- Back in 2021, a Danish artist turned in empty frames after being paid 532,000 kroner by a museum for his artwork.
- On Monday, a Copenhagen courtroom ordered him to return the quantity to the museum, per the Guardian.
- “I am shocked, but at the same time it is exactly what I have imagined,” Haaning informed Danish broadcaster DR.
Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist, was paid 532,000 kroner — or round $75,000 at at this time’s conversion fee — for his artworks in 2021, solely to flip in two empty frames titled “Take the Money and Run.”
The artist has now been ordered by a Copenhagen courtroom to pay again the sum to the museum that commissioned the artworks, in accordance to numerous media experiences on Monday, together with the Guardian.
“I am shocked, but at the same time, it is exactly what I have imagined,” Haaning informed Danish broadcaster DR on Monday, per NPR’s translation.
The artist added that he would not manage to pay for to pay again the museum: “It has been good for my work, but it also puts me in an unmanageable situation where I don’t really know what to do.”
In 2021, Haaning was paid round $75,000 by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark, to recreate two of his well-known artworks — “An Average Danish Annual Income” and “An Average Austrian Annual Income,” that includes kroner and euro banknotes caught to a canvas, which aimed to depict the common annual earnings of an individual in these nations.
He as an alternative turned in two empty frames — which the museum exhibited that very same yr.
The museum then requested the artist to return the sum paid. However, Haaning refused, and consequently, the Kunsten Museum took him to courtroom, the Guardian reported.
“There have been a lot of people saying that I’m a naive director and it’s a misuse of public and private money,” Lasse Andersson, the director of the Kunsten Museum, informed Insider’s Mia Jankowicz on the time.
At the time, Andersson had mentioned that his museum was “not wealthy” and that Haaning’s actions left the museum’s curators deeply upset.
The artist had informed DR in 2021 that “Take the Money and Run” was impressed by what he noticed as inadequate fee — he claimed that recreating the items as meant would have required him to fork out round 3,300 euros, or round $3,500 at this time, from his personal pocket.
“I encourage other people who have working conditions as miserable as mine to do the same. If they’re sitting in some shitty job and not getting paid, and are actually being asked to pay money to go to work, then grab what you can and beat it,” he added.
The artwork world is not any stranger to controversy round high-concept items that satirize cash.
English artist Banksy made headlines in 2018 for making a portray that shredded itself after being offered at an public sale for $1.4 million. The paintings was once more offered for $25 million in 2021.
And Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan as soon as offered an paintings that includes recent bananas he taped onto a wall for $120,000. When the piece was displayed in Seoul in 2023, a scholar filmed himself peeling it off the wall and consuming it — earlier than telling an area information outlet his act may very well be thought-about artwork in itself.
Haaning and the Kunsten Museum didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark from Insider, despatched outdoors common enterprise hours.
