Not Just Garbage: A documentary about maintenance artist Mierle Ukeles, the official artist-in-residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation.
Clip one: Mierle talks about an early performance art piece, which led to her work at the Sanitation Department.
Happy to see this on youtube, because Ukeles made it into the Art Appreciation textbooks and students unacquainted with performance art will benefit from having more than a still photo and text to convey how they may go about interpreting this piece. However, when it comes to concept I prefer the much more powerful ideas behind Smithson's entropy or the old Beuys actions. Perhaps the power of this work will come to me at a time in the future, but, so far, the sum is worth less than its parts.
jpapare 2 years ago