Mierle Laderman Ukeles “Maintenance Art” at Queens Museum, New York

Mierle Laderman Ukeles “Maintenance Art” at Queens Museum, New York

This exhibition, "Maintenance Art," speaks to this week's discussion on labor and the Molesworth reading through its use of nontraditional materials and techniques as well as its commentary on masculine and feminine labor. By using maintenance supplies such as gloves, gauges, springs, etc. in the piece pictured above, Ukeles is reflecting the post-WWII trend of artists distancing themselves from traditional artistic labor. By using mass-produced commodities, she is emphasizing mental labor of both the artist and the audience in the tradition of Duchamp. Ironically, the topic of mental labor in this case is actually physical labor. The focus of much of her work in the exhibition is this labor and the way that traditionally feminine labor is devalued. She makes a connection between that labor (care) and the maintenance profession, synthesizing the two into her work. Molesworth describes post-WWII artists seeing themselves as workers a capitalist society and creating art in discourse with that society. Here, Ukeles is very much working in that same line of thought.