Artist sells invisible work for 15 thousand euros. He replies, "why are you scandalized?"

It caused a stir a few days ago, the sale of a work of art made ... of nothing. An invisible work, in short. And for the sum of 15,000 euros. Its author, Salvatore Garau (Santa Giusta, 1953), auctioned the work Io sono, which is simply a void, nothingness, air -- in short, the work cannot be seen. Io sono was sold at auction, at the Art-Rite house in Milan, with an initial estimate of 6-9,000 euros. To the buyer simply goes a certificate of authenticity and an instruction sheet (exactly as it had been for Maurizio Cattelan’s very famous banana). The instructions stipulate that the work should be displayed in a private setting of about 1.5 x 1.5 meters, where there are no obstacles.

This is not the first work of this kind for Garau, who this week exhibited another invisible sculpture, titled Aphrodite weeps, in front of the New York Stock Exchange: the operation, supported by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, involved the placement of a circle of white tape in the open space in front of the New York Stock Exchange building. The invisible work stands over the empty circle.

Naturally, the news, which also bounced off art publications, sparked a lot of outrage from many people, who wondered how it is possible to spend 15,000 euros on a sculpture that is not there. Yet the veryabsence of the sculptures is the presence that disturbs the public, Garau explained. In short, the Sardinian artist’s is relational art pushed to its logical extremes.

“I wondered,” he explained, “why the art world and beyond was outraged by the auction of one of my invisible sculptures and why the operation raised so much discussion, to the point of receiving many accusations even on social media. I honestly believe that this is a paltry amount of money compared to some NFTs or sculptures sold for millions of dollars. Perhaps 15,000.00 euros for a blank carries more weight than several million for a full one?”

“I feel like David versus Goliath,” the artist concludes. “Maybe my invisible works are scary because they are a constantly fluctuating content of thought, of pure poetry, and they go in the opposite direction to NFTs, which are highly polluting and contrary to my ethics as an artist. Yes, I sold a nothing filled with the whole, even the 40 years of my art. This is evidenced by the vitality that my work has generated. Yet, I have not been that original. There is already too much of nothing being sold for something, and no one pays attention.”

Pictured: Salvatore Garau. Photo by Francesco Mura

Artist sells invisible work for 15 thousand euros. He replies, "why are you scandalized?"

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