1July 2021 When the 67-year-old Italian artist Salvatore Garau sold his artwork Io Sono — which translates as “I am” — for €15,000 (or £12,900) back in May, the sale was met with a fair amount of controversy. Understandable, since the “intangible sculpture” consisted of literally nothing. “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 told Diario AS at the time. “Therefore, it has energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us.” Several commentators expressed cynicism toward Garau’s artwork in the wake of the sale, claiming that anyone could hawk nothing by calling it an invisible artwork. One man, however, has a different criticism: he claims that he actually did create an artwork based on nothing, and wants recognition for doing it first.