past exhibitions
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flow thru out by mierle laderman ukeles
Flow Thru Out
by Mierle Laderman Ukeles
A Percent-for-Art Project
 In
1991 the City of Portland established a downtown Public
Arts Program which mandated a percent-for-art contribution
from publicly-funded and assisted development projects.
The Public Arts Program, administered by a City Council
appointed committee, promotes the enrichment of the public
environment through public art, preserving our artistic
heritage, and expanding opportunities for public involvement
and appreciation.
Mierle Ukeles' Percent-For-Art project for the newly renovated
Maine College of Art crosses and binds cultural history
and community as well as architectural and artistic frontiers.
Flow Thru Out is a passageway that aspires to bridge the
cultural divide between the first Paleo-Indian inhabitants
of the Portland area, symbolized by their artistic traditions,
to MECA art students, the new inhabitants who are creating
art today. The complexity of the work is also revealed to
visitors through the passageway's site-specificity and relationship
to its sovereign companions, the Seat of Re-Newing and the
Flo Thru Book also created by Ukeles. The Seat of Re-Newing
is located on the landing of the second floor and the Flo
Thru Book will be placed in the special collections of the
new MECA library.
Like most of Ukeles' projects Flow Thru Out was created
through an organic and inclusive process. The original winning
proposal submitted to the Maine College of Art by Ukeles
was made intentionally abstract with a malleable form that
asked to be shaped by willing participants during a community
event called "Re-Newing." In this piece as in many of Ukeles'
works, public art is designed to be inclusive as multiple
participants are invited to have a voice in the creative
process as ultimately they have the largest stake in the
outcome.
 Mierle
Ukeles
Mierle Ukeles' intense creativity and spirituality combined
with feminist, ecological and local concerns eludes labeling
by mainstream art criticism. Yet, today she is being invited
to create art throughout the world and is influencing a
new generation of artists. While continuing to be the artist
in residence of the New York City Sanitation Department
(since 1976), Ukeles is working on major public art projects
in Massachusetts and Israel.
Her historical breakthrough came in 1969 when she wrote
"Manifesto For Maintenance Art." The "Manifesto" called
to action forces that would integrate art with the mundane
and the repetitious. It led to the creation of "Maintenance
Art," which questioned the avant-garde search for the original
work of art and the authority of the new. It challenged
the notion of the artist as genius. In 1969, Ukeles' "Maintenance
Art" was a harbinger for the self-referential and self-conscious
nature of postmodern art. In 1973 the art historian Lucy
Lippard curated an exhibition of women conceptual artists
"c. 7500" that traveled to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford
Connecticut. At the Atheneum Ukeles created four "actions"
that evolved from her "Manifesto For Maintenance Art." In
the same year she created Dressing To Go Out/ Undressing
To Come In, which was the visual equivalent of a log she
kept that recorded the repetitive and constant nature of
caring for her children while trying to continue to create
art. Her art began to reflect her life as an artist and
the authority of the original work of art was no longer
a threat. In these works, Ukeles bridges the gap between
modernism and post-modernism as she both undermines certain
modernist constructions while utilizing its creativity and
spirituality with a new critical framework.
 Symbolism
The doorway, passageway, ladder, arch, and stairs are practical
architectural elements that are symbolic references to ideas
of transition, transformation, progression, and regression.
It might be said that Flow Thru Out is a nonfunctioning
stairwell and passageway, but this obfuscates its true function
as a symbolic and ceremonial reference to the flow of time
as well as the reutilization of space. The creation of a
passageway or arch is not new to Ukeles. In 1987 she created
Re-Entry at PS 1 in NY; in 1993 constructed A Blizzard of
Released and Agitated Materials in Flux, for the Recycling
Art Pavilion in Korea; and in 1988 built the Ceremonial
Arch Honoring Service Workers in the New Service Economy,
for the World Financial Center in NY. Flow Thru Out shares
the general symbolic reference of the passageway with these
works. It is constructed with similar materials, especifically
glass and recycled material and is also site-specific. Her
dependence on the foregrounding references of the site for
the work creates a dialectical relationship between art
and site.
Stressing the importance of recycling materials, recognizing
the buildings' metamorphis from department store to art
college, addressing topographical angles, and the cultural
traditions that preceded the modern city of Portland, Ukeles
has created a ceremonial entry that is at once complex and
accessible. The stairwell floating from the ceiling was
recycled from the building before MECA refabricated the
Porteous Mitchell and Braun department store. By recycling
the stairs, which would have been discarded, Ukeles is reclaiming
the past and utilizing an object destined for waste while
allowing it to become a reference to the potential of recycling
and refabrication. MECA is very proud to have been able
to refabricate the historical landmark and this work of
art pays homage to the building's history. The glass vitrine,
which contains the work, references the departments' store
tradition of placing a vitrine in the street entrance. In
fact, early photographs show that a display case was placed
between the two front doors on Congress Street. Rather than
display consumer goods, MECA displays art.
