Mierle Laderman Ukeles, I Make Maintenance Art One Hour Every Day, September 16-October 20, 1976

Mierle Laderman Ukeles: I was invited to be in a group exhibition at the downtown branch of the Whitney Museum, which was located in a skyscraper.

Narrator: Mierle Laderman Ukeles describes the work she made for a branch museum that the Whitney used to run at 55 Water Street—one of the largest office buildings in the world.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles: This is not just any old office building. This is the central depository trust. Much of the gold and cash that is in banks gets put deep down, like eight floors down, below ground level at night in this building. The levels of security were just stupefying. 

It was a Richard Meier building. Very high, tony building. Very quiet. The cleaners had to keep their shirts buttoned even when they cleaned, and they were not allowed to talk back. They weren't really supposed to speak unless they were spoken to. So there was this Apollonian order because it was money. It was just money.

Narrator: To make her work for the exhibition, Ukeles worked two shifts a day for five weeks, engaging the service employees of 55 Water Street in a participatory performance. 

Mierle Laderman Ukeles: I would approach someone, a worker doing work, and I would always ask, "May I take your picture?" I would take their picture, often a series of pictures, as they did their work. And then the Polaroids would come out of the bottom of the camera. And I would say to them, "Is this maintenance art, or is this maintenance work?" And whatever they said, I had labels printed, that say "Maintenance work" and "Maintenance art."

Narrator: For the most part, the building’s service employees had not visited the Water Street branch of the Whitney. But many came to see Ukeles’s installation. She even held a party for night-shift workers so they could see the show outside the gallery’s usual restricted hours.

To hear Ukeles talk about her aims in this work, please tap to continue.