Danish artist told to repay museum €67,000 after turning in blank canvasses

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to News@lemmy.world – 189 points –
bbc.com

A Danish artist has been ordered to return nearly 500,000 kroner (€67,000) to a museum after he supplied it with two blank canvasses for a project he named "Take the Money and Run".

22

I think the problem is this: the man was paid for his work. People don't seem to get that.

The deal was that he was paid an amount of money to make an art piece. That art piece was supposed to use another bunch of money as props. He was supposed to then give back the prop money after the exhibition was over.

When he made his work that used none of the money, that was fine. The museum rolled with it and gave him his dues. They didn't even ask for the prop money back when they realised he wasn't using it.

The problem is that he's now supposed to return the prop money that was to be used in the artwork, and he's refusing to.

He's already been paid, he's just being a shit to an organisation offering a public service.

He should pay them back in prop money.

Hell yeah! Let's fuck over museums, you know... those big evil corporations that house art and culture for society. Many are even nonprofits and help fund art projects and provide resources for creativity to underprivileged schools. Gross!

You do know the whole thing is probably increasing visibility of the museum and could be leveraged for more funding/donations than it would have received from just having typical artwork.

Sometimes the art is the story. Actually, most of the time the art is the story of how it was made.

Key word is probably.

The only story here is a artist who stole money. I'm not arguing over being paid to make art and providing a blank canvas. I'm referring to the money that is supposed to be returned at the end of the contract.

That was the prop money. I guess if they'd known he'd steal it, they would've used fake prop money instead.

Haaning told Danish radio:

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. 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.

I really hate his justification because it seems incredibly selfish and short-sighted. Imagine if he murdered someone and said it wasn't murder because it was art. It can be both, and society might also argue it is not art or should not normatively be art.

I hate that he's trying to pass it off as some heroic Robin Hood gesture. If anyone actually follows his advice they're likely to get arrested.

Seems like the obvious extension of Klein's monochromes.

The artist need not actually furnish the canvas with paint, for if we truly appreciate art we find that we carry the impression of painting within us. If you cannot appreciate this work, you must be lacking in imagination and vision, and therefore what right have you to judge the artist?

Also, props to the artist for creating the most unforgeable painting in history... or the most easily forgeable, depending on how you look at it.

When you are running out of time and you don't have anything and you send a corrupted word/pdf at last minute to win time.

Doesn't feel that different from a lot of other super obvious self-congratulatory modern "art". Isn't the argument always "the art is in your observation" or "the act itself is the art" or some such bull? Just put the blank canvases on display and charge people to look at them like always.