# Event Details - **Event Name**: Maintenance Artist: a film by Toby Perl Freilich - **Event Start and End Date**: Thu, 26 Mar, 2026 at 05:30 pm – Thu, 26 Mar, 2026 at 07:00 pm - **Event Description**: The first feature documentary about groundbreaking public artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, NYC Sanitation Dept’s official artist-in-residence.About this EventThe Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design (ICA at MECA&D), along with Maine College of Art & Design, is pleased to announce a screening of Maintenance Artist. Directed 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 since 1977. The screening is presented as part of the ICA at MECA&D’s current exhibition, , which features an iteration of Ukeles’ 1969 work, In addition, Ukeles’s public art project Flow Thru Out is installed in the front entrance of MECA&D’s Porteous building. Unveiled in 1998, Flow Thru Out was the first work of art commissioned by the Portland Percent for Art Program as part of an initiative to install art in municipal spaces.The screening is scheduled for 5:30 pm on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in MECA&D’s Osher Hall. The event is free and open to the public on a space-available basis.https://vimeo.com/1127648743?fl=pl&fe=shAbout After becoming a mother disrupted her career as an artist, Mierle Laderman Ukeles published a daring manifesto: from now on, all her acts of childcare and household maintenance would be performance art. The Manifesto propelled Ukeles into the 1960’s avant-garde, a largely male scene that prized the solitary creator but scorned those who “keep the dust off the pure individual creation.”Recognizing that this devaluation of care was systemic, Ukeles began scaling up her maintenance revolution to include collaborations with the often invisible cleaners and guards who care for museums — poking at the concealed hierarchies embedded in the white cube space. In 1977, in a move that would radically reframe public art, Ukeles was invited to establish an unprecedented artist-in-residency at the NYC Sanitation Department, where she championed a demeaned but essential class of workers within a vast urban system.Set during the impassioned social and artistic upheavals of the late 20th century and using newly digitized archival footage, Maintenance Artist is the story of an artist who raised maintenance to an art form and became a force in contemporary art.Ukeles pioneered the notion of care as an artistic ethic, anticipating political and cultural questions that remain cutting-edge to this day. In linking childcare, cleaning, and sanitation, she interrogated how we value maintenance work and how this valuation is linked to gender, class, and race. By challenging the romanticization of the lone, white male genius artist, she helped expand the boundaries of an exclusive art world to include more women and low-paid wage earners. She has been a leading artistic voice exploring such urgent issues as unchecked consumerism’s catastrophic impact on climate change.Maintenance Artist traces art’s radical revolution in the mid-20th century, upending millennia of tradition. Decrying art’s over-commercialization, artists asked whether art should even have materiality. Should it separate itself from society at large, enshrined in museums? Who controlled those museums? Why did men dominate the avant-garde agenda? How should artists use their work to resist growing environmental devastation What is art altogether? Ukeles was in the vanguard of this debate.Rooted in Second Wave Feminism and the Land Art movement, Ukeles’ work advocates for conservation, ritual, cooperation, and deceleration over modern valorizations of innovation, individualism, and speed. It warns of an impending climate disaster if Western societies continue to single-mindedly promote consumption and rapid disposal at the expense of preservation.Ukeles’ genius is her ability to get us to consider the mundane in new ways, to move us from thought to action. Maintenance Artist heralds her vision for a radically more equitable society. https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events4/banners/16b02fe0-2723-11f1-96d6-b101af5a0325-rimg-w1200-h675-dcf6afcd-gmir.jpg March 6 – April 18, 2026Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design522 Congress St. Portland, ME 04101Everyday Is All There Is draws on Joan Didion’s advice to use the good silver now, rather than saving it for a future that is never guaranteed. The artists in Everyday Is All There Is affirm the value of presence, echoing Didion’s recognition that trouble and celebration arrive with equal unpredictability. While the demand to savor every moment can be exhausting, life unfolds largely through routine—walking the dog, making lists, changing a diaper, guarding one’s solitude. These artists remind us that meaning lies in how we frame such moments. Through subtle acts of resistance and quiet reconfigurations of the ordinary, the exhibition reveals how the banal can become transcendent.Everyday Is All There Is is the second installment of Getaway!, a multi-year exhibition series that explores the power and pitfalls of escapism as a reaction to the question, “What do we do in response to our current crises?” These group and solo exhibitions explore various topics within the broader theme of escapism, examining both the complex impulses that drive us away from challenging circumstances and the destinations and activities we pursue when we do. Through diverse research and artistic practices, this series aims to provide a space for imagination, equipping our communities, both within and beyond MECA&D, with new tools to create the worlds they envision.Everyday Is All There Is is curated by Director of Exhibitions Iris Williamson and independent curator Roz Crews. Exhibiting artists include Chloë Bass, Katherine Bradford, Jasmine Clarke, Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis, David Horvitz, Nina Katchadourian, Ralph Pugay, Stephanie H. Shih, Rick Silva, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events1/banners/16edae10-2723-11f1-96d6-b101af5a0325-rimg-w1200-h675-dc909090-gmir.jpg - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/portland/maintenance-artist-a-film-by-toby-perl-freilich/100001985726927695 - **Event Categories**: art, exhibitions, fine-arts, entertainment, workshops, sports, dog - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 0 ## Ticket Details - **Ticket Price Range**: min: 0, max: 0, currency: USD ## Event venue details - **city**: Portland - **state**: ME - **country**: United States - **location**: Maine College of Art & Design - **lat**: 43.65574 - **long**: -70.2606021 - **full address**: Maine College of Art & Design, 522 Congress Street, Portland, United States ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: Maintenance Artist: a film by Toby Perl Freilich - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events3/banners/d6ba50cd5a22f25825bdee8cd353a4ee994c72ec019a3afaaa26de4674bd5e39-rimg-w1200-h800-dc061010-gmir.jpg?v=1774316719 ## FAQs - **Q**: When and where is Maintenance Artist: a film by Toby Perl Freilich being held? - **A:** Maintenance Artist: a film by Toby Perl Freilich takes place on Thu, 26 Mar, 2026 at 05:30 pm to Thu, 26 Mar, 2026 at 07:00 pm at Maine College of Art & Design, 522 Congress Street, Portland, United States. - **Q**: Who is organizing Maintenance Artist: a film by Toby Perl Freilich? - **A:** Maintenance Artist: a film by Toby Perl Freilich is organized by Institute of Contemporary Art at MECAD. - **Q**: Who is this event for? Is it right for me? - **A:** Maintenance Artist: a film by Toby Perl Freilich is ideal for art lovers, trade professionals, collectors, and exhibition enthusiasts exploring the latest in their field. Whether you're a first-time attendee or a longtime enthusiast in Portland, this event is thoughtfully curated to deliver a standout experience worth every moment. 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