Art or heist? A Danish artist took $84k and sent a museum 2 blank canvases

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041492941/jens-haaning-kunsten-take-the-money-and-run-art-denmark-blank

by cube00 • 5 years ago

134 191 5 years ago

bhouston• 5 years ago

Gotta love artists doing the unexpected and then presenting it as art. It is sometimes a fine line, because if you go too far, people may not buy it. But then maybe you make a media discussion about it, and you get more famous!

ralfn• 5 years ago

Especially with an idea as original as this.

cosmotic2• 5 years ago

I suspect this was sarcasm? This is certainly not novel.

gowld3• 5 years ago

When anything anyone does is "art" just because someone reacts to it in some way, it's just "person" not "artist".

My farts are art. I'm a fartist.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 5 years ago

There have been such artists before.

Le Pétomane

Joseph Pujol (June 1, 1857 – August 8, 1945), best known by his stage name Le Pétomane (/ləˈpɛtəmeɪn/,[citation needed] French pronunciation: [ləpetɔman]), was a French flatulist (professional farter) and entertainer. He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles, which enabled him to seemingly fart at will. His stage name combines the French verb péter, "to fart" with the -mane, "-maniac" suffix, which translates to "fartomaniac". The profession is referred to as "flatulist", "farteur", or "fartiste".[1]

It was a common misconception that Joseph Pujol passed intestinal gas as part of his stage performance. Rather, Pujol was allegedly able to "inhale" or move air into his rectum and then control the release of that air with his anal sphincter muscles. Evidence of his ability to control those muscles was seen in the early accounts of demonstrations of his abilities to fellow soldiers.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_P%C3%A9tomane

weego• 5 years ago

It's a piece of tangible performance art, which is unusual and not the medium they expected.

jld• 5 years ago

He should send another invoice for the extra services!

ketanmaheshwari• 5 years ago

Given the resulting publicity and buzz this has gotten, I'd think the money spent was worth it from the museum's point of view.

tokai3• 5 years ago

The money was never to be spend, the museum loaned them to the artist. They were suppose to be used as the literal material for the commissioned art work.

moate2• 5 years ago

Partially incorrect. The artist was paid a fee as well as provided money to use for the piece and to purchase/frame it. This article didn't make entirely clear which of that money they're asking for.

moate2• 5 years ago

Imagine the (very?) likely clown shoes scenario of the museum holding him in breach of contract, being required to return the pieces, and then watching them sell for a cool million at auction.

Look at what just happened with the Banksy shredder piece for example.

usmannk• 5 years ago

"Haaning took the money as part of an agreement with the Kunsten, which says it loaned Haaning more than half a million kroner so he could frame the cash in a reprise of an earlier artwork."

They didn't just commission him to make art. The museum contracted him to reproduce a particular piece of art, which Haaning did not do.

yholio2• 5 years ago

But if they had paid him to create completely new art, it wouldn't have been an authentic performance of "Take the money and run", but a mere simulacrum. The breach of contract is the artwork.

IshKebab2• 5 years ago

Clearly it is art and heist. But the law doesn't care too much if your crime is a work of art.

VanillaCafe• 5 years ago

Nice. And now the museum can create a piece of art in response called "Repercussions". (Or, maybe it was all one piece of art all along.)

lapetitejort• 5 years ago

From what I understand from the article, the museum gave him physical cash in which to use as the medium, along with money to pay for his labor (more that two times the quoted value, as well). In all, he received ~28 times the amount of money quoted. Pretty scummy thing to do, even if "provocative."

pavel_lishin• 5 years ago

He has until January to return it. Although he broke the terms of the contract, the museum seems happy enough with the results so far - so long as he actually returns the money, it sounds like everything will be fine and non-scummy.

The artist now faces a deadline to give the museum its money back on Jan. 16, when the work exhibition closes. The museum says it's talking with him about that deadline

jdavis703• 5 years ago

The museum contracted him to reproduce a particular piece of art, which Haaning did not do.

He did make art fulfilling the concept that was discussed. The museum director said as much and it sounds like the art will still be exhibited.

The problem is that the museum loaned out materials to make the art and the artist did not return those materials. It’d be like if you let a handyman borrow some of your tools, and they completed the job and took your tools.

pilsetnieks2• 5 years ago

Haaning signed a contract with the Kunsten, promising to deliver the artwork and to return the $84,000. The artist now faces a deadline to give the museum its money back on Jan. 16, when the work exhibition closes. The museum says it's talking with him about that deadline; it also acknowledges that Haaning did produce a provocative piece of work.

