered; 28and he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. 29So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

30 And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was keeping the ninth hour of prayer in my house; and behold, a man stood before me in bright apparel, 31saying, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the seaside.’ 33So I sent to you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here present in the sight of God, to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

34 And Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36You know the word which he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39And we are witnesses to all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and made him manifest; 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42And he commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that he is the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43To him all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

44 While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45And the believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 46For they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47“Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

11 Now the apostles and the brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, 3saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 4But Peter began and explained to them in order: 5“I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, something descending, like a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came down to me. 6Looking at it closely I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. 7And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8But I said, ‘No, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common.’ 10This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. 11At that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesareʹa. 12And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brethren also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13And he told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon called Peter; 14he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” 18When they heard this they were silenced. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life.”

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