Summary

Biography: Mierle Laderman Ukeles (born 1939, Denver, CO) is a New York-based artist known for her feminist and service-oriented artwork In 1969 she wrote a manifesto entitled Maintenance Art?Proposal for an Exhibition, challenging the domestic role of women and proclaiming herself a maintenance artist Maintenance is the realm of human activities that keep things going, such as cooking, cleaning and child-rearing and her performances in the 1970s included the cleaning of art galleries One of her most well-known projects Touch Sanitation (1970-1980), involved shaking hands with more than 8,500 workers in the New York City Department of Sanitation while saying Thank you for keeping New York City alive