Abstract

This paper confronts two traditions that seem to complement each other: the sociohistorical tradition of women as reproductive and care workers lacking public visibility, and the art-historical tradition of women as images, as silent and fixed show objects. This combination of women’s work made invisible and their objectifying hyperexposure, which in turn relies on the invisibilization of the media and ideological dispositive, is addressed in a 1975 film by Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, in a particularly eloquent way. The paper places this film, a time-based portrait of a woman and her work, at the center of the investigation and takes it as a model of showing how the systemic determination of maintenance work – to maintain the status quo – can be overcome by making this work visible. By demanding our physical presence and endurance in facing and caring about another, this film enables us to perceive the details that make the difference and shows how maintenance (art)work can bring about change. It pointedly emphasizes the notion of the contemporary and allows us to ask the question of what is contemporary art once again.

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