Conservation Labor (After Mierle Laderman Ukeles) | Anthony Warnick
Conservation Labor (After Mierle Laderman Ukeles), Anthony Warnick (Cleveland, OH).
May 2017. Labor, wood, paint, paper.
Inspired by Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Manifesto for Maintenance Art, in which she affirms the concept of up-keep over production, Anthony Warnick chose to conserve a work rather than make something new. Warnick’s labor went into conserving former artist-in-residence Ayo Jackson’s Black Lights Matter. To create her piece, Jackson covered her body in black light paint and made imprints on Kitchen Commons chairs and tables, markings that can only be seen under black light. Over time, the black light paint has become increasingly imperceptible. Warnick’s work thus became the task of touching up existing marks and preserving them with a treatment of clear lacquer.
The labor of maintenance is frequently performed by those outside the normative position. In recognition of this and in collaboration with Elsewhere’s commitment to minority voices the choice to conserve Jackson’s work emerged from the desire to preserve works by those not typically canonized. The current dominate systems try to divide us into competing individual with social and global forces. Through collaboration we can subvert these systems and forces to highlight alternative ways of interacting. The performance of labor draws attention to the politics of the labor and the bodies performing it, and here attempts a generous gesture of corroboration.
