Jens Haaning – Blank Canvases – What Art?

Jens Haaning – Blank Canvases – What Art?

Today’s story is called “I’m tired…”

Thanks for reading.

So did I write a story just there? No, not at all, but was it art? A Danish artist is being sued over just such a head-scratcher.

Jens Haaning was commissioned by the Kunsten Museum to complete two works of art for an exhibit on labor conditions. So he played the part, stuck his toe in the waters of labor conditions, and did a touching piece on wage theft – he gave them two blank canvases and kept the money.

We’re not talking coffee money or even steak money. We’re talking 492,549 kroner (or for Americans, $69,894.)

He lost, but he’s appealing.

They actually did let him keep about four grand of it because they ran with the blank canvases during the exhibit. He got paid four grand for two canvases that probably cost him twenty bucks. So stop cooking up meth everybody, fine art is way more lucrative.

And I’m sure you remember when artist Maurizio Cattelan taped a banana to the wall in a gallery and called it art? If our Danish friend here had just smeared a little peanut butter and jelly on the canvases, he could’ve pocketed the 492,549 kroner handily. I think it takes guts (and a good lawyer on retainer) to just hand in two blankos like that.

There is, of course, a little more to the story. Some of the money was supposed to be affixed to the paintings, because the artist did that for another piece. So maybe the Haaning sees himself as a work of art, and he merely affixed those bills to the insides of his pockets. If he showed up at the museum and touched the canvases, would the transitive property of half-assed “Emperor-wears-no-clothes” art make his contract fulfilled?

I mean, if you bought a CD with all silent tracks, you’d be pissed, right? But you can’t limit art. All you can do is pay $120,000 for a banana and a scrap of duct tape.

More from Liam Sweeny.