Artist Ordered To Pay Museum Back For Sending Blank Canvases

An artist has lost a lengthy battle with a Danish museum after submitting two blank canvases and taking off with the loaned cash that was meant to be displayed inside the artworks.

Danish artist Jens Haaning was ordered by a Copenhagen court to pay the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art 500,000 Danish kroner (around $76,500) after his audacious stunt set off a nearly two-year legal fight.

In 2021, Jens Haaning was given the equivalent of nearly $84,000 in Danish kroner and euro banknotes by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg.

As well as lending him the notes, the museum also paid him $3,900 for the work.

However, when the museum received the completed artworks, they were blank. 

He has now been ordered to repay around $70,600 and another $11,000 in court fees. 

“I am shocked, but at the same time it is exactly what I have imagined,” Haaning told Danish public broadcaster.

For its exhibition on labour conditions and money, entitled “Work It Out,” the museum commissioned Haaning to recreate two of his earlier pieces, which featured banknotes attached to a canvas representing the average annual wage in Denmark and Austria.

Haaning said the artwork here was that he had taken the money. “I encourage others who have just as miserable working conditions as I to do the same. If they are being asked to give money to go to work, then take the money and run.” He said

The museum said Haaning broke an agreement on how to use the money.

The artist disputed the allegations saying “It’s not theft, it is a breach of contract, and the breach of contract is part of the work.”