Join SVMoA and Merlin’s Magic Lantern for a screening of Maintenance Artist, the first feature documentary about revolutionary public artist, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who in 1977 became the first artist-in-residence at NYC’s Department of Sanitation. Ukeles called for a Maintenance Revolution, collaborating with municipal workers to inject art directly into the city’s bloodstream. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp, she pioneered the notion that routine maintenance – from changing diapers to picking up city trash to caring for the earth – could be acts of performance art.

Documentary Magazine calls the film, “A fascinating look at an undeterred feminist and advocate for the working class who constantly defied such easy labels.” With never-before-seen archival footage, Maintenance Artist tells a story of essential workers and radical contemporary art set during the social and artistic upheavals of the last half-century.

$10 member / $12 nonmember

The film is written, directed and produced by Toby Perl Freilich. Film Length: 1 hour 35 minutes.