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Artist makes off with pile of cash intended to be art

Updated  September 29, 2021 10:40am EDT
Unusual
Associated Press
A woman stands in front of an empty frame hung up at the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg, Denmark, on September 28 2021. - The Danish museum loaned an artist $84,000 in cash to recreate old artworks of his using the banknotes, but the boxes he sent only contained blank canvasses and a new title: "Take the Money and Run". Danish artist Jens Haaning had done just that, pocketing the money the Kunsten Museum in the western city of Aalborg had loaned him to reproduce two works that used Danish kroner and euros to represent the annual salary in Denmark and Austria. (Photo by HENNING BAGGER/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images) article

A woman stands in front of an empty frame hung up at the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg, Denmark, on September 28 2021. - The Danish museum loaned an artist $84,000 in cash to recreate old artworks of his using the banknotes, but the boxes he sent only co

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A Danish artist who was given a pile of money by a museum with which to create a piece of artwork, submitted two empty canvases — titled "Take the Money and Run."

Jens Haaning was given the equivalent of nearly $84,000 in Danish kroner and euro bank notes by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg.

For its exhibition on labor conditions and money, entitled "Work It Out" that opened Sept. 24, the museum commissioned him to recreate two of his earlier pieces, which featured bank notes attached to a canvas representing the average annual wage in Denmark and Austria. As well as lending him the notes, the museum also paid him 25,000 kroner ($3,900) for the work.

But when museum officials received the completed artworks, they were blank.

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"The artwork is that I have taken the money," Haaning told a radio show on the P1 channel that is part of Danish broadcaster DR this week. He declined to say where the money was.

Haaning, who is known as a provocateur, said the artwork represented his current work situation.

"I encourage others who have just as miserable working conditions as I to do the same," Haaning told P1. "If they are being asked to give money to go to work, then take the money and run."

The museum says Haaning has broken the agreement on how to use the money. However, it has not yet decided whether to report Haaning to the police if the money is not returned before the exhibition ends in January.

Haaning, however, denies having committed a crime and insists he did produce a work of art.

"It’s not theft, it is a breach of contract, and the breach of contract is part of the work," Haaning told P1. He was not reachable for comment on Wednesday.