![]() But once paper currencies lost their convertibility into precious metals, a new level of uncertainty entered into artistic transactions, indeed into all economic transactions. Once you bit into the coin to check that it was genuine, you could rest assured that you had actually gotten something for your painting-something you could sink your teeth into. No “certificate of authenticity” was needed here just the solid reputation of the Florentine mint. When Botticelli, Leonardo, and Raphael took payment for their paintings, it was likely in the form of the florin (a Florentine coin containing roughly 3 ½ grams of gold). We would have to go back to the really good old days to find a more solid form of artistic transaction. And the underlying source of the transaction’s value remains invisible. In the end, Garau and his customer seem to be in the same boat they have merely exchanged one piece of paper for another. So in itself the dollar bill is yet another piece of paper, and someday soon it may not be worth the paper it’s printed on. US paper currency proudly proclaims: “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” But if that were not somehow in doubt, it wouldn’t need saying, or legal authority to enforce it. And that US currency is just another form of certificate (my older readers may remember the good old days of the “silver certificate” dollar bill). ![]() He can cash that check, but that will still leave him holding mere pieces of paper. Then he too is left holding nothing but a piece of paper, and also one with a tenuous connection to reality. But what does Garau have? Let’s say that the transaction is by now completed and Garau took payment by check in US dollars. Garau seems to have made out like a bandit, but I’m wondering: In the end, who conned whom? The mysterious buyer seems to be left with just a piece of paper, a mere certificate that says the sculpture exists. You might think that this shy patron of the arts got shortchanged for his £13,000, but his purchase included “a certificate of authenticity to prove the art is real.” Thank heaven for small favors. In the most recent aesthetic outrage, a Sardinian artist named Salvatore Garau managed to sell an invisible sculpture, known simply as “I am,” to an anonymous buyer, as reported by the Daily Mail on June 3, 2021. Previously, he displayed a piece called “Buddha in Contemplation” outside the entrance to the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan.If, as we are often told, the aim of art is to shock the bourgeoisie, then the contemporary art scene has become positively electric of late. “Io Sono” is not the first invisible sculpture the Italian artist has created. ![]() Therefore, it has energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us.”Īs display guidance for the private buyer, Garau said his sculpture must be kept in a 5×5 foot square in a “private space free from obstructions.” Despite representing the magnificent combination of air and spirit, the piece does not require any specific lighting or climate control. “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. Garau explained that his non-material sculpture comes in the form of a “vacuum,” HypeBeast reports. The abstract artist insists his masterpiece is as real as any other object we can see and touch. Instead of creating a sculpture made from bronze or marble, Garau designed a masterpiece made from “air and spirit.” And the best part is that he managed to sell it for thousands of dollars! Credits: Salvatore GarauĪs UNILAD reveals, the Italian artist’s invisible sculpture is called “Io Sono,” or “I Am.” It was recently sold to a private buyer for €15,000($18,000), along with a certificate of authenticity proving that the vacant space is actually where the sculpture is placed. Now, a fellow Italian sculptor, Salvatore Garau, has entirely changed the game. In 2019, the world was stunned when the artist Maurizio Cattelan sold a banana duct-taped to a wall for $120,000. ![]()
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