Though I had mixed feelings about performing maintenance art at the beginning of the class session, going around campus and cleaning up trash left behind by Week of Welcome and other on campus activities had a sort of therapeutic effect, it worked well to make me feel relaxed. While cleaning the grass plaza of upper campus, I sort of had the realization that the paths and grass plots had their own sort of artistic grid, and helping to clean that up felt like I was adding a little bit of my own touch onto the expanse of art.
I believe that art can take on any sort of expression, whether it be constructive, destructive, or anything else. There is art in protest, there is art in maintenance, there is art in any sort of meaningful action, so long as it has purpose behind it.
I do believe that Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s Maintenance Art performance was indeed art. The performance taking place at an Art Museum didn’t make it any more “Art” than if she had performed it somewhere else.
As mentioned above, I believe it is the intent of the artist that defines the art, so even something such as getting a job as a janitor in a factory could have constituted art.
I don’t think that these topics (Women’s Work and the interpretations by Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Jennifer Lopez) are uniquely artistic, they have their own qualities, but they are definitely, in their own right, art.
In regards to maintenance art on the Walk of Fame, I can’t think of any Hollywood star (or any celebrity for that matter) that I would be willing to clean the star of.
Derek Zhang's Blog 