22nd October 2026

5:00pm - 7:00pm

Goethe Institut, Monrovia Street

Screening of Maintenance Artist, a film by Toby Perl Freilich, is the first feature documentary about groundbreaking public artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the New York City Sanitation Department’s official artist-in-residence. Through her pioneering practice, Mierle Laderman Ukeles highlights the essential value of everyday maintenance work, suggesting that care work operates in an in-between space that cannot be fully complete. Instead, it requires consistently being present, staying mindful and actively engaging with the persistent breakdown of stable forms. Echoing what Ukeles has radically proposed: to view repetitive, physically engaged gestures of care and contact as central to the artistic process.