Shooting from the ceiling through the treads of the stairwell
Ukeles explains that she has created a "blizzard of tiny
glass flint-knapped arrowheads-delicate, sharp, finely chiseled
pointed in a trajectory of flight. These are the symbols
of the creative powers of the first inhabitants. They are
the manifestations of creativity of First Americans-glass
adaptations of Paleo-Indian inventions." Ukeles sees the
central core of the vitrine as "a symbolic alignment struck
between first inhabitants / first materials of the larger
territory - the Paleo-Indian inhabitants with some of their
first materials-and the MECA stakeholders of the renewed
MECA the first entrants into this specific new place." The
new MECA home is now firmly established as a site where
art and culture of the past, present and future collide.
Mark H.C. Bessire, ICA Director
"RE-NEWING"
At eight in the morning on a cold Tuesday in December of
1997, the floor of the Great Hall of MECA's Porteous Building
had been covered with plastic tarps donated by a local hardware
store. Jars of color pencils, paintbrushes and scissors
sat on tables surrounded by folding chairs; two long tables
were overflowing with recycled art supplies. Mierle Laderman
Ukeles and I looked around, and wondered if anyone would
show up.
At 8:15, Lauri Twitchell's class of 22 MECA students arrived.
They swooped down on the tables of supplies, and "Re-Newing"
began. Over three days, from eight in the morning until
eight at night, more than 500 people created "offerings"
for Ukeles' permanent public artwork, Flow Thru Out. These
offerings ranged from drawings to kites, to elaborate dioramic
scenes, to books, to all manner of assemblages. They were
made by all sorts of people, from uninhibited children to
art-shy adults, to all forms of artists. Some of the offerings
were ephemeral: "pop-ups" of music, dance, performance,
conversation, collaborative poetry, even impromtu contradancing.
The essence of "Re-Newing" was its energy. The energy of
many people together losing their fears and self-consciousness
continually over 36 intense hours. It was overwhelming and
undefinable.
A year later, "Re-Newing" is long over. The Hall is clean
and empty. Now on the second floor landing stands the Seat
of Re-Newing. The seat is a big steel box: a place to sit
and be inspired or to just catch your breath. In the lid
are small, oddly-shaped windows. Through the windows you
can catch glimpses of ambiguous shadows and shapes.
If you could lift the lid of the seat and see inside, what
would you find ? Many small works created out of paper and
hot glue, tempera paint and markers, plasticene and vinyl--the
offerings of the people who participated in "Re-Newing."
What you would not find is the energy of those three days.
The Seat of Re-Newing is a sealed time capsule; its power
resides in its mystery. It symbolizes the ellusiveness of
the event it contains. It reminds us of the transient nature
of time, and challenges us to fill each present moment as
richly and imaginatively.
Sasha M. White, ICA Assistant Director
RE-NEWING
A Project by Mierle Laderman Ukeles for FLOW THRU OUT
Dear Person,
I am creating FLOW THRU OUT, a permanent public art work
for the main entry of the Maine College of Art now located
in the newly renovated Porteous Building on Congress Street.
I am inviting you to join me in a public artmaking process,
called Re-Newing, that begins the creation of the permanent
art work. I believe that in the spirit of Public art, it
is essential to reuqest the meaningful involvement of Portland's
citizens-you-in making this work.
What is Re-Newing?
For three days and nights this Decmeber 2, 3, and 4, the
MECA community and general public will gather in the Great
Hall of the Maine College of Art Building to create first
visions fo this renewed place.
With materials donated from local businesses and recycled
from the studio's of MECA's students, you can make drawings,
writings, paintings, sculptures, collages, assemblages or
other personally created "offerings" in response to this
unique time of renewal. You may also bring your own materials,
if you wish. All the objects made will be incorporated into
the final FLOW THRU OUT art work: some will be veiled to
enter the flow of time and placed in a glass vitrine to
be located in the entryway; others will be placed in a time
capsule that becomes a community seat to be located on the
second floor landing of the MECA Building. Photographs documenting
you and your work will go into a unique book for the library.
This time in the life of the MECA and the larger community
is very precious. Time flows forward, here, once again.
The possibility for renewal
Mierle Laderman Ukeles
October 1997
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