Back in 2021, Italian artist Salvatore Garau pulled off what might be the most mind-bending move in modern art history: he sold a sculpture that doesn’t exist. That’s right—someone paid €15,000 (about $18,300) for nothing.

No marble. No bronze. No paint. Just empty space and a whole lot of imagination.

Garau’s invisible artwork, titled "Io Sono" ("I Am"), was auctioned at Italy’s Art-Rite auction house and ended up selling for nearly double its estimated value. The kicker? The winning bidder received only a certificate of authenticity and a few rules, mainly that the piece must be displayed in a 5x5-foot area free of obstructions.

If you think this sounds like the setup for a prank video, think again. Garau insists the piece is very real, just not in a physical sense.

“The vacuum is nothing more than a space full of energy,” he explained in an interview. “Even if we empty it, there is something there. That ‘nothing’ has weight.”
Sounds like deep science fiction? It’s actually a nod to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which, according to Garau, gives even empty space a kind of invisible substance.

But this wasn’t a one-time stunt. In 2021, Garau placed a square of tape on a cobbled Milan plaza and called it BUDDHA IN CONTEMPLATION. Later, in New York City, he “installed” another invisible piece titled AFRODITE CRIES in front of the Stock Exchange—represented by a simple white circle. Both were funded or supported by major cultural institutions.

Online reactions? Mixed, to say the least. The most-liked comment under a video of Garau’s work reads: “So you really just taped a square and called that a sculpture?”

But Garau seems unbothered by the noise.

“You don’t see it, but it exists,” he said in a documentary video. “It’s made of air and spirit. It asks you to activate the power of imagination—a power everyone has, even those who think they don’t.”
It’s the kind of statement that sounds absurd until you really think about it. In a world where we create entire digital lives on screens, build emotional connections through pixels, and worship ideas we can’t touch, maybe Garau’s work is more relevant than it seems.

So was this sale a genius critique of the art market? A philosophical statement on belief and presence? Or just a well-played publicity stunt?

Whatever the case, Salvatore Garau sold nothing—and made everyone think.