From “Manifesto for Maintenance Art,” Mierle Ukeles (1969)
l. IDEAS
A. The Death Instinct and the Life Instinct:
The Death Instinct: separation; individuality; Avant Garde par excellence; to follow one’s own path to death- do your own thing; dynamic change.
The Life Instinct: unification; the eternal return; the perpetuation and MAINTENANCE of the species; survival systems and operations; equilibrium.”
and one central declaration, “MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK”:
ll. Part One: Personal
I am an artist. I am a woman. I am a wife. I am a mother.
(Random order).
I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, renewing, supporting, preserving, etc. Also (up to now separately) I “do” Art.
Now I will simply do these maintenance everyday things, and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them as Art. I will live in the museum as I customarily do at home with my husband and my baby, for the duration of the exhibition (Right? or if you don’t want me around at night I would come in every day), and do all these things as public Art activities: I will sweep and wax the floors, dust everything, wash the walls (i.e. ‘floor paintings, dust works, soapsculpture, wall-paintings’), cook, invite people to eat, make agglomerations and dispositions of a functional refuse.
The exhibition area might look ‘empty’ of art, but it will be maintained in full public view.
MY WORKING WILL BE THE WORK.
