Io Sono
June 3, 2021 10:04 AM   Subscribe

The “sculpture” is intended to be displayed in a 5×5-foot square and must be displayed in a private space free from obstructions where lighting and climate control are not required. Reiterating that even if you can’t see it, it does exist, Garau included a certificate of authentication to the purchaser. Italian Artist Salvatore Garau Has Just Sold an Invisible Sculpture for $18,000 USD
posted by chavenet (66 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm going to start installing these all over town, for free!
posted by rikschell at 10:07 AM on June 3, 2021 [10 favorites]


So just another NFT then. #NotFuckingTangible
posted by justkevin at 10:11 AM on June 3, 2021 [16 favorites]


Does anyone remember one work that was a hole? It's hard for me to search for, but to display the work you needed to have a hole dug of a certain depth and width and so on. But the certificate proved this was the same hole created by the artist, even if there was no physical material in common.
posted by RobotHero at 10:14 AM on June 3, 2021 [8 favorites]


Art school: not even once
posted by thelonius at 10:20 AM on June 3, 2021 [13 favorites]


It's cool but it's no banana nailed to the wall.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:21 AM on June 3, 2021 [18 favorites]


Ceci n'est pas une hype.
posted by whatevernot at 10:23 AM on June 3, 2021 [34 favorites]


The "why" is that these are literally just tax dodges, designed so that the 'certificate of authenticity' can be cheaply stored in duty free zones in ports around the world. No need for outrage over stupid art, just outrage over stupid laws.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:25 AM on June 3, 2021 [10 favorites]


He stole that idea from me, and I can prove it with this picture of my original work out in the front yard. As you can see, he shrank it down considerably my version, but it is in every other respect identical.
posted by jquinby at 10:25 AM on June 3, 2021 [9 favorites]


Also I'll sell mine for like $500, dm for details.
posted by jquinby at 10:26 AM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]


Now parody precedes reality.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:47 AM on June 3, 2021 [2 favorites]


         
posted by PlusDistance at 10:50 AM on June 3, 2021 [37 favorites]


I don't see what you did there. :)
posted by Splunge at 10:54 AM on June 3, 2021 [25 favorites]


In a sense, this is a parody, or at least a joke - one that presumably the artist and purchaser are in on. It's sort of like buying a ticket to a comedy club - a very exclusive, expensive, and not-all-that-funny comedy club.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:56 AM on June 3, 2021 [6 favorites]


This feels like very dated bad-boy-of-art-ism, but I guess NFTs have made everything old new again.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:57 AM on June 3, 2021 [7 favorites]


If I had the money to blow on this kind of purchase, I'd purchase this "sculpture of air and spirit" and then kick up a huge fuss when the "spirit" was not delivered, and there was no documentation of the chain of custody. Is it the same air, or is this knock-off air?

No, your honor, this isn't a frivolous lawsuit. It's performance art.
posted by explosion at 10:58 AM on June 3, 2021 [12 favorites]


I quote the late great philosopher, Krokus:

Eat the rich, eat the rich
Out of the palace and into the ditch

posted by NoMich at 11:01 AM on June 3, 2021 [6 favorites]


You would think the abuse of Werner Heisenberg's name would have started to wind down nearly half a century after his death, but it appears to be going strong as ever.
posted by nanojath at 11:10 AM on June 3, 2021 [7 favorites]


Also an empty space in the ordinary sense of the word on Earth isn't in even the most remote sense of the term a "vacuum".
posted by nanojath at 11:11 AM on June 3, 2021 [7 favorites]


It seems easy to read this as "isn't art absurd?" when -- at least to me -- it reads as "isn't consumerist capitalism absurd?"
posted by kmkrebs at 11:12 AM on June 3, 2021 [9 favorites]


$18000 of free publicity. Does the buyer own other pieces by the artist? Are they for sale?
posted by punchee at 11:15 AM on June 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


“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. Therefore, it has energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us.” Much like how we “shape a god we’ve never seen.”