There is no problem. He will return the money (materials) when the deadline comes. If he doesn't by then, then they'll have a problem.

pilsetnieks2• 5 years ago

They said there's a contract in place and he'll return the money either way. In this case the artist produced something else than contracted to; they took it in good fun and apparently got pretty good publicity out of that, and they'll still get the money back.

Unless someone decides to turn on the lawsuit machine, everyone's a winner here.

endisneigh• 5 years ago

I’ll remember this when my AI for reproducing art is operational.

I’ll do the same thing as this artist, but at scale.

ModernMech• 5 years ago

Art at scale is no longer art, it’s kitsch.

cjohansson• 5 years ago

Great idea. When I'm finished with my AI that produces AIs to make money I will do the same

smnrchrds2• 5 years ago

He transitioned from artist to con artist.

jareklupinski2• 5 years ago

can't wait to see more work coming from this brave new branch of 'con art' :^)

smnrchrds2• 5 years ago

I hear he is working on the architecture of an oceanfront property in Switzerland next. If you move fast, you may be able to buy it.

klyrs3• 5 years ago

Can I interest you in a NFT?

TigeriusKirk• 5 years ago

By the contemporary conception of art, this is definitely art. Perhaps even brilliant art.

fullshark• 5 years ago

Contemporary Art - Something "clever" that appreciation of signals to others that you aren't a member of the bourgeois.

outlog• 5 years ago

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

- Steve Jobs/Picasso/Stravinsky/Eliot

awb2• 5 years ago

To be clear, they're talking about ideas and the adaptation of those ideas, not literally stealing cash or property.

“Good artists borrow [by modifying ideas], great artists steal [by copying ideas].”

alpaca1283• 5 years ago

The stealing part doesn't refer to directly copying ideas (I mean what great artist would do that?), more how good artists instead are able to use other works as inspiration, "make it their own" and put their spin on it.

falcor84• 5 years ago

</That's The Joke>

alpaca1283• 5 years ago

This quote doesn't have anything to do with literal theft, though:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/

deeblering4• 5 years ago

Depends on your outlook towards intellectual property

cm2187• 5 years ago

And in my opinion this is some fuckery between consenting adults.

jareklupinski2• 5 years ago

- jareklupinski

cfup• 5 years ago

Can't wait for this kind of art in NFT form! /s

vvarren• 5 years ago

Be careful what you wish for https://opensea.io/collection/take-the-money-and-run

jayspell• 5 years ago

Two things I would say about this...

1.) It's honest 2.) It's better than most modern / contemporary art

dylan6043• 5 years ago

HN timing is so weird:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28683497

colpabar• 5 years ago

I'm honestly very surprised there's no mention of banksy's shredder stunt in the piece. I would have thought an artist would somehow try to portray themselves as being as cool as banksy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXKE0nAMmg4

Ansil8492• 5 years ago

This beats the con artistry of NFT scams any day.

esjeon• 5 years ago

The act of violating the contract (w/ the museum) itself is the art-work here.

On another side, I think this is quite a good deal for the museum. This story is pretty popular on the internet in many countries, and $84k sounds pretty cheap for an international ad campaign. Plus, the artist is still delivering a kind of modern art.

m3kw9• 5 years ago

Art if you attach the context

Andrew_nenakhov• 5 years ago

At least he had the decency not to leave his excrements [1] behind, claiming it to be an art object, like that other guy. So I guess it is not the worst example of contemporary art.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit

dmitrygr• 5 years ago

This is hilarious on so many levels

My suggestion to him: Turn in a new artwork next week: the money shredded.

Call it "you greedy bastards"

It can be explained as a revolt against the existing power structures in the financial world, where the poor are only noticed when they cause unrest.

szarnyasg• 5 years ago

Casey Neistat did something similar in 2012, although he returned something resembling a commercial video and not a blank canvas.

After arriving at an agreed-upon treatment with Nike for its latest commercial, director Casey Neistat literally took the money and ran–filming a trip around the world on Nike’s dime, and presenting the footage as the ad.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxfZkMm3wcg

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/1680524/how-director-casey-neist...

gowld3• 5 years ago

He created at actual ad, not just a resemblance. Ads are usually arbitrary fluff plus a logo.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 5 years ago

> Ads are usually arbitrary fluff plus a logo.

