Buddha in Contemplation (Piazza della Scala, Milan)
Before the auction of Io Sono, Garau installed Buddha in Contemplation in the middle of Milan’s bustling Piazza della Scala, near the famous opera house. Garau taped off a square area on the stone pavement and declared that an invisible statue of Buddha sat within it. Passersby stopped to stare at the empty square; some laughed, while others paused, looked closely, and reflected on the concept. Garau captured the installation on video, demonstrating that the simple act of drawing a boundary on the ground transformed empty air into a focal point for public attention and contemplative thought.
Afrodite Piange / Aphrodite Crying (New York City)
In May 2021, Garau brought his conceptual work to New York City, installing an invisible sculpture titled Afrodite Piange (Aphrodite Crying) in front of the Federal Hall on Wall Street. Supported by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, the installation consisted of a white circle painted on the pavement. The placement carried deliberate symbolic weight: positioning an invisible, emotional mythic figure directly outside the engine of global financial capital challenged viewers to consider the invisible forces of value, speculation, and faith that drive both Wall Street and the contemporary art market.
Parallel Phenomena: NFTs and the Immaterial Economy
To fully contextualize why Io Sono resonated so powerfully in 2021, one must examine the broader economic and cultural landscape of the era. The sale coincided directly with the explosive rise of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and digital assets.
In March 2021—just two months before Garau's auction—digital artist Beeple sold a JPEG file titled Everydays: the First 5000 Days for an unprecedented $69.3 million at Christie's auction house. Suddenly, the global public was forced to confront the reality that immense value could be attached to digital files that had no physical presence and could be viewed or copied by anyone online.
| Dimension | Invisible Sculpture (Io Sono) | Digital Art (NFTs) |
| Physicality | Completely absent | Digital code on a screen |
| Verification | Signed physical paper certificate | Blockchain transaction hash |
| Medium | Air, space, imagination | Pixels, smart contracts |
| Value Basis | Artist reputation, spatial context | Scarcity code, network effects |
| Collector Experience | Mindful interaction with space | Ownership of digital record |
Both NFTs and Garau's invisible sculptures operate on a shared premise: Value is a social construct based on agreement, scarcity, and narrative rather than material weight.
When a collector buys an NFT or an invisible sculpture, they are not buying physical matter; they are buying a verifiable relationship with the artist's creative moment. Garau’s physical paper certificate served the exact same functional role as a blockchain smart contract—it provided an immutable proof of ownership for an asset that exists primarily as an idea.
Philosophical Implications: What Gives Art Its Value?
The story of Salvatore Garau and his $18,300 empty space raises fundamental questions that have preoccupied philosophers, economists, and art historians for centuries: What makes something valuable?