Born 1939 in Denver, CO.
Lives and works in New York, NY.
As the artist-in-residence at New York City’s Department of Sanitation since 1977, Mierle Laderman Ukeles orchestrates public projects that raise awareness about urban maintenance systems and the workers who sustain the urban environment. Examining the relationship between those who live in the community and those who serve it, she eradicates the boundary between traditional art and routine life. For Touch Sanitation (1977-84), her multi-component inaugural project as artist-in-residence, she shook the hands of every sanitation worker in New York City to thank them for “keeping NYC alive.” In a similar attempt to use art as an agent for social change, Flow City (1985-present) created an actual window into the waste management system in New York City and successfully sparked public reexamination of global ecological management. Ukeles is the recipient of numerous awards and public art commissions. Her influential 1969 publication, Manifesto for Maintenance Art, 1969!, which favored “industrial maintenance” over “urban development” as a theoretical background for artistic production, received widespread accolades and ignited her career.