Just like superhero movies.

akyu• 5 years ago

They paid him to direct an ad and he directed an ad. You are falling for the marketing my friend.

max46• 5 years ago

it's a very different situation. The money the artist stole never belonged to him, it wasn't his salary or a budget he was allowed to spend on the fabrication of the art. He had a specific contract and he was paid to take that 84k$ and lay it on a canvas to replicate a previous art piece he had done. The cash was supposed to be returned to the museum after.

Leparamour3• 5 years ago

So more along the lines of embezzlement?

dpiers• 5 years ago

It's a 4 1/2 minute video promoting the product that has been viewed 32 million times. Considering it likely cost Nike <$50K and average YouTube ad CPM is ~$3.50, it may be one of the most successful social media ads Nike has ever produced.

Waterluvian• 5 years ago

"It is a breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work,"

Being sued or prosecuted will also be part of the artwork.

pugworthy• 5 years ago

Legal proceedings in the court room can at times be performance.

int_19h5• 5 years ago

Case in point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzODx3WLarQ

legitster• 5 years ago

I went to an exhibit on modern art at SAM. It was full of ironic pieces, like a gauge that measured its own distance to the floor and ceiling (and had some sort of ironic name about literalism or something). The centerpieces was a big blank canvas with the words "I could have done that" scrawled across it in marker.

I stick to historic exhibits for the most part now.

lelandfe2• 5 years ago

The Tate Modern has a huge room filled with what seems to be detritus left over from mounting art - ladders, glue, tape, and so on. Your first reaction is that they are switching out an exhibition.

It’s only when you read the placard that you find out that each item had been painstakingly carved out of something like resin and painted over a span of years.

Nearby is an empty room, where they actually are switching out an exhibition.

thrwyoilarticle4• 5 years ago

So you visited the Tate Modern and, out of all the pieces, the one you recall an anecdote about was the obnoxious detritus? Seems like it did the job.

Neil44• 5 years ago

For me modern art is about my reaction to the piece, and the insight and illumination into myself that that gives. So looking at a piece is in a way looking at myself.

Modern art can also be a way of communicating feelings and ideas that language cannot express very well.

wyager• 5 years ago

You may enjoy the recent episode of the Good Ol Boyz podcast with Dr Hans Georg Moeller on Profilicity. It’s an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon you’re describing.

123pie123• 5 years ago

If an object can induce a feeling - any feeling, even of disgust then I would class it as art.

doesn't mean it's good art though, that's extremely subjective

dexwiz4• 5 years ago

Post Modern art is terrible. At least with early modern art (think Vienna Secession or other movements ~100 years ago), most of the artists had classical training and moved into modern art. Now they are just all terrible. The devaluation of aesthetics in favor of meaning make it unapproachable to those with no context on the subject, and unappealing to even those with context.

Contemporary artists with any skill now work in classical styles, illustrations, or graphic design.

EDIT: I should clarify by Post Modern I mean a specific genre of art focused on deconstruction. Not all contemporary art is Post Modern, and there are many genres alive today that are not Post Modern.

silicon24013• 5 years ago

The devaluation of aesthetics in favor of meaning make it unapproachable to those with no context on the subject, and unappealing to even those with context.

This is an incredibly concise and effective summary of the situation. I agree completely. I think aesthetics have really been devalued in the modern world. Even comparing distant lands like Ancient Rome or Ancient China, there are still commonalities in their approach to aesthetics compared to modern culture.

guardiangod• 5 years ago

While I don't know anything about art to disagree with you, I'd imagine people say the same thing no matter if it's 100, 500, or 2000 years ago.

I suspect the situation is the same with old appliances- only the Good Stuff survives the test of time.

okwubodu• 5 years ago

The devaluation of aesthetics in favor of meaning make it unapproachable to those with no context on the subject, and unappealing to even those with context.

Your description of this phenomenon is perfect to me. I find it interesting that nearly the opposite has happened in some areas of music, but you still hear that the lack of “meaning” is what makes modern music terrible.

routerl4• 5 years ago

I upvoted both you and the OP, for making good, honest observations.

And for relating stories about thoughtful, controversial engagements with art. Because that's kind of the point of art.

The Mona Lisa isn't "art" anymore; it was once, and now it's a pretty artifact with a lot of historical significance. But that's not art.

Art is the kind of thing that makes educated people say, in public, "that's not art". And, thus, by its existence and the reception to its existence, true art makes our conversations about art richer, more emotional, and (over time) more precise. And once all of the nuances of this conversation are exhausted, we need new art.

