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IM/MATERIAL LABOURS AND THE WORK OF ART

Beth Jackson
Eyeline 83
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The new Directors of Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, commenced their program in October 2014 with two exhibitions: ‘Hand to Mouth’ by Sarah Browne, curated by the directors; and ‘Maintenance Art Works 1969-80’ by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, curated by Krist Gruijthuijsen. This was an interesting opening curatorial gesture from this Director partnership for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it is unusual for a Contemporary Art Space to exhibit historical work, and this aspect alone potentially proclaims new terms of engagement for the IMA. Coupled with the fact that the Laderman Ukeles exhibition is not by an Australian artist or curator, nor is Sarah Browne an Australian artist, then this opening gesture is indeed a wide one — reaching back and reaching out, mapping a lineage and context for contemporary art practice and charging a curatorial vehicle which is collaborative, global and mobile. 

The subjects that link these quite different exhibitions are labour relations and feminist ethics, forces that are front and centre in contemporary art and politics, but forces which have had an often times problematic and problematising relationship with the avant garde. It is worth reflecting on these forces and their discursive relations to better apprehend the fault lines and flight paths within and around art practice and its institutional frameworks.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s ‘Maintenance Art Works’ are well represented in historical accounts of Conceptual Art. These performative ‘post object’ works involved mundane and repetitive tasks such as cleaning and other domestic labours, recorded through photo-documentation, logs and timetables. They also often involved audience interaction, for instance through the use of questionnaires and public space. Areas selected for cleaning maintenance included the... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 'Maintenance Art Works 1969-1980'. Installation view, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014. Photograph Carl Warner.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 'Maintenance Art Works 1969-1980'. Installation view, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014. Photograph Carl Warner.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 'Maintenance Art Works 1969-1980'. Photographic installation, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014. Photograph Richard Stringer.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 'Maintenance Art Works 1969-1980'. Photographic installation, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2014. Photograph Richard Stringer.