Sold: €15k invisible sculpture that's a must-see for art lovers

Readers of El Reg are nothing if not cultured and frequent dabblers of the avant-garde. Which is why it will come as no surprise that an artist has recently sold an "invisible" sculpture for a reported €15,000 (£13,000).

Salvatore Garau - an Italian artist from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia – was a drummer for prog rock band Stormy Six in the 1970s before his career skipped a beat and he became an artist.

His works have appeared in the European Parliament in Strasbourg and in museums and galleries of contemporary art across Europe.

But it is his latest work - Io sono, which translates into I am – which is causing a stir in the art world selling for €14,820 to a private Milanese collector through the Art-Rite Auction House two weeks ago.

Youtube Video

In an interview posted on Art-Rite Auction House’s website, the artist shines a light on some of his influences.

“Intangible sculptures are works that I feel physical,” he said.

“In the void there is a container of positive and negative possibilities that are constantly equivalent, in short, there is a density of events.

“Furthermore, the void is nothing more than a space full of energy, even if we empty it of electromagnetic fields, neutrinos, dark matter, everything in short and nothing remains, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (which I recently read with enthusiasm). Nothing has a weight! It, therefore, has energy that condenses and turns into particles, in short, in us!

“The intuition I had as an artist, for which abstract and spiritual, is instead supported by science,” he said.

Quite so.

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Culture Vultures of a certain age will, no doubt, reflect on the unfathomable contradictions between space and energy posed by Garau when recollecting that other great work, Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII or "a pile of bricks" as was so shamelessly coined by the popular press.

Reportedly, this fetched an eye-watering sum at the time with some cheeky brickies suggesting they could knock one up with a few half-inched blocks and the cost of a pie and a pint.

Of course, not only was this an astute and enduring piece of art, it has also proved to be a shrewd investment. Have you seen the price of building materials today? ®