In light of the pandemic’s winter wave and its continued toll on our already stressed infrastructure and personnel, I am constantly thinking of all the amazing essential workers. The delivery people, grocery store employees, healthcare heroes, first responders, sanitation workers and educators (to name just a few of the many incredible and invaluable individuals and teams). They have worked tirelessly, giving up their weekends, family time and holidays, all so that our collective communities are safe and functioning.
As a reflection of their committed and compassionate work during the heyday of the 2020 pandemic, I wrote a short essay for the amazing arts publication, Critical Read, called “Essential Art for Essential Workers.” I am sharing it again as we enter 2022 with the same need for compassion and collective responses to issues of global public health and wellbeing. You can read the original piece, which was published on Critical Read as part of its Art Is Essential series, here. I have also reposted the article further below.
The prompt for this essay was to select a work of art that I have personally turned to during this uncertain and tumultuous era. At the time, I had been reading article after article about the workforce who did not have the option of a remote workplace. They were putting their own health at risk in order to keep other people healthy and keep our collective community running efficiently. While some of these essential workers were getting rightful praise, there were others, such as Luis Padilla, an environmental service tech at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, who was denied a free essential worker meal at McDonald’s because the cashier didn’t consider his job to be of merit for the offer.
The artwork that I chose to discuss in relationship to the current climate and the significance of a generally unheralded labor force making consequential contributions that benefit us all, was Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Touch Sanitation. I have previously written about Ukeles’ work and her concept of “Maintenance Art.” In my prior post (see: Making Our Space / Documenting Our Place – Building and Maintaining a Better World), I wanted to explore how we can make art as a form of ethical maintenance. Or whether that was even possible… The answer is a resounding yes. It is practicable, and artists such as Ukeles are strong examples.
Ukeles focuses her artistic practice on the connections between the art world, the natural environment and human labor. Her conceptual artworks consider the act of maintenance to be an artistic process and the results of essential labor and custodianship of public infrastructure to be akin to an art object.
In March of 2020, Ukeles created a public artwork on the facade of the Queens Museum, called For ⟶ forever…, that is dedicated to the service workers of New York City. This message has also been produced on more than 2,000 digital displays throughout the city’s public transportation system. This placement is both a strategic and impactful choice, because these are the the exact settings that service workers utilize each day to get to and from work.
For ⟶ forever…, echoes Ukeles’ longstanding history of collaborating with and celebrating New York’s labor force, which is why I chose to write about her work in regards to how artwork can be essential, uplifting and pragmatic throughout our collective society. So, without further ado, here is my original article that Critical Read published on July 28, 2020:
When the pandemic put the brakes on life as we knew it in New York City, I immediately thought about the essential workers who selflessly provide invaluable labor to keep us afloat. Doctors, nurses, and first responders were getting a lot of well-deserved praise, but other just as necessary workers were still marginalized. It was heartbreaking to read the account of Luis Padilla, a hospital janitor, being denied his free essential worker meal at McDonald’s because the cashier didn’t consider his job to be of merit for the offer.
I thought about art’s role in strengthening communities and fostering an understanding of experiences and viewpoints that may be initially unfamiliar to us. The first work of art that came to mind was Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Touch Sanitation. Ukeles was the official artist-in-residence of the New York City Department of Sanitation when she carried out the performance in 1979-1980, which involved her meeting more than 8,500 sanitation workers, shaking their hands, and saying, “Thank you for keeping New York City alive.” This work still resonates, speaking to the importance of acknowledging all essential workers, especially those who aren’t typically celebrated heroically. Furthermore, it is a touching display of physical acknowledgment in a time when we are all longing to return to some semblance of that kind of expression. Artworks like this have cultural relevance as an aesthetic movement, a social revolution, and an experiential learning process.
Artistic engagement is important for maintaining hope and promoting compassion. Art lifts our spirits and gives us a vibrant voice to communicate with the culture at large. It is a discipline that affords us agency to express ourselves humanely, consider multiple perspectives, and exhibit empathy for other people’s experiences. These are essential takeaways that we must embrace in order to confront uncertainty and fear, and work towards fostering a more reflective, equitable, and justice-driven society. I am grateful for art’s power to touch us wherever we may be and open our minds and hearts to experiences that would otherwise be obscured.
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Young artist, or anyone, I highly recommend trying your hand at a low level, low paying, low status job. Muck stalls, wash dishes, change bedpans. See how you are treated and regarded by others. You will soon see what it takes not to become embittered. Humiliation will make you noble if nobility is in your nature.
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So true. I don’t know too many artists that don’t have full or part-time jobs outside their artistic practice, which is a full-time job in and of itself. One job that many artists choose is art handling, which although it pays rather well, is certainly not considered a high status job. And art handlers are often saddled with a lot of negativity from other higher ranked art world officials. Therefore, it is a very taxing job physically and mentally. That said, I’ve always tried to impart upon my students that artistic learning and the development of artistic/studio habits of mind have enormous professional benefits. Whether or not their intent is to become an artist, studying and appreciating the art process and symbolic utilization of art to communicate ideas and think outside the box, will give them lifelong skill that they can apply to any trade, job or experience.
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Right. At my lowest ebb I indulge in the thought that without connections to wealth or the wealthy, or a supportive family, that attempting to survive on talent alone is futile. But tides ebb and flow and in my right mind I remember that in the long history of art most artists are unknown, and that even the giants sometimes go unappreciated not only in their lifetimes but sometimes for centuries after. Then sanity kicks in and it becomes clear that accolades are essentially meaningless and that it’s the act of creation and the appreciation of creativity is the vital key to fulfillment and the joy of being alive.
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