Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: MAINTENANCE ARTIST [Tribeca Film Festival 2025 - New York, NY]

Seeing beauty in the mundane complexities of life is always the most rewarding as long as the perspective is understood in what it is. "Maintenance Artist" [Documentary Competition] follows Mierle Laderman Ukeles, an artist in residence for the NYC Sanitation Department since 1979. It is an interesting context because this reviewer was unaware that something like that existed. What the documentary from director Toby Perl Freilich explores is the approach but also the reflection of operating in such a space of art. With installations or shows, what the art sometimes is meant to do is throttle the price of an artist's work to collectors which allows the artist then to do more work. With these subjects and the almost mixed use/performance art nature of these kinds of subjects (and Ukeles' art), it was significantly more difficult (though in today's marketplace it actually would be regarded as retro-chic)..but then there was no real way to sell her work. What is intriguing is how Ukeles tries to gain trust and embed herself with these mostly men who don't seem particularly interested in "art".

The film uses a current Smithsonian installation as a means of backviewing alot of what Ukeles did. What is also dynamic about the piece is how when she had kids it frustrated her with the aspect of what her art was then seen or perceived as. The subject is a committed artist but also, like many of us, becomes a bit hyperfocused. The progression of what she is able to achieve with the sanitation workers makes up a bulk of the proceedings. Another aspect that again was maybe overlooked was the sanitation workers during the pandemic, especially in NYC. Everyone was applauding the healthcare workers (and rightfully so) but the garbage collectors were out in force (when COVID was thought to be carried on food and packaging). Ukeles eventually moved on to aspects of larger scale performance with land and equipment which is a more abstract and showy form of someone who has earned that right. But there is something undeniably guerllla and grungy about her early work (captured in blown out film and video from the day). "Maintenance Artist" is an unique view or a point and time from an underappreciated perspective. B

By Tim Wassberg

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