A Danish museum lately loaned an artist $84,000 to make use of in creating a brand new murals. As a substitute of utilizing the money to create what the museum anticipated, nevertheless, the artist delivered clean canvases titled “Take the Cash and Run.”
NPR reports that the Kunsten Museum of Fashionable Artwork in Aalborg, Denmark, gave the cash to well-known Copenhagen-based conceptual artist Jens Haaning for recreations of two earlier works.
“An Common Danish Annual Revenue” and “An Common Austrian Annual Revenue” had been works by Haaning from over a decade in the past that confirmed framed banknotes amounting to the typical yearly revenue of Danes and Austrians, respectively. These frames held 328,000 kroner (~$37,800 on the time) and €25,000 (~$29,000 on the time), respectively.
For anybody questioning what “Take the cash and run” ought to seem like
Jens Haaning
“An Common Austrian Yr Revenue”279 banknotes for a complete of 278 500 DKK (about 33,600 kilos or 53,200 US {dollars}). pic.twitter.com/e0kpQzPlH4
— Bryan Hilley (@bbhilley) September 28, 2021
As a substitute of utilizing the cash he acquired as banknotes for artwork items, Haaning determined to maintain the money and ship clean canvases to the museum as a brand new murals that’s a commentary on low wages.
The museum employees was shocked once they cracked open the big crates Haaning shipped and pulled out clean canvases.
“I truly laughed as I noticed it,” Kunsten CEO Lasse Andersson tells NPR. “It wasn’t what we had agreed on within the contract, however we received new and fascinating artwork.”
“It’s a breach of contract, and breach of contract is a part of the work,” Haaning tells Danish public broadcaster DR. “The work is that I’ve taken their cash.”
“Everybody wish to have extra money and, in our society, work industries are valued in a different way,” Haaning mentioned in a press release, according to CBS News. “The paintings is actually concerning the working situations of artists. It’s a assertion saying that we even have the accountability of questioning the buildings that we’re a part of.
“And if these buildings are utterly unreasonable, we should break with them. It may be your marriage, your work – it may be any kind of societal construction”.
The museum is now demanding its a reimbursement, nevertheless it has determined to exhibit the brand new surprising paintings anyway as a part of its exhibition titled “Work It Out“, which focuses on the way forward for work.
A Danish museum gave an artist about $83,000 to breed items reflecting the character of labor within the fashionable world.
He pocketed the money and delivered two clean canvases titled “Take the Cash and Run.” https://t.co/CjyA115QVt
— The New York Instances (@nytimes) October 1, 2021
A Danish conceptual artist pocketed $84,000 loaned to him by a gallery to re-make an paintings. As a substitute of utilizing the money as agreed, he despatched empty frames titled “Take the Cash and Run.”https://t.co/Rizu63SFOQ
— WION (@WIONews) September 30, 2021
“I encourage different individuals who have simply as depressing working situations as me to do the identical,” Haaning instructed the DR radio program P1 Morgen, translated by Artnet News. “If they’re sitting on some s**t job and never getting cash and are literally being requested to offer cash to go to work, then take the field and [run] off.”
Haaning now has a contractual deadline of January 16, 2022, when the exhibition concludes, to return the $84,000 to the museum. The artist says he has no plans to return the cash, however the museum is ready to see what occurs when the deadline passes earlier than deciding on its plan of action.
Picture credit: Header photograph by the Kunsten Museum of Fashionable Artwork.