Artist sells invisible artwork for over R300k
"You don't see it, but it exists." We cannot deny that art is subjective, but this sounds ludicrous...
While art may be a subjective experience, we're unsure whether the question of its existence is art or dabbling into something too philosophical.
Existential art forms haven't quite been this challenging before. In 2021, an Italian artist, Salvatore Garau, created a stir when he sold an invisible piece.
He left the interpretation of his art sculpture, titled Io sono (“I am”), entirely up to the viewers. The tricky part is that the art piece isn't made up of anything tangible, but leans toward the idea of 'nothingness'.
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.
"The invisible sculpture was initially valued at €6,000–9,000, (that's around R122,000 to R183,000) and ended up fetching €15,000 (that's around R307 287) at Italian auction house Art-Rite," reports My Modern Met.
The buyer received a certificate of authenticity along with instructions. According to Garau, the piece must be displayed in a private home, within a clear, unobstructed space measuring approximately five by five feet.
Look at a post showing one of his exhibits in Brazil on Instagram.
You don’t see it, but it exists; it is made of air and spirit. 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.
Surprisingly, this piece was not the first of his invisible collection.
Garau has challenged people to view art from a different perspective and question the confinement of creating something tangible versus making something built on the idea of imagination.
Maurizio Cattelan is another Italian artist who attracted attention for challenging the status quo on how art is viewed. His banana taped to a wall artwork sold for $6.2 million in November 2024.
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