Which is why the Mona Lisa isn't art. At least not anymore.

And if you disagree with that, then we need to have a deep conversation about art, and history, over the course of which both of us will have hopefully learned new things about both art and history.

Art is a recursive question, not an engineering problem.

Edit: I should point out that this comment is intentionally recursive.

micromacrofoot• 5 years ago

No one gives a shit about classically trained painters beyond upvoting their work on reddit, and even commercial illustrators struggle to make ends meet. The most stable avenue for working in graphic design is advertising.

It seems everyone has an opinion on what makes good art, but no one wants to fucking pay for it. The top 1% of artists are basically con artists trying to trick the rich into impulse buys.

SavantIdiot4• 5 years ago

unapproachable to those with no context on the subject,

OTOH, if you do have context on the subject, it can be profound. It's a bit like certain gamer groups who have subreddits and generate tons of content that outsiders don't get (Warhammer, Genshin Impact, Hololive, ApexLegends... these are few groups I do not understand but they seem to generate a ton of their own internal content.)

Aesthetic art is a product of a particular need, and it will always have admirers. IKEA sells tons of pretty art. People will flock to Versailles to see the Mona Lisa. An occasional brave soul will do a long-viewing of Rothko. That kind of art is for the masses, and historically commissioned pieces in public have been just that. And it hasn't gone away: murals, sculptures in parks, installations at large government buildings.

What people are focusing on here is completely different.

It's a bit ignorant to criticize art that is outside your context. I have the right to say "Warhammer memes are childish bullshit," but it is ignorant.

Much like vegan-bashing, people love to rip on "post modern" art without really knowing much about it. Perhaps there is a legitimate claim that some hot new artist is "classically untrained" so they "actually" suck. Is that true if their art resonates with the current culture? I say, "no."

EDIT: I have attempted to study "postmodernism" many times over the last 30+ years (for fun) since I graduated college. I've failed every time. I don't like to use the term anymore because I can't really explain it to any real depth other then banal platitudes like "nothing has meaning."

EDIT2: I find "take the money and run" to be a brilliant piece of contemporary art. It is so on the nose for today's culture: conniving, ironic, duplicitive, a rip off, ... I think it spurs conversation about the monetary value of art that has been brewing for decades. Heck, even the monetary value of what museums should EXPECT from an artist. That's a big one I'd like to talk about. What if EVERY artist did this from now on? How do you prevent it? Should you? How do artists that put in massive physical effort feel about this? Screwed?

spoonjim• 5 years ago

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria

biztos3• 5 years ago

It's true that some art -- and most big-P Postmodern cultural products -- require a lot of prior knowledge of their context in order to get much out of them, and I agree this is hostile to a general audience.

But first, some of it does manage to be engaging and even fun ; and second, I blame the universities and not the Art World per se. There's a lot of very idea-centric work in the museums and in private collections, but the stuff that (probably) makes your eyes roll is not a big part of it. And the business of speaking in a priestly tongue unintelligible to the laity is absolutely a product of our (mostly US) universities in the last 20 years or so. Art critics within that caste do their best to promote artists of the same caste -- and have done for ages -- but it only goes so far.

That said, this:

Contemporary artists with any skill now work in classical styles, illustrations, or graphic design.

...is obviously and demonstrably false for, I dunno, say >= 90% of all professional artists making a living at it today. Which leaves you with a pretty circular definition of "skill" I guess.

silicon24013• 5 years ago

Modern art is a great example of how semantics don't change reality. You can call modern art art, but the average person will never put something like the pieces you described in the same category as something like a Michelangelo painting.

thrwyoilarticle4• 5 years ago

Isn't that survivorship bias? Most artists from any period can't compete with Michelangelo. And why bother trying to compete with it today when we can get a Michelangelo print for one millionth of the price?

CobrastanJorji• 5 years ago

The average person is (perhaps unfortunately) not the judge of art. Duchamp signed a urinal and stuck it in a museum over a hundred years ago, and the average person certainly didn't consider that art, and today the stupid thing is absolutely in art history textbooks with Michelangelo.

