\u201cAs a Jew, I was in love with the notion of freedom,\u201d Ukeles said in an interview. \u201cThis message of art as freedom, I felt that\u2019s what I\u2019m about. That\u2019s what I\u2019m for.\u201d<\/p>\n
As artist-in-residence, Ukeles plans, stages and records public works of performance and conceptual art that recognize the workers of the Sanitation Department. After the piece\u2019s initial staging, photos from the performance might be shown at a museum or gallery.<\/p>\n
Despite having been coined New York\u2019s \u201ctrash artist\u201d because of her Sanitation Department role, Ukeles does not actually dig in dumpsters or landfills to create her work. But much of her art has mined something else: her Jewish values, as the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi who herself has divided time between New York and Israel.<\/p>\n
Some of her pieces have included conceptual and interactive works focusing on Jewish themes and traditions, such as the creation story and the mikveh, or ritual bath.<\/p>\n
A 2010 interactive piece, \u201cBirthing Tikkun Olam,\u201d for example, invited onlookers to reflect in an installation of glass mirrors, <\/a>then make a \u201ccovenant\u201d to repair the world. Their responses were collected and exchanged for a mirror in the piece, which she staged at the Yeshiva University Museum.<\/p>\n \u201cThe site of the art is going to move out into the world, and with it, the acts that you will do,\u201d Ukeles told <\/a>the university\u2019s newspaper at the time.<\/p>\n Though Ukeles does not consider herself a Jewish artist, because she prefers <\/a>to avoid being categorized as such, she observes Shabbat \u2014 even turning down a stint in the Peace Corps and Friday-night gallery openings to maintain her observance. She lives in Israel, where she advises art students at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and attends a \u201cpartnership\u201d minyan that aims to widen women\u2019s participation in Orthodox Judaism.<\/p>\n \u201cI have many deep beliefs in great Jewish ideas and commitments,\u201d Ukeles said.<\/p>\n For Freilich, the daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors and a descendant of Hasidic dynasties who is herself an observant Jew, Ukeles\u2019s identity was core to why she became so transfixed by the artist that she decided to make a movie about her.<\/p>\n \u201cHer reading of Jewish texts, her reading of Jewish philosophy, of Judaism was profoundly moving to me because it emphasized things like, \u2018we\u2019re all created in God\u2019s image\u2019 and we\u2019re all equally deserving of respect and honor, or that the, the profane is the pathway to the sacred,\u201d Freilich said. \u201cAnd these are deep, deep kinds of concepts in Judaism that a lot of people aren\u2019t really that familiar with.\u201d<\/p>\n That first piece with DSNY, titled \u201cTouch Sanitation Performance,\u201d spoke to Freilich, who was inspired by a visit to the 2016 retrospective<\/a> of Ukeles\u2019s work at the Queens Museum.<\/p>\n \u201cI was completely, really blown away,\u201d said Freilich, whose previous documentary works have covered broad swaths of Jewish history, from the partisans of World War II to kibbutz life in Israel.<\/p>\n Ukeles\u2019s works, funded by grants, endowments, fellowships, and commissions, have taken shape in every possible art medium \u2014 including performance art and landscape art.<\/p>\n \t Initially experimenting with paint, she got into trouble while at the Pratt Institute for creating a bulbous multimedia piece with cheesecloth and debris. The school\u2019s administration found it provocative. Her mentor, the abstract expressionist Robert Richenburg, defended Ukeles\u2019s work and ultimately resigned<\/a> from the school rather than change his teaching methods at the administration\u2019s request.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very, very difficult time in my life,\u201d Ukeles said. \u201cI was shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AFP__20250608__2219220080__v1__HighRes__MaintenanceArtistPremiere2025TribecaFestival-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tJack Ukeles, Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Toby Perl Freilich attend the \u2018Maintenance Artist\u2019 premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival at Village East Cinema on June 8, 2025, in New York City. (Dia Dipasupil\/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival\/AFP)<\/p>\n