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

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

#11

Post by ryanmcdonough »

kryptiskt wrote: post #7
ryanmcdonough wrote: post #6

Museum director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvasses 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," the museum's director, Lasse Andersson So the museum director was happy, curators were interested and they were on display - feels like the…

He got to keep his fee, what he didn't get to keep was the cash that he was lent that was supposed to be part of the installation.

He said the work was taking their money, unless the contract specifically said

“The artist shall utilise the bank notes to visually reproduce a specific artwork, such as the Mona Lisa. The bank notes should form the actual colours and contours of the artwork, and the final piece should not be a mere abstract interpretation.”

Maybe it did and that’s why they got the money back, but if not I’d side with the artist

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

#12

Post by kawhah »

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #4

> Museum director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvasses in 2021, and decided to show the works anyway. I would have thought choosing to exhibit the two pieces after inspecting them would be seen as acceptance by the museum.

The museum lent the artist money as well as paying him to produce the works. Accepting the art submitted does not invalidate the artist's requirement to repay the loan.

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

#13

Post by dagw »

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #4

> Museum director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvasses in 2021, and decided to show the works anyway. I would have thought choosing to exhibit the two pieces after inspecting them would be seen as acceptance by the museum.

Headline is slightly misleading. He doesn't have to pay back his base fee and and actual material costs. What he does have to pay back is the additional money he was supposed to spend on the work, plus legal fees. When he pitched the work and got the commission he said an annual average danish salary in cash would be integrated into the work, and the museum agreed to give him this money on top of his fees. When the money wasn't used in this way in the work the museum received, the museum decided they wanted that money back.

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

#14

Post by x86hacker1010 »

mg wrote: post #8

This reminds me of a common theme in the art world. I wonder if there is a name for it. Maybe "Low effort art"? Examples off the top of my head: John Cage "composed" a song consisting of just silence. Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal which he simply purchased from a store. Yves Klein exhibited 11 paintings that were exactly the same. They were simply blue, no structures or subject. But he priced them all differently…

Maybe you are thinking of Dadaism?

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

#15

Post by michaelt »

ryanmcdonough wrote: post #6

Museum director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvasses 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," the museum's director, Lasse Andersson So the museum director was happy, curators were interested and they were on display - feels like the…

> So the museum director was happy, curators were interested and they were on display - feels like the money was his?

Well, the context is they paid him to reproduce previous works, such as "An Average Danish Year Income, 2010" [1] which was literally comprised of 278500 Danish Kroner, mounted and framed.

If he's contracted to produce something, and decides to produce something different instead, it seems pretty clear the money wasn't his.

Interestingly, he's not the first artist to frame cash and put it in an art gallery - for example K Foundation's money-as-art works, "Money: A Major Body Of Cash" [2]

[1] https://www.sabsay.com/artists/43-jens-haaning/works/9668-je... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation#Money:_A_Major_Bo...

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

#16

Post by ryanmcdonough »

dagw wrote: post #13
BuildTheRobots wrote: post #4

> Museum director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvasses in 2021, and decided to show the works anyway. I would have thought choosing to exhibit the two pieces after inspecting them would be seen as acceptance by the museum.

Headline is slightly misleading. He doesn't have to pay back his base fee and and actual material costs. What he does have to pay back is the additional money he was supposed to spend on the work, plus legal fees. When he pitched the work and got the commission he said an annual average danish salary in cash would be integrated into the work, and the museum agreed to give him this money on top of his fees. When the m…

I wonder if galleries will now have clauses like

“The artist shall utilise the bank notes to visually reproduce a specific artwork, such as the Mona Lisa. The bank notes should form the actual colours and contours of the artwork, and the final piece should not be a mere abstract interpretation.”

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

#17

Post by dizhn »

kawhah wrote: post #12
BuildTheRobots wrote: post #4

> Museum director Lasse Andersson said that he had laughed out loud when he first saw the two blank canvasses in 2021, and decided to show the works anyway. I would have thought choosing to exhibit the two pieces after inspecting them would be seen as acceptance by the museum.

The museum lent the artist money as well as paying him to produce the works. Accepting the art submitted does not invalidate the artist's requirement to repay the loan.

The"artist" seems like the kind of guy who would easily say the quality of "the material (cash) they gave me wasn't good so I used something else instead. So we're even."

He's quoted as saying the musemum gained a lot more in publicity without mentioning the publicity he himself got while stealing the museum's money.

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

#18

Post by fodkodrasz »

mg wrote: post #8

This reminds me of a common theme in the art world. I wonder if there is a name for it. Maybe "Low effort art"? Examples off the top of my head: John Cage "composed" a song consisting of just silence. Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal which he simply purchased from a store. Yves Klein exhibited 11 paintings that were exactly the same. They were simply blue, no structures or subject. But he priced them all differently…

Classic postmodern. Shows the lack of something. Usually the lack of originality and the lack of any value.

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

#19

Post by pringk02 »

ryanmcdonough wrote: post #11
kryptiskt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He got to keep his fee, what he didn't get to keep was the cash that he was lent that was supposed to be part of the installation.

He said the work was taking their money, unless the contract specifically said “The artist shall utilise the bank notes to visually reproduce a specific artwork, such as the Mona Lisa. The bank notes