Danish court orders artist to repay museum €67,000 after turning in blank canvases

A Copenhagen court yesterday ordered a Danish artist to return about €67,000 (500,000 kroner) to a museum after he supplied it with two blank canvases for a project he named "Take the Money and Run".

Kunsten Museum in Aalborg had intended for Jens Haaning, 54, to embed the banknotes in two pieces of art in 2021. Instead, he gave it blank canvases. The art project was intended as a statement on salaries in Denmark and Austria, reports the BBC.

"The work is that I have taken their money," he said.

The museum asked for the artist to return all the money, around 534,000 kroner (£61,000 / €71,635 / $76,539) - but Haaning refused. Now, after a long legal battle, a Copenhagen court on Monday ordered Haaning to refund the museum 492,549 kroner.

It said, the figure was equivalent to the sum the museum had given him minus the artist's fee and the mounting cost.

Kunsten Museum Director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvases in 2021, and decided to show the works anyway.

"He stirred up my curatorial staff and he also stirred me up a bit, but I also had a laugh because it was really humoristic," he said.

After the judgment, Haaning said that he did not plan to take the case any further.

"It has been good for my work, but it also puts me in an unmanageable situation where I don't really know what to do," he added.

He also said the museum had made "much, much more" money than what it invested thanks to the publicity surrounding the affair.