Denmark
Jens Haaning must return about 532,000 crowns that he borrowed from the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg, the court heard
Monday 18 September 2023 5.06pm BST
A Danish artist who pocketed large sums of money loaned to him by a museum – and submitted empty frames as his artwork – has been ordered by a court to repay the funds.
Jens Haaning, a conceptual artist whose work focuses on power and inequality, was commissioned in 2021 by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, northern Denmark, to recreate two previous works that used dozens of banknotes to represent average incomes.
Haaning’s 2007 work “An Average Danish Annual Income” featured crown notes fixed in a frame on canvas, and a second 2011 work on Austrian incomes used euro bills.
The museum allocated around 532,000 kroner (£61,500) from its reserves for the reproduction of works of art, as well as an artist’s fee of around 40,000 kronor. But when employees unpacked the newly delivered works, they found two empty frames with the caption “Take the Money and Run.”
The museum exhibited the new artworks, but when Haaning refused to return the money, it took legal action.
On Monday, a Copenhagen court ordered the artist to repay the money he had been loaned, but said he still had to be paid his fee.
At the time, Lasse Andersson, the director of the Kunsten Museum, told the Guardian: “We are not a wealthy museum. … We need to think carefully about how we spend our resources, and we don’t spend more than we can afford.”
Haaning told Danish Radio at the time: “The work is that I took her money. It’s not theft. It’s a breach of contract and breach of contract is part of the job.”
He added: “I encourage other people whose working conditions are as miserable as mine to do the same. “If they’re stuck in a crappy job and aren’t getting paid and are actually being charged money for the work, then grab what you got can, and strike.”
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