A Danish artist must return the money received for the commission

A Danish artist who sent two blank canvases to a museum must return the money received for the order
A court condemns Jens Haaning, who received a loan of 71,500 euros in cash to use as material for his two works

A court in Copenhagen (Denmark) this Monday sentenced the artist Jens Haaning, who in his work mainly addresses the issue of racism, to return to a Danish museum the money received for commissioning two works. Haaning, 57, couldn't think of anything better than to hand over two blank canvases. This conceptual artist has exhibited in museums and galleries in Istanbul, Vienna, Dakar, Amsterdam, Stockholm, New York and Barcelona, among other cities. The Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg (in the northwest of the country) commissioned him in autumn 2021 to recreate two old works of his in which he used cash to represent the average annual salary in Denmark and Austria. In the first, from 2007, he showed krona banknotes fixed to a canvas in a frame, and in a second work from 2011, about Austrian revenues, he used euro banknotes.

For this, the museum lent him 532,549 Danish crowns (about 71,500 euros), plus 40,000 that it gave him as fees, but what he received in return were two blank canvases with the title Take the money and run.

The reason for these two particular creations was that Haaning wanted to protest his working conditions, but the museum, which still included the canvases in an exhibition, considered that he had violated the agreement and gave him a deadline to return the money until the sample will close in January 2022, before going to court. Haaning refused to return it.

Now the court has agreed with the museum by pointing out that the contract signed between both parties established that the amount delivered had to be returned at the end of the exhibition and that for there to be a change in the agreed conditions, the written consent of the parties was necessary. two contracting parties. “The artist is, according to the agreement entered into, obliged to return that amount that was provided to him,” states the ruling, which can be appealed in the second instance. In addition, the court has rejected the artist's claim against the museum for alleged violation of intellectual rights over his work. The museum's director, Lasse Andersson, has said that the museum needs to “think carefully” about how it spends its funds.

Haaning will have to bear the costs of the trial, although at least he will be able to keep the 40,000 Danish crowns (5,363 euros) in fees. The artist maintained that just recreating his works had cost him 25,000 crowns (more than 3,000 euros) and that is why he decided to send two blank canvases. The artist has said that his action was not theft: “It is a breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the job.” To which he added: “I encourage other people who have working conditions as miserable as mine to do the same. If they have a shitty job and they don't get paid, and on top of that they ask them to put up money for the work, then they should take what they can."

https://elpais.com/cultura/2023-09-18