Italian Artist Sold an ‘Invisible Sculpture’ for $18,300

Italian Artist Sold an ‘Invisible Sculpture’ at Auction for $18,300

By Emma Taggart on October 5, 2024

In 2021, Italian artist Salvatore Garau sold an invisible sculpture for £13,000 ($18,000) providing the buyer with a certificate of authenticity to confirm its existence.
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Art is often subjective, but Italian artist Salvatore Garau truly leaves the interpretation entirely to the viewer with his invisible sculptures. His controversial 2021 piece, titled Io sono (“I am”), is made of absolutely nothing.

The artist explains, “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.”

Understandably, most people would struggle to recognize an empty space as a legitimate work of art. However, the invisible sculpture was originally valued at €6,000–9,000 (around $6,698–10,044), and ended up fetching €15,000 ($18,300) at Italian auction house Art-Rite. The buyer received a certificate of authenticity along with a set of instructions. According to Garau, the piece must be displayed in a private home, within a clear, unobstructed space measuring approximately five by five feet.

For Garau, Io sono is about embracing nothingness. “The vacuum is nothing more than a space full of energy, and even if we empty it and there is nothing left, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that nothing has a weight,” he told the Spanish news outlet Diario AS. “Therefore, it has energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us.”

This isn’t the first time Garau presented visible works. In February 2021, he showcased Buddha in Contemplation at Milan’s Piazza Della Scala. The invisible sculpture was marked only by a square of tape on the cobblestone path. “You don’t see it, but it exists; it is made of air and spirit,” he explained. “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.”

A week later, Garau presented another invisible work, Afrodite Cries, installed in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Marked by nothing more than an empty white circle, the installation also sparked debate, challenging people to reconsider the very definition of art.

In 2023, Garau introduced two more invisible sculptures titled LOVE, IMMENSE LOVE in Jerusalem. One was placed on the Temple Mount and the other near the Western Wall, each represented by a simple white circle on the ground. Garau explains that they are made from the “same material that love itself is made.”

Garau encourages his viewers to see beyond the emptiness. “You must look at them with the eyes of your heart,” he says of his LOVE, IMMENSE LOVE works. “They are three meters high, and their shape is the one you yourself are now giving them.” He adds, “I have created the most beautiful sculptures I was capable of imagining.”

Check out Garau’s invisible artworks below and discover more of his work on Instagram.