Manifesto for Maintenance art 1969!, Proposal for an Exhibition ‘CARE’

Maintenance is the realm of human activities that keep life going, such as cooking, cleaning, and care. Written more than forty years ago, the Manifesto for Maintenance art 1969! proposes a radical disturbance of the border separating maintenance work and making art. Reflecting on her own labour as a woman, mother, wife and artist, Mierle Laderman Ukeles combined these roles and proposed to to put on display in the museum. Her proposition doesn’t merely aim to have maintenance—the work done by many undervalued care, support and service workers— become visible in the museum, but the Manifesto became a prompt for decades of artistic actions by Ukeles with and for other maintenance workers since.

Organization: City of Women; In collaboration with: Squat Exercise Collective, Revolting Women Social Workers, Azil Bookshop.
Supported by: EU Culture.