The praise is different, to be sure. Michelangelo's work is a achievement, technically, historically, and artistically. Scrawling "my kid could do this" in marker and hanging it in a museum isn't trying for any of that, but it does provoke thought and emotion and discussion, and that's what it's trying successfully to do. The artist does not expect anyone to say "wow, such amazing technical talent, they must have studied calligraphy for years, they are surely Michelangelo reborn." Is it great art? Well, I'm not an art critic, I dunno, but if I saw it in a museum it'd probably make me think and feel more than some random landscape.

klyrs3• 5 years ago

Last time I went to MOMA, there was a huge composition that looked like an all-black canvas. Didn't look out of place. But when you get closer, find that it's covered in a thick layer of dead flies. It was a hoot. Take or leave the composition itself; the biggest fun was in watching other patrons' reaction to the piece.

When I buy art, it's usually from folks who live on the street, not from galleries.

edit: found it https://www.damienhirst.com/texts1/series/fly

NautilusWave• 5 years ago

What a ride from "I could do that!" to "Why would anyone do that!?"

thrwyoilarticle4• 5 years ago

It's unfair not to mention how much some historic art sucks. I went to the Tate Britain and a large section of the historic works were 'aristocrat pays someone to paint his family very flatteringly but with obvious lighting and perspective flaws'. If you take a step back and imagine a celebrity today commissioning the same kind of artwork, it becomes painfully obvious how egotistical and unworthy of praise these works are.

See also: displaying unfinished sketches. Nice for a collector but let's not pretend there's any artistic value in it.

tomcam• 5 years ago

IMHO unfinished sketches by great artists can be amazing little stories unto themselves. They can give you insight into the creation process of the artist, which fascinates me. And sometimes they are even more fresh and dynamic than the finished work.

beambot• 5 years ago

I once rode in an original Model T. Ride was horrible: super slow, very uncomfortable, and the handling was ghastly. But clearly we don't judge "ancient" developments exclusively by modern standards...

Artwork of old was commissioned and preserved by the wealthy. All of the old works are rare (relatively), fairly impressive for the time, and some are true masterpieces.

dylan6043• 5 years ago

It depends on your view point. A lot of art is critized for the artist's abilities and techniques to create the art and much less for the subject matter. The David could have been any random dude, but it is the ability of accurately recreating that randome dude in stone that makes it impressive. Some of the painted pieces that are extremely large and take up an entire museum wall are impressive just for the shear accomplisment. Yes, it helps that it looks so real as well.

See also: displaying unfinished sketches. Nice for a collector but let's not pretend there's any artistic value in it.

If you imagine those sketches being underneath the painting and realizing that those sketches were how the artist worked on creating the actual piece is interesting in the same way watching behind-the-scenes videos on how a movie was made are interesting--to those that are interested in the first place. Similar to Show HN articles on some use of fad language to redo something else already in existence. If you have no interest in that language or the thing being made, they aren't interesting.

biztos3• 5 years ago

See also: displaying unfinished sketches.

Depending on the artist and the sketch, I'm quite happy to see it also. Sketches can provide a lot of super interesting context about other works. And sometimes they're quite good by themselves.

There's also no "value" in watching, say, Novak Djokovic practice his serves. Unless you care about tennis, in which case you'd probably watch with rapt attention.

Same thing, basically, for sketches by good and/or important artists.

Xylakant2• 5 years ago

The most memorable art exhibitions for me are modern. There's a lot of trash, but one particularly memorable piece is (or was, it's been a while) hanging right on top of the exit door of the Berlinische Galerie. It's just a unpretentious ticker that scrolls a single sentence in red dots: "Do you feel better now?". True, anyone could have done that. But the placement, the simplicity, the style resonated with me in that moment so that I remember that ticker better than Mona Lisa in Paris.

88840-8855• 5 years ago

Yup, same for me. It was a TV in a room with a video on a loop displaying a woman in a mirror who was ripping our her hair and repeating "art must be beautiful".

First thought it was dumb, but then i caught myself thinking about it. This is 4 years ago now and I still remember it, while the Rembrandts and Monets have never provoked any feeling or thought in me.

elisbce• 5 years ago

You are confused of being memorable with being artistic or valuable. I could scare you with a big TV screen showing dead bodies, and that would be the most memorable thing you see that entire month.

m_ke• 5 years ago

My worst date ever was a trip to MOMA, I had to go to a museum as an assignment for an art history class. The girl must have thought I was a weirdo for taking her there and we pretty much stopped talking after that night.

dylan6043• 5 years ago

I mean, yeah. Context my friend. If you go on a date, it should be for the shared experience of whatever you're doing. Taking someone with you while you do homework is not that. It's no different than bringing a date to work to watch you work. Few dates will actually appreciate that experience.

user-the-name• 5 years ago

So this either says something about the entire field of modern art and the huge number of artists creating it.

