“Good morning,” says a tall blonde woman in a jumpsuit, speaking to a seemingly skeptical crew of green-clad New York sanitation workers—all men—on a sunny day in 1979. “I’m Mierle Laderman Ukeles.

“Good morning! My name is Mierle Laderman Ukeles. I’m a maintenance artist." In 1979, that modest introduction between a working artist and a team of all-male sanitation workers would catapult Ukeles, ...