Words: Tom Ward
Call it conceptual art. Call it a piss take. Or even, call it criminal. When it comes to Danish artist Jens Haaning, the jury was literally out earlier this month, after a Copenhagen court ordered Haaning to pay back his 532,000 kroner fee — around $75,000 or £62,2600 – for two blank artworks delivered in 2021.
Haaning was commissioned by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art to recreate two of his famous artworks titled “An Average Danish Annual Income” and “An Average Austrian Annual Income,” which neatly lay out krone and euro banknotes across their respective canvasses, depicting the average annual income of a Danish or Austrian person. Completed in 2007, An Average Austrian Annual Income contains fifty one €500 notes, one €200 note, and two €2 coins, for a total of €25,704, the average annual income in Austria in 2005. The Danish version followed the same principle and was completed in 2010.
“Borders to be marked out or crossed, differences, inclusions and exclusions—these are a central theme in the work of Jens Haaning. For borders—territorial, national, linguistic, social, economic, cultural, legal—regulate the coexistence of different people and interests,” wrote the art magazine Secession upon the competition of “An Average Austrian Annual Income”.
The 58-year-old artist clearly has a lot to say, and has a reputation for letting his work speak for him. The Secession article goes on to note that Haaning “deals primarily with the question of how society constitutes itself and how power is expressed and communicated within it” and that in another exhibition in 1996 he moved an entire garment factory into the Kunsthalle in Middelburg, complete with workers.
Haaning’s latest work may have gone a step too far, according to the Danish legal system. When he delivered his work to the Kunsten Museum, the gallery didn’t receive modern reworkings of his most famous pieces, but two blank canvases – a conceptual artwork under the title “Take the Money and Run.” It’s a ballsy move, especially so considering the museum put the pieces on display before eventually deciding they weren’t happy. After asking Haaning to repay his fee, they eventually took him to court, where the legal system ruled that he should pay the money back.
Haaning had said in 2021 that “Take the Money and Run” was inspired by the Museum offering insufficient payment for his work, with Haaning claiming that to recreate his Average Annual Income pieces would have seen him fork out €3,300 from his own pocket. “I encourage other people who have working conditions as miserable as mine to do the same,” he said. “If they’re sitting in some shitty job and not getting paid and are actually being asked to pay money to go to work, then grab what you can and beat it.”
Of course, Haaning isn’t the first artist to satirise the art industry (or flat out take the piss, depending on your viewpoint). In 2018 Brit prankster Banksy outraged and excited the art world in equal measure with his painting that shredded itself moments after being sold at auction for £1.1 million. To many the painting was ruined, but it didn’t stop the shredded cavas and frame being resold for £20.4 million in 2021. Meanwhile, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan sold an artwork featuring fresh bananas taped to a wall for around one hundred grand.
As for Haaning, he claims to be “shocked” by the Kungsten Museum’s taking him to court “but at the same time, it is exactly what I have imagined,” he said. “It has been good for my work, but it also puts me in an unmanageable situation where I don’t really know what to do,” he said, adding that he does not have the money to pay the museum back.
Naturally, one has to question the Museum itself. After all, it took receipt of these images and displayed them before asking for its money back. “There have been a lot of people saying that I’m a naive director and it’s a misuse of public and private money,” Lasse Andersson, the director of the Kunsten Museum, told Insider. Andersson noted that the museum was not wealthy, and Haaning’s work had upset its curators.
“The work is that I have taken their money. It’s not theft. It is breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work,” Haaning told a Danish radio station, according to the Guardian. While you probably wouldn’t want to hang Haaning’s blank canvases on your wall, you have to agree it’s an audacious move on his part, and one that raises questions about societal stratification, and how we value art. With Rishi Sunak forcing British universities to cap “low-value” degrees (such as the one completed by the author of this article) we may well see more Haanings emerging to challenge the status quo.
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