“Take the Money and Run,” by artist Jens Haaning. Photographer:Mette Kirstine Goddiksen/Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg
Haaning tabbed his art asTake the Money and Run and it’s simply two blank whiteboard frames without anything on them.
According to a written agreement,obtained by Artnet,Haaning was commissioned to exhibit the banknotes themselves,effectively recreating a pair of artworks he made in 2007 and 2010 that represented the average annual incomes of an Austrian and a Dane.
Haaning rationalised his artwork with the Danish radio program PI Morgen last week.
“The work is that I have taken their money,” he said. “It’s not theft. It is a breach of contract and breach of contract is part of the work.”
Jens HaaningCredit:Facebook/JensHaaning
The museum is actually displaying the two empty frames on display in its ongoing art showWork it Out.
“I absolutely want to give Jens the right (to say) that a new work has been created in its own right,which actually comments on the exhibition we have,” Lasse Andersson,the museum’s director,also told PI Morgen last week. “But that is not the agreement we had.”