Title : "Haaning's new work Take the Money and Run is also a recognition that works of art, despite intentions to the contrary, are part of a capitalist system..."
link : "Haaning's new work Take the Money and Run is also a recognition that works of art, despite intentions to the contrary, are part of a capitalist system..."
"Haaning's new work Take the Money and Run is also a recognition that works of art, despite intentions to the contrary, are part of a capitalist system..."
"... that values a work based on some arbitrary conditions. Even the missing money in the work has a monetary value when it is called art and thus shows how the value of money is an abstract quantity. Haaning's new work Take the Money and Run is also a recognition that works of art, despite intentions to the contrary, are part of a capitalist system that values a work based on some arbitrary conditions."Said the Kunsten Museum's exhibition guide, about the 2 completely blank canvases it chose to display, quoted in "A Danish artist has been ordered to repay a museum after delivering blank canvases" (NPR).
The museum had advanced Jens Haaning over $75,000 so that he could recreate an earlier work of his in which he attached actual cash to the canvas. In that earlier work, the money was supposed to represent the wage gap between Danish workers and Austrian workers. Haaning is considered a "conceptual artist," and the new work expresses a concept that the museum made a show of understanding (or pretending to understand).
Should the artist have to pay back the money? I'm inclined to say no, not after the museum displayed the work — especially along with what it wrote in the exhibition guide. Was it just bullshitting to the public? What hypocrisy!
That said, I haven't seen the contract, and, now that the court sided with the museum, I'm going to assume there was precision about the requirement to make the money part of the art work. But didn't the museum implicitly agree to amend the contract when it accepted the work, displayed it, and wrote publicly and asserted that "the missing money" is equivalent to money "when it is called art"?
And yet, both the artist and the museum agreed that they are trapped within this nefarious capitalist system, so, to me, the only interesting question is whether the court rigorously played out its role in capitalism by siding with the museum.
But wait. More information. This is from The Guardian, 2 years ago — "Danish artist delivers empty frames for $84k as low pay protest/Denmark museum of modern art says Jens Haaning’s Take the Money and Run violates legal agreement." Here's some information about the contract:
“We are not a wealthy museum,” [said Lasse Andersson, the museum’s director]. The money came from modest reserves earmarked for the upkeep of the building. “We have to think carefully about how we spend our funds, and we don’t spend more than we can afford.”
Andersson said the museum’s contract with Haaning required him to return the money by 16 January. “I believe he will give it back to us. He is a well-regarded artist. But if we don’t get it back, we will have to file charges against the artist.”
So the money wasn't going to be permanently attached to the canvas. The museum bargained for a temporary work of art and the return of the money.
Haaning, 56, said he had no intention of complying with his contract. “The work is that I have taken their money,” he told Danish radio. “It’s not theft. It is breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work.”
Ha ha ha. I don't know Danish law, but you don't get out of a contract by secretly withholding your agreement. But Haaning admits it's a breach of contract. That the concept, and he's a conceptual artist.
“I encourage other people who have working conditions as miserable as mine to do the same. 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,” he told the Danish national broadcaster DR.
If I'd read this older article and didn't know how the legal action played out, I would scoff and suspect the museum and the artist were colluding for publicity, but that was asked about and answered at the time:
The museum, which decided to display Haaning’s new work despite its loss of thousands of dollars, insisted that the missing money was not a stunt to promote the exhibition. “We are a platform for art, we do not create performative art. I’m just as puzzled as everyone else,” said Andersson.
ADDED: The idea of offering a blank canvas as art is not a new idea. It's been kicking around since 1915.
Here's a MOMA piece about Robert Rauschenberg's "White Painting" (from 1951):
Leah Dickerman: These "White Paintings" may not be prepossessing, but they're among the most radical statements about painting made in the middle of the 20th century. They are blank canvases stretched in units of various combinations. And the paint is basic house paint applied with a roller...
Rauschenberg: I called them clocks. If one were sensitive enough that you could read it, that you would know how many people were in the room, what time it was, and what the weather was like outside.
