[imagesource: Niels Fabæk/Kunsten Museum of Modern Art]

It is the job of an artist to subvert our expectations.

This generally allows them to get away with much that might be considered deplorable for any other person.

Take Danish artist Jens Haaning, for example, who was given $84 000 (around R1,3 million) by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark, to recreate some works he had made in 2007 and 2010.

Instead of using it as per the contract, he shamelessly turned in two blank white canvases titled “Take the Money and Run”:

Image: Kunsten Museum of Modern Art

He was supposed to give them something that would use the actual cash, like his 2007 piece titled “An Average Austrian Year Income”:

Image: Jens Ziehe/Courtesy Sabsay Gallery

Or his 2010 version titled “An Average Danish Annual Income”:

Image: Twitter

This looks like a painfully familiar situation. [Insert joke about Zuma taking our money and running.]

More from CBS News:

In addition to compensation for the work, Haaning was also give bank notes to use in the work, museum director Lasse Andersson told CBS News via email.

Their contract even stated the museum would give Haaning an additional 6 000 euros to update the work, if needed, Andersson said.

At the time the works were initially exhibited, the Danish piece highlighted the average income of 328 000 kroner, approximately $37 800, while the average Austrian salary illustrated was around €25 000, or $29 000.

The museum made sure to put in the contract that the $84 000 given to Haaning is not his and must be paid back when the exhibition, called ‘Work it Out’, closes on January 16 next year.

Haaning, everyone:

Image: flipr.com

Andersson was away at the time the blank canvases arrived, finding out via stressed emails from colleagues.

He says he laughed when he saw them:

“Jens is known for his conceptual and activistic art with a humoristic touch. And he gave us that – but also a bit of a wake up call as everyone know wonders were did the money go,” he said.

The money wasn’t put into the frame as was expected, because according to Haaning, “everyone would like to have more money”:

In our society, work industries are valued differently,” [he] said in a statement.

“The artwork is essentially about the working conditions of artists. It is a statement saying that we also have the responsibility of questioning the structures that we are part of. And if these structures are completely unreasonable, we must break with them. It can be your marriage, your work – it can be any type of societal structure”.

Reminds us a bit of that moment when an artist ate another artist’s banana taped to a wall, which was priced at R1,7 million.

Time will tell if Haaning gives back the money after the exhibition, as the contract stipulates.

[source:cbsnews]