Ah, good ol' International Art English. Bullshit with style.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 11:18 AM on June 3, 2021 [6 favorites]


As he explains in this interview, this is not his first immaterial work...

Also: he'd previously sold this one's certificate for €3K to a collector, who then put it up for auction. (Here's the piece's auction lot listing.)
posted by progosk at 11:25 AM on June 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


Sort of a reverse Banksy?
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:40 AM on June 3, 2021 [4 favorites]


I'm going to start installing these all over town, for free!

You'll need planning permission
posted by mbo at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2021 [4 favorites]


If I had a cloaking device I'd sell it for a lot more than $18,000.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:19 PM on June 3, 2021 [2 favorites]


You'll need planning permission
... and an environmental impact assessment study.
posted by grokus at 12:19 PM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]


Yves Klein was doing this fifty years ago.
posted by Paragon at 12:26 PM on June 3, 2021 [5 favorites]


Maybe if we couched taxes in this kind of language, we could get the rich excited about paying them.
posted by maxwelton at 12:39 PM on June 3, 2021 [5 favorites]


If I had the money to blow on this kind of purchase, I'd give it to a local charity instead. What a waste.
posted by biogeo at 12:40 PM on June 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


Bullshit with style.

In 1961, the shit was literal. (and it should be noted that the value of those cans increased much faster than the price of gold...)
posted by msbrauer at 12:48 PM on June 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


Too bad I’ve already stolen the piece in a daring heist that took place entirely in my mind. Tough break for the buyer.
posted by turbowombat at 1:19 PM on June 3, 2021 [10 favorites]


Not be be confused with celebrated Japanese Director Sion Sono.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 1:31 PM on June 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


The Emperor wears the cutest clothes! So airy! So expensive!
posted by Oyéah at 1:41 PM on June 3, 2021 [8 favorites]


It's not much to look at.
posted by InfidelZombie at 1:44 PM on June 3, 2021 [5 favorites]


I'd buy that for a (notional) dollar!
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:02 PM on June 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


But at least the Yves Klein immaterial piece was that terrific blue he created.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:02 PM on June 3, 2021 [2 favorites]


Perhaps inspired from Sesame Street, where the Spy sells Ernie an invisible ice cream cone, who in turn pays him with an invisible nickel.
posted by Melismata at 2:04 PM on June 3, 2021 [4 favorites]


And just like that, I know how to fix my art heist novel.
posted by Handstand Devil at 2:07 PM on June 3, 2021 [5 favorites]


No, the solution still has to be moving the boundary stones so that they were in Belgium the whole time.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:12 PM on June 3, 2021 [6 favorites]


It's an eco-friendly NFT ("Not Fucking There"*)

*stolen joke
posted by BungaDunga at 2:12 PM on June 3, 2021 [2 favorites]


Perhaps inspired from Sesame Street , where the Spy sells Ernie an invisible ice cream cone, who in turn pays him with an invisible nickel.

Spy: This... is an invisible ice cream cone.
Ernie: Dear god!
Spy: There's more.
Ernie: No!
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:14 PM on June 3, 2021 [4 favorites]


This reminds me of one of my favorite exhibitions of all time: Invisible: Art About the Unseen, 1957-2012, Hayward Gallery
posted by Omon Ra at 2:16 PM on June 3, 2021 [2 favorites]


I hope he also sold him a new suit of clothes to wear with his new sculpture(hopefully not on a cold, rainy day).
posted by mermayd at 2:18 PM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]


(taps tomato box)
That's right, a bridge!
posted by clavdivs at 2:21 PM on June 3, 2021 [2 favorites]


I do like the idea of a heist. I'll be long gone before they even notice it's missing.
posted by RobotHero at 2:29 PM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]


Too bad I’ve already stolen the piece in a daring heist that took place entirely in my mind. Tough break for the buyer.

