Artist Sold Invisible Art
Italian artist Salvatore Garau sold an invisible sculpture titled “I Am.” The 67-year-old artist
Salvatore Garau sold an “immaterial sculpture”—which is to say that it doesn’t exist.
Art does not exist except in the imagination of the artist. Artist Sold Invisible Art
Salvatore Garau said of his sculpture. “It is a work that asks you to activate the power of the imagination,”
The lucky buyer went home with a certificate of authenticity and a set of instructions: the work, per Garau, must be exhibited in a private house in a roughly five-by-five-foot space free of obstruction.
“When I decide to ‘exhibit’ an immaterial sculpture in a given space, that space will concentrate a certain amount
and density of thoughts at a precise point, creating a sculpture that, from my title, will only take the most varied forms,”
“It is a work that asks you to activate the power of the imagination, a power that anyone has, even those who don’t believe they have it,” Garau said.
List of Invisible artworks
| Artist | Title | Year | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yves Klein | “Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle” (Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility) | 1959 | Consists of the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space; the piece could be completed in a ritual in which the buyer would burn said documentation. |
| Marinus Boezem | “Show V: Immateriële ruimte” (Immaterial space) | 1965 | Consists of three “air doors” made from currents of cold and warm air blown into the room. |
| Michael Asher | “Vertical Column of Accelerated Air” | 1966 | Drafts of pressurized air. |
| Art & Language (group) | “Air-Conditioning Show [fr]” or “Air Show” | 1967 | An empty room with two air conditioning units; the artwork is “what is felt and said about it”, and not anything tangible |
| James Lee Byars | “The Ghost of James Lee Byars” | 1969 | The artwork itself is the emptiness and darkness of a pitch-black room. |
| Robert Barry | “Telepathic Piece” | 1969 | An artwork “the nature of which is a series of thoughts that are not applicable to language or image,” which Barry would communicate telepathically to visitors during the exhibit.[6] |
| Andy Warhol | “Invisible Sculpture” | 1985 | Consists of an invisible, intangible sculpture atop a white pedestal. |
| Tom Friedman | “Untitled (A Curse)” | 1992 | Similar to Warhol’s sculpture, but a witch was reportedly hired to curse the space immediately above the pedestal. |
| Teresa Margolles | “Aire” (Air) | 2003 | Similar to Air Show, the artwork consists of a room with air humidified with water used to wash corpses before autopsy. |
| Jeppe Hein | “Invisible Labyrinth” | 2005 | A maze with invisible and intangible walls; visitors are given headphones that vibrate when they “touch” a wall. |
| Roman Ondak | “More Silent Than Ever” | 2006 | The artwork consists of a covert listening device supposedly hidden somewhere in the (empty) exhibition room: visitors are told they are being eavesdropped. The device itself cannot be seen, and no evidence is given that it really exists. |
| Salvatore Garau | “Buddha in Contemplazione” (Buddha in Contemplation) | 2021 | An invisible, intangible sculpture. |
| Salvatore Garau | “Io Sono” (I am) | 2021 | Another invisible, intangible sculpture, that occupies a square area with side of 5 ft (1.5 m). |
| Ruben Gutierrez | “This Sculpture Makes Me Cry (A Spell)” | 2022 | An immaterial, invisible sculpture atop a small white pedestal, displayed as part of a bigger exhibit. It is said to represent what the artist cannot see, but which affects him emotionally, making him feel invisible and insignificant. |
