Now you see it, now you don’t.

Italian artist Salvatore Garau recently sold a piece of abstract art that exists only in the viewer’s imagination, which is to say: it doesn’t exist at all — or does it?

There are apparently no easy answers when it comes to examining the artwork, titled lo Sono (which translates to “I am”), in part because the existential questions it raises may feel more like a gimmick and less like a revelation.

Either way, the concept is generating plenty of headlines and conversation, so in essence has Garau accomplished his goal?

Here’s the artist’s take:

“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,” he told the Spanish news outlet Diario AS. “Therefore, it has energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us.”

Take a “look” at lo Sono here:

What do you see?

 

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