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In November 2011 a cleaning woman, during her nightly duties at a German museum, destroyed a work of art valued at $1.1 million. She mistook the painted puddle underneath a multi media sculpture for a stain and scrubbed at it until it disappeared. Throughout March April 2012 a cleaning lady will perform her daily duties at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, under careful instruction to keep clear of all artistic puddles.

Who makes those windows sparkle? Who takes pride in the dust free gallery floor? Val, The Invisible, makes it all possible. With a considerable amount of skill and dexterity Val, The invisible, can be found constantly cleaning. See her throughout the gallery, in customer service areas and other high traffic areas. Keep your eyes peeled for her quietly taking a break on a bench. She may appear to be doing nothing, but don’t be fooled look closer a lot is going on for under-appreciated Val, The Invisible. If you are lucky you may even catch a moment where her interior life bubbles out.

This is the transformation of art into an everyday event. This is the transformation of an everyday event into art.

Throughout the day this quietly subversive middle aged woman will work with the ambiguity of where the performance starts and finishes, moving in and out of the things we do in life that nobody notices, the things that are taken for granted. This durational performance intervention reflects on the small secret pleasures that are yours and yours alone, the illicit invisibilities that you ‘get away’ with, while engaged in the business of everyday life.

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Val at the Museum of Contemporary Art

The Invisibility Project: Val, The Invisible