You only thought you stole the invisible statue. It was a simple matter of constructing a mind with an invisible statue right next to the real one. [/Banacek]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 3:03 PM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]


Now some other artist needs to wrap this in pink plastic fabric.
posted by bryon at 3:53 PM on June 3, 2021 [7 favorites]


Using Dispel Invisibility will generally make things visible therefore the statue is ethereal.
posted by clavdivs at 4:03 PM on June 3, 2021 [2 favorites]


My kid could not paint that.
posted by condour75 at 4:25 PM on June 3, 2021 [5 favorites]


I thought this was going to be like the invisible piano from Girls5Eva.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:27 PM on June 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


I hope no one hits it with an invisible hammer and breaks it or sprays invisible graffiti on it.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 4:37 PM on June 3, 2021 [3 favorites]


Needs more Vantablack.
posted by flabdablet at 5:06 AM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


If you can buy it, it must be real.
posted by dazed_one at 5:12 AM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Seriously, though, this piece displays a contemptible failure of commitment to the concept on the artist's part. A true artist wouldn't have wimped out at "invisible" but would have insisted on "nonexistent".
posted by flabdablet at 5:13 AM on June 4, 2021 [5 favorites]


And in order to put no money where my mouth is, over the next year I will be creating a series of fully nonexistent fifteen foot public art pieces, and installing them adjacent to every pedestrian path crossroads in the public parks of New York City.

I will be not be applying for any kind of planning permission, I be not be conducting any kind of environmental impact study, and nor will I be charging any fee or accepting any donations. I will be performing these installations by stealth from my home in Australia, using nonexistent remote manipulation techniques developed from nonexistent Air Force files never exfiltrated from Area 51. Expect to see the results fail to materialize starting 3Q 2022.
posted by flabdablet at 5:23 AM on June 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


I have an invisible bridge for sale.

It's in a very trendy part of Brooklyn.
posted by freakazoid at 6:45 AM on June 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


What does it weigh?

Can I stick handbills on it?

Where does it go?

Can I walk across it?

These are the kinds of embarrassing question that you can totally sidestep just by making your art nonexistent instead of merely invisible.
posted by flabdablet at 7:14 AM on June 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


They stand on the giants of shoulders:
Link
posted by mule98J at 10:00 AM on June 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


intended to be displayed in a 5′×5′ square
Should have specified a 4′33″ × 4′33″ square.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:59 AM on June 4, 2021 [5 favorites]


Should amp this up and sell a particular four-dimensional volume. 5'x5'x5'x5minutes. You get a certificate attesting to your ownership of that particular block of spacetime. Of course, you can't exhibit it because it's somewhere in the past- or possibly future.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:42 AM on June 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


The Square was a documentary.
posted by brundlefly at 12:09 PM on June 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


Beautiful work; I will start selling and shipping knockoff, budget Io Sonos for home, garden, and upscale motels immediately. Why pay $18,000 for an old fashioned Io Sono when my Io Sono Express can be yours for just $5000? That's more than half off, for YOUR VERY OWN Io Sono Express and if you order now, I'll even throw in FREE SHIPPING! Don't be the last house on your block without an Io Sono Express in the yard! In the den! And how about one for the kids? Io Sono Express, order today!
posted by EatTheWeek at 5:20 PM on June 6, 2021


> Should amp this up and sell a particular four-dimensional volume. 5'x5'x5'x5minutes.

You're only allowed to think about the piece if you're able to devote exactly five minutes to it. No more, no less, otherwise it'd be a different artwork entirely.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:04 PM on June 6, 2021 [2 favorites]




What's really cool about today's sketchbooks is that they come with a picture of an invisible sculpture on every page and all you need to do is colour that in.
posted by flabdablet at 1:10 AM on June 7, 2021 [2 favorites]


Famously, Michelangelo's approach was to take a sheet of toned paper and then erase everything that wasn't his drawing.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:53 PM on June 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


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