An artist creates invisible art and collectors are paying millions  

Well, now we know that it’s all a hoax.
It’s a brilliant hoax, a satirical sketch from the CBC radio show This is That with radio hosts Pat Kelly and Peter Oldrin, created by one of their writers, Kaitlin Fontana,
Listen to comments of people, and how angry they are is wonderful.
So much to learn....
 
 
Oh.., and here is the official  Lana Newstrom website, where you can "see" (and buy) her work:
http://lananewstrom.com/

Glad it was an admitted hoax. Now its easier to consider the idea for what it is. An interesting idea.
About 20 years ago, I taught an art class called "experimental drawing". As the final critique loomed, one of the more slack students tried to convince me that she was doing "thought sculptures". I tried to stay open minded (considering the nature of the class) but it quickly became evident that she simply had not been doing any work, and had not thought the "thought sculptures" through.
Even though it's obvious,  it is still interesting how the ideas that lean towards "fraud" in art get people WAY more engaged than the "acceptable" art is able to.
Cheap tricks and one-liners do have thier stew-stirring value I guess.

Who needs another artifact? Art should be seen more as a gift, perhaps, in that it's the thought that counts.
Heck, even I have imagined more art than I could ever make.

As a fresh-faced art student, I submitted the following as a "drawing." I didn't really intend to spoof the process -- but the result was disappointing, to say the least. Oh, well -- a kid can try . . .

Looks like a drawing to me SDR. (I mean, if its not a drawing, what is it?)
Like the unattempted drawings in tktoo's head, it leaves more to the imagination. Simple, yes, but obviously a very carefully considered effort.  If Ellsworth Kelly can do it, you can do it. Right?
(Even better that you were a student, and you let yourself explore such a reductive approach with total seriousness)  
 

Thanks.  I should have written, "the reception was disappointing."  The instructor dismissed it without comment.  The assignment, as I recall it, was something like "Draw something," or "Make a form on the page."  I thought I had done so . . .

SDR, you were lucky to get off so easy.
 

Ya think ?
Ignorant and "clever" youth can be a pain in the ass to the elders -- I know that now !
I could add that I drew an "imaginary" object; the assignment wasn't a still-life exercise. For better or worse, I wasn't asked to defend my submission.
Later in the course -- or was this a different class -- Professor Frazier grew ecstatic over a drawing which resembled a meandering snow fence in the snow. Soon the phrase (not from Frazier) "You can walk around in it !" was the rage -- replacing the already tired "Interesting . . ."
I suppose every successive freshman class went through something similar.  Ah, youth . . .

The ignorance of youth is indeed a royal  pain in the ass, but that same ignorance sometimes is what allows the impossible to happen. 
As I get older, there are more and more reasons to not waste my time barking up the wrong and predictabe trees. But the ignorant youth seems to make a habit of it, and once in awhile, proves me wrong in amazing and truly creative ways.
So back to the thread idea...   Which artist has "objectiified nothingness" the best so far? If you cant make invisible paintings, what is the next best thing? What is the spirit of that?
 Robert Irwin? James Turrell? Ad Reinhardt? John Cage? Agnes Martin? 
I'm sure the list of attemptees is endless. 

Yves Klein?
"Le Vide"
Preparation and Presentation of the Exhibition of 28 April 1958 at Iris Clert, 3 rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
http://web.tiscali.it/nouveaurealisme/ENG/klein5.htm

Who made the "White paintings" and the "Black paintings," so many decades ago ?  How about Albers's Homages to the Square ?

Lots and lots SDR, 
Kasmir Malevich made his famous "White on White" painting way back in 1918. Robert Rauschenberg made several white paintings. and Robert Ryman made a whole carreer doing nothing but white paintings from the mid century onward.
Even James McNeil Whistler made some nearly all white paintings 150 years ago, and lest we forget Turner's "Snowstorm Steamship" -- where he had himself tied to the bow of a steamship so he could experience the white water smashing him in the face -- just so he could paint the experience.
Ad Reinhardt made the most noteworthy black paintings in the 20th century (my opinion)  but there were many more paintiers of black paintings.
I am not sure if the above artists were specifically  exploring nothingness in the way that Klein did though, or in the way that the Los Angeles "light and space" artists did. 
Rauschenberg  did do a work called "Erased William de Kooning", in which he asked the famous Abstract Expressionist to give him a drawing specifically so that he could erase it.  (as his own work of art).
de Kooning picked out one that was particularly hard to erase, and gave it to Rauschenberg with his blessing. It is a beautiful work, with bits and traces of the original drawing still visible. A kind of "found object" piece, or an odd kind of collaboration? I like the contradictory nature of it. Destroying to create, erasing to "draw", bringing the drawing back to nothingness, or attempting to anyway.  
AND the fact that it is altogether beautiful to LOOK at. As beautiful as any patina I've seen.
And it's cool as a residue of an activity--  almost a performance piece. 

Eameshead, I like your reference to that Rauschenberg work. Calum Innes does something similar in many of his works, painting onto canvas and then meticulously removing the paint with turpentine. Quite a beautiful technique and would work well in most MCM homes.
 
http://www.calluminnes.com/paintings/

Mmm.  The first 18 are what I think of as "painter as designer". . .