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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle

Invisible: Art about the Unseen – in pictures

Invisible Art: A group of people look at a blank wall
Lai Chih-Sheng Life-Size Drawing 2012

The Taiwanese artist claims his chalk drawing is the largest in the world – but that's hard to verify. According to the Observer's art critic Laura Cumming: "I could see no sign of Chih-Sheng’s immense drawing in the central gallery until I ran a finger beneath a balustrade and found the chalk line transferred to me"
Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features
Invisible Art: Two Women in gallery space look at heater
Teresa Margolles, Aire/Air 2003

The Hayward show, Cumming writes, "is strictly concerned with non-visibility and what was known in the 60s as the dematerialisation of the art object"
Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features
Invisible Art: A typed piece of paper in wooden frame
Maurizio Cattelan Denunzia 1991

The Italian provocateur's police report concerning the theft of an invisible artwork from his car
Photograph: Hayward Gallery
Invisible Art: A woman bends over an exhibit which is a white pillar
Tom Friedman: Untitled (A Curse) 1992

The American conceptual sculptor hired a professional witch to cast a curse on an 11-inch sphere resting 11 inches over the seemingly blank pedestal.
Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features
Invisible Art: Two picture frames containing blank white paper
Gianni Motti, Magic Ink 1989 Photograph: Hayward Gallery
Invisible Art: A spectator looks at a white sheet of paper that appears suspended in air
Bruno Jakob, Unusual Things Happen (It's all There) 2012

"Bruno Jakob’s works are a challenge to cynics, made as they are with not much more than canvas or paper exposed to the elements. There are no images but each bears faint traces of its making that inspire unexpected landscapes in the imagination"
Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features
Invisible Art: A black and white image of man with horse
Bruno Jakob, Untitled (Horse) Invisible Painting Energy 2003

Bruno Jakob photographed holding up one of his blank canvases to a horse
Photograph: Hayward Gallery
Invisible Art: Public move around a gallery room
Jeppe Hein, Invisible Labyrinth 2005

Visitors to Hein's installation are given a pair of digital headphones that vibrate whenever they knock into one of the invisible walls of a maze
Photograph: Anders Sune/Hayward Gallery
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