Date of Award
Spring 5-19-2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Art
First Advisor
Harper Montgomery
Second Advisor
Cynthia Hahn
Academic Program Adviser
Nebahat Avcioglu
Abstract
This thesis argues that Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s work teaches us something new about what monument-making can be when it is socially engaged. The durational process and motivating desire to elicit gratitude for the DSNY labor force of Ukeles’s residency in the Sanitation Department raises pressing questions about the conventional nature of how monuments are typically conceived and executed and to whom these works are directed. Analysis of her three-part performance Sanitation Celebrations: Grand Finale of New York City’s First Art Parade, just one engagement within her long-term performative monument, explicates the intricacies of Ukeles’s process-based performative practice in terms of site, participation, and ongoing permanence.
Recommended Citation
Vij, Diya, "Sanitation Celebrations: Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s Performative Monument with/for/by Sanmen" (2016). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/69