Maintenance Art

Art Idea #1: Cleaning NOW

For this weeks idea of art, we cleaned Piotr Kowalski’s 1965 sculpture NOW. While performing this work of Maintenance Art it felt honestly quite weird to be cleaning a piece of art that normally I would probably never touch just because I’ve grown up thinking that art cannot be tampered with so this was definitely out of proportion for me.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles cleaning the steps of an art museum differs from that of Richard Serra flinging molten lead against the walls of an art museum based on their end results. Ukeles will finish with clean steps leading up the the art museum while Serra will finish with an intended mess, however these actions are similar in the fact that they are both forms of art. Art comes in many ways, shapes, and forms and though these two are physically different, they both are symbolical in the end.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance Art performance was a form of art, not in the sense that it was an action taking place in front of the art museum, but because regardless of where this action would have happened, it still held an underlying meaning behind it. Had she been hired as a janitor at a factory, this would still be considered a form of art because though a janitorial just is undermined, it still has a purpose and without it we would be working with a mess. In this sense, janitorial work is beautiful art.

Personally, I believe that an object or an action can be Art because of the intentions behind it. I don’t think that all paintings on canvas art are considered art just because of what they are on or the fact that they are in a museum, I think anything that is created is considered art whether it be on a piece of paper or a canvas. I don’t considered house paintings art because it’s not rare for a house to be painted and just about anyone can do it. A painting on a canvas can also be considered not art because it doesn’t matter what you paint on, it matters what you paint, which is why it’s rare for a house to be considered art.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Jennifer Lopez have both made me think differently about “Women’s Work” in the sense that it should be appreciated regardless of how or why it is being done. It is unfortunate that “Women’s Work” is stereotyped to be something along the lines of household chores, however it isn’t rare for a woman to be performing these things for the sake of their household.

When it comes to cleaning a Hollywood star on my hands and knees, I think I would probably clean Jennifer Anniston’s star just because I am such a huge fan of her, being that I’ve grown up watching her on Friends with my mom since I was little.