Join Tribeca Festival & NYWIFT as we proudly co-host screenings of Maintenance Artist, directed, written, and produced by NYWIFT Member Toby Perl Freilich!
Sunday, June 8 – 5:30 PM @ Village East by Angelika
Monday, June 9 – 6:15 PM @ AMC 19th St. East 6
Tuesday, June 10 – 3:00 PM @ AMC 19th St. East 6
Saturday, June 14 – 2:45 PM @ Village East by Angelika
NYWIFT members get 20% off tickets for the first screening of this film – find the code in your weekly member e-blast. Not a member yet? Email us at membership@nywift.org or apply online.
About the Film
1979, New York City. At their work site, sanitation workers give their undivided attention to a woman who’s stopped by for a visit. They listen to her speak, but stand with their arms folded. “Good morning! My name is Mierle Laderman Ukeles. I’m a maintenance artist. I feel that you hold up the whole city in your hands with your unending work. I think it’s time for the public to hear what New York City feels like, from the side of the people that keep it alive, every single day.” With that, Ukeles initiated one of her most ambitious and socially-conscious works — pursuing the idea that acts of individual social maintenance, including sanitation work, could be deemed a form of performance art.
Toby Perl Freilich’s engrossing documentary employs a playful visual style to explore Ukeles’ life and career as a truly atypical, radical artist. The ‘ecofeminist’ Ukeles, influenced by the socially-progressive Dadaists and Futurists, has imbued in her work the need to reconceptualize how we engage with consumption, waste and land. Her decades-spanning work at the NYC Department of Sanitation — and other public projects abroad — has furthered the evolution of performance art in sync with political and environmental issues. Anchored by expansive archival material, Maintenance Artist crafts the dynamic portrait of an irrepressible and subversive artistic force in culture and society.
Learn more about the 17 NYWIFT member projects at Tribeca 2025!
Thanks to our partner:
Still from Maintenance Artist (Courtesy of Tribeca)
AMC 19th St. East 6
890 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
, Village East by Angelika
181-189 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
membership@nywift.org
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#nywift | @nywift
NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
