Did the Museum of Modern Art Ever Have a Danish Furniture Showing

Visitors view a blank sail that is part of "Have the Money and Run," past Jens Haaning, at the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark. The piece is part of an exhibition chosen Piece of work It Out, which explores people's relationship with work. Niels Fabæk/Kunsten Museum of Modernistic Art hide explanation

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Niels Fabæk/Kunsten Museum of Modern Art

Visitors view a blank sheet that is part of "Take the Money and Run," past Jens Haaning, at the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark. The piece is part of an exhibition chosen Work It Out, which explores people's relationship with piece of work.

Niels Fabæk/Kunsten Museum of Modernistic Art

The coin was supposed to be used to create modern art. And it was — but not in the style a Danish museum expected when it gave an artist the equivalent of $84,000. In return, information technology received ii empty canvases.

The artist, Jens Haaning, says the blank canvases make upwards a new work of fine art — titled "Have the Money and Run" — that he calls a commentary on poor wages. 1 matter it's non, he says, is a theft.

"It is a breach of contract, and alienation of contract is role of the piece of work," he said, according to Danish public broadcaster DR.

"The work is that I have taken their money," Haaning stated.

The Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg isn't satisfied with that explanation, but that hasn't stopped it from displaying the two canvases as part of its exhibition called Work It Out, which explores people'south relationship with work.

Artist'south unexpected delivery provoked laughter and questions

Haaning took the money every bit part of an agreement with the Kunsten, which says information technology loaned Haaning more than half a million kroner so he could frame the greenbacks in a reprise of an earlier artwork. The artist had previously used ii canvases, one larger than the other, to illustrate the gap in average annual incomes in Denmark and Austria in concrete terms — or, more accurately, in paper.

Haaning sent 2 large crates to the museum, equally information technology prepared to mount the work-themed show that opened last weekend. Only when staff members opened the boxes, they were surprised to notice 2 bare canvases.

"I actually laughed every bit I saw it," Kunsten CEO Lasse Andersson said in an email to NPR, adding that the museum first suspected things might not go as planned when Haaning told them he had created a new slice of art, with the championship "Take the Coin and Run."

The delivery quickly provoked a flurry of emails and messages at the museum. Andersson says that while Haaning's initial work converted money into fine art, "The new work reminds us that we work for money." It also adds a new twist to the debate over how an artist'due south work should be valued, he said.

Jens Haaning'due south artwork "Take the Coin and Run" is seen in the Kunsten Musem of Modern Art. The empty sail was meant to concord thousands of dollars in cash — only the artist chose to hang on to the money. Niels Fabaek/Kunsten Museum of Modern Art hibernate caption

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Niels Fabaek/Kunsten Museum of Modern Art

Jens Haaning's artwork "Take the Coin and Run" is seen in the Kunsten Musem of Modernistic Art. The empty sail was meant to concord thousands of dollars in cash — but the artist chose to hang on to the money.

Niels Fabaek/Kunsten Museum of Modernistic Fine art

Artist urges the public: Accept the money and run

Haaning told P1 Morgen that he decided to continue the money later on rejecting the idea of reproducing fine art that was more a decade old. Instead, he said, he wanted to create a work that dealt immediately with his own piece of work situation.

"I encourage other people who have only equally miserable working conditions as me to do the aforementioned," he said, co-ordinate to a translation from Artnet. "If they are sitting on some south*** job and non getting money and are actually beingness asked to give money to go to piece of work," they should take the coin and run, he told the radio program.

Haaning says he would have had to pay 25,000 kroner (around $2,900) to re-create his art work — an unfair burden, he told Danish radio. Merely Andersson says the museum'south contract provides upwards to half dozen,000 euros, or about $vii,000, for Haaning'due south work expenses. Under the understanding, the artist also receives a fee of 10,000 kroner, plus a "viewing fee" determined past the government.

The museum isn't taking legal action — however

Haaning signed a contract with the Kunsten, promising to evangelize the artwork and to return the $84,000. The artist at present faces a borderline to requite the museum its coin back on Jan. xvi, when the piece of work exhibition closes. The museum says it's talking with him nearly that deadline; it too acknowledges that Haaning did produce a provocative piece of piece of work.

"It wasn't what we had agreed on in the contract, but we got new and interesting art" from Haaning, Andersson said.

Haaning is a well-known artist in Denmark, where his attending-grabbing projects have included rendering the Dannebrog, Denmark'south red and white national flag, in green, according to public broadcaster DR. He also "moved a automobile dealer and a massage clinic into exhibition buildings," the news bureau says.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041492941/jens-haaning-kunsten-take-the-money-and-run-art-denmark-blank

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