Leah Dickerman: When the White Paintings were shown at the Stable Gallery in 1953, Rauschenberg's friend, the composer John Cage wrote a statement accompanying them. And the statement went, in part, "To whom: no subject, no image, no taste, no object, no beauty, no message, no talent, no technique, no why, no idea, no intention, no art, no object, no feeling, no black, no white, no and."...
I don't need to get out my sledgehammer to remind you of what John Cage is most famous for composing.
Said the Kunsten Museum's exhibition guide, about the 2 completely blank canvases it chose to display, quoted in "A Danish artist has been ordered to repay a museum after delivering blank canvases" (NPR).
The museum had advanced Jens Haaning over $75,000 so that he could recreate an earlier work of his in which he attached actual cash to the canvas. In that earlier work, the money was supposed to represent the wage gap between Danish workers and Austrian workers. Haaning is considered a "conceptual artist," and the new work expresses a concept that the museum made a show of understanding (or pretending to understand).
Should the artist have to pay back the money? I'm inclined to say no, not after the museum displayed the work — especially along with what it wrote in the exhibition guide. Was it just bullshitting to the public? What hypocrisy!
That said, I haven't seen the contract, and, now that the court sided with the museum, I'm going to assume there was precision about the requirement to make the money part of the art work. But didn't the museum implicitly agree to amend the contract when it accepted the work, displayed it, and wrote publicly and asserted that "the missing money" is equivalent to money "when it is called art"?
And yet, both the artist and the museum agreed that they are trapped within this nefarious capitalist system, so, to me, the only interesting question is whether the court rigorously played out its role in capitalism by siding with the museum.
But wait. More information. This is from The Guardian, 2 years ago — "Danish artist delivers empty frames for $84k as low pay protest/Denmark museum of modern art says Jens Haaning’s Take the Money and Run violates legal agreement." Here's some information about the contract:
“We are not a wealthy museum,” [said Lasse Andersson, the museum’s director]. The money came from modest reserves earmarked for the upkeep of the building. “We have to think carefully about how we spend our funds, and we don’t spend more than we can afford.”
Andersson said the museum’s contract with Haaning required him to return the money by 16 January. “I believe he will give it back to us. He is a well-regarded artist. But if we don’t get it back, we will have to file charges
So the money wasn't going to be permanently attached to the canvas. The museum bargained for a temporary work of art and the return of the money.
Haaning, 56, said he had no intention of complying with his contract. “The work is that I have taken their money,” he told Danish radio. “It’s not theft. It is breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work.”
Ha ha ha. I don't know Danish law, but you don't get out of a contract by secretly withholding your agreement. But Haaning admits it's a breach of contract. That the concept, and he's a conceptual artist.
“I encourage other people who have working conditions as miserable as mine to do the same. 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,” he told the Danish national broadcaster DR.
If I'd read this older article and didn't know how the legal action played out, I would scoff and suspect the museum and the artist were colluding for publicity, but that was asked about and answered at the time:
The museum, which decided to display Haaning’s new work despite its loss of thousands of dollars, insisted that the missing money was not a stunt to promote the exhibition. “We are a platform for art, we do not create performative art. I’m just as puzzled as everyone else,” said Andersson.
ADDED: The idea of offering a blank canvas as art is not a new idea. It's been kicking around since 1915.
Here's a MOMA piece about Robert Rauschenberg's "White Painting" (from 1951):
Leah Dickerman: These "White Paintings" may not be prepossessing, but they're among the most radical statements about painting made in the middle of the 20th century. They are blank canvases stretched in units of various combinations. And the paint is basic house paint applied with a roller...
Rauschenberg: I called them clocks. If one were sensitive enough that you could read it, that you would know how many people were in the room, what time it was, and what the weather was like outside.
Leah Dickerman: When the White Paintings were shown at the Stable Gallery in 1953, Rauschenberg's friend, the composer John Cage wrote a statement accompanying them. And the statement went, in part, "To whom: no subject, no image, no taste, no object, no beauty, no message, no talent, no technique, no why, no idea, no intention, no art, no object, no feeling, no black, no white, no and."...
I don't need to get out my sledgehammer to remind you of what John Cage is most famous for composing.
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