Or it says something about you.

dan_quixote• 5 years ago

Is it not just a case of survivorship bias? I'd expect that the historical stuff in museums is carefully (not randomly) selected. There were probably all kinds of crap art from the same era that simply got trashed.

panda888888• 5 years ago

But modern art is funny! There's a difference between art and craft. If you prefer craft, that's fine. At least in my book, modern art isn't about craft. It's about making you think. Sometimes it's stupid, overdone, plays into tropes too much, etc., but usually it invokes an emotion.

For example, consider Banksy's painting that shredded itself. That's hilarious! The people who accidentally left a pineapple in a museum, only to return later and find that it had been covered with a glass case? That's equally funny. And in this instance, props to the artist for deciding to take the money and run. It fits the title of their work.

littlestymaar• 5 years ago

I actually like this kind of art, I find it funny and entertaining. It's like real-life 9gag or reddit shitposting.

What I don't like though, is that those shitposters get paid hundreds of thousand dollars, or even million, often in public money (or “charity” money which is a way to avoid taxes and is eventually public money), because they have a network (it's not even their “name” that matters because practically no-one know them in the public, they just happen to know the right persons).

stuff4ben• 5 years ago

Good reminder to never pay upfront for work (or art in this case).

maldeh• 5 years ago

"Art is what you can get away with."

- Andy Warhol

citizenpaul• 5 years ago

Modern art is money laundering. It is crazy how it has taken over the entire industry.

scns• 5 years ago

In Germany, an art collective rented the plot adjacent to the plot where Björn Höcke, a far-right politician from the AFD lives and installed a miniature holocaust memorial there. All lawsuits against it have been dismissed. Text is in german, DeepL [1] may be of help.

[0] https://politicalbeauty.de/holocaust-mahnmal-bornhagen.html

[1] https://www.deepl.com/translator#de/en/

yial• 5 years ago

After reading about this, I’m convinced that it’s mostly marketing.

He’s supposed to return the money in 2022. If he doesn’t, I’ll be convinced that this wasn’t just a marketing stunt after he thought up an alternative.

He thought up a fun way to play with this concept of being handed so much in cash… the museum then went along with this idea.

The resulting publicity, and that fact that the money is supposed to be returned… really seems like brilliant marketing.

Leparamour3• 5 years ago

Unless his newly found fame attracts another group of more physical extraction "artists".

delaynomore• 5 years ago

This artist just one-upped Robert Rauschenberg

Ref: https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/40/639

sakopov• 5 years ago

This reminds me of a man who ate the exhibit at a Miami museum consisting of a banana taped to a wall and then proclaimed that it was an art performance [1]. The exhibit was supposedly going for $120K-150K.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/performance-artist-eats...

hedora• 5 years ago

I’m hoping some smart ass offers to buy it from the artist for $100,000, but only on the condition that he not return the money to the museum.

Clearly the museum got a good deal; good luck showing damages in court! Mwuhahah.

jboggan• 5 years ago

"And then you get an artist / He says he doesn't want to paint at all / He takes an empty canvas / And sticks it on the wall"

- Dire Straits, "In The Gallery" (1979)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-v6JeolLzw&t=8s

timwaagh• 5 years ago

I think it's brilliant. Hope they let him keep it.

...But why all the commentary on social inequality? It's more than a little... rich

onemoresoop• 5 years ago

To me all this cleverness has become a bit boring. I am aware that there is a story behind all these "masterpieces" and the story makes the art more or less, but it's become such a predictable trick-fest that I stopped paying attention. It's not even an original statement, it's been done countless times before. Am I missing anything?

anonu2• 5 years ago

The publicity towards the museum is worth every penny of that $84k.

The best part is the work is fairly unreproducible now. Few artists will dare deliver blank canvases.

_fat_santa• 5 years ago

I think this is brilliant. Art is supposed to inspire emotion and tell a story. Thought doing it in a different way, this piece quite literally demonstrates the purest form of "story behind the art".

No doubt the artist will be giving the money back, this seems to be too perfect not to be the plan from the getgo. My only question is, was the museum aware of this plan from the start and is the "omg where's out money" is just manufactured for the marketing.

