Invisible art’s beauty is in eye of the beholder

A LEADING gallery claims it is to push the boundaries of visual art with an exhibition of works which cannot be seen.

London’s Hayward Gallery will gather together 50 “invisible” works by leading figures such as Andy Warhol, Yves Klein and Yoko Ono for its display of works that cannot be seen. It is thought to be the first such exhibition staged at a major institution in the UK.

Gallery bosses say the £8 a head exhibition demonstrates how art is about “firing the imagination”, rather than simply viewing objects.

Invisible: Art about the Unseen 1957 – 2012 opens on 12 June and includes an empty plinth, a canvas of invisible ink and an unseen labyrinth.

It includes work and documents from French artist Klein, who pioneered invisible works in the late 1950s with his concept of the “architecture of air”.

Also in the exhibition will be Warhol’s work Invisible Sculpture – dating from 1985 – which consists of an empty plinth, on which he had once briefly stepped, one of many explorations of the nature of celebrity.

Another, 1000 Hours of Staring, is a blank piece of paper at which artist Tom Friedman has stared repeatedly over the space of five years, and another by the same artist – Untitled (A Curse) – is an empty space which has been cursed by a witch.

Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery, said: “I think visitors will find that there is plenty to see and experience in this exhibition of invisible art. This exhibition highlights that art isn’t about material objects, it’s about setting our imaginations alight, and that’s what the artists in this show do.”