Either way whether just for marketing or the entire point of the art piece, brilliant.

anonu2• 5 years ago

Why would you be so sure the money will be returned?

pcurve• 5 years ago

Considering the publicity, I think both parties benefited. The only loser is general public.

Having majored in fine arts, I appreciate all kinds of art forms. Even Banksy's work demonstrates mastery of the medium. Hell, I'd challenge most people to recreate Rothko's paintings.

But this? It's an expression. It's a commentary. It can be a lot of things. But to me, it's not art.

kyleblarson• 5 years ago

Well it works for Hunter Biden so why not?

TheRealNGenius• 5 years ago

Well would you look at that, according to my criteria [1] that’s not art!

[1] https://wndr.xyz/posts/9fjM1tOJO7MWX4fYw3AU2Q==/what-s-art-a...

SkipperCat2• 5 years ago

With enough press like this, the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art might make that money back in visitors. Art can be just as much about absurdity as it can be about talent. Just look at Marcel Duchamp.

mrb• 5 years ago

The canvases would have been ten times better (IMHO) if the artist had sloppily and quickly written "Take the Money and Run" on them, and maybe even left the brush and paint on the floor below the canvas

But then, maybe I'm wrong, and that's why I'm not an artist :)

klyrs3• 5 years ago

Upon some reflection, I have decided that this is indeed art. It's clearly in the succession of Dadaism; a critique of art critique. It opens up for a very peculiar legal challenge. Every blank canvas sold after today can be seen as a derivative or blatant copy of this work. I'd love to see this artist sue a producer of blank canvases for royalties. Alternatively, if he didn't make the frame and stretch the canvas himself, the manufacturer can likewise sue the artist. Please let this make it as far as the courts. I'll make popcorn.

mongol2• 5 years ago

(Google Translated)

Liljevalch's benches were designed by the art gallery's architect Carl Bergsten, but it is the artist Dan Wolgers who has made them famous.

Before a group exhibition at Liljevalch's in the autumn of 1992, in which Dan Wolgers would participate, he - as his only contribution - removed two of the art gallery's benches and sold them at Stockholm's Auktionsverk. The whole thing was a protest against the low exhibition fees that artists were offered by the country's art institutions. According to Dan Wolger's calculations, the rather modest sum from the sale of the benches would correspond to a reasonable compensation for his participation in Liljevalchs. He was reported to the police by private individuals, received a suspended sentence and a 60-day fine. When the letter with the court decision and payment card arrived, he sold it unopened to a collector and thus earned the fine together. Liljevalchs bought back the benches and showed them at the exhibition to a very interested audience.

https://liljevalchs.se/butiken/tandstickor-banken/

Edit: Apparently, a matchbox with an illustration of the benches can now be purchased in the museum's gift shop.

mongol2• 5 years ago

Dan Wolgers was also contracted to design the cover of the Stockholm phonebook (yellow pages). His contribution? His name and phone number on the front page.

https://bukowskis.com/sv/lots/874985-dan-wolgers-telefonkata...

spywaregorilla• 5 years ago

While walking around Germany I found a truck that appeared to be a traveling dadaist art museum. It was unattended and you could walk in and see a bunch of shelves with exhibit labels. The shelves were all empty. I was not sure if that was intended. Or if perhaps it was actually a traveling museum and it's pieces were being exhibited somewhere.

PerkinWarwick• 5 years ago

This man is a genius. We've hit Peak Modern Art.

Honestly, you can't buy this kind of PR. Do a dozen more, number and sign them on the back, profit.

blablabla123• 5 years ago

In school it used to be a running gag to speculate how astonished the philosophy teacher would be if someone would hand in an essay with just the word "No".

bazhova• 5 years ago

"The work is that I have taken their money," Haaning stated.

I hope he enjoys the second half of his art - legal action

dcanelhas• 5 years ago

I feel like there is a parallel between this and NFTs to be made but I don't think I understand enough about either to phrase it adequately. Superficially though, I believe the price paid for those specific canvases make them "non-fungible" (I don't think the museum would just throw them away now) and I guess one could argue that they qualify as tokens, too.

aussiegreenie• 5 years ago

Those two works have generated more publicity and awareness of the artist than anything he/she has produced. The Gallery should be ecstatic.

Personally, my guess he/she has doubled the value of his/hers existing works.

emi420• 5 years ago

It looks very similar to this other piece of art:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erased_de_Kooning_Drawing

Art or heist? A Danish artist took $84k and sent a museum 2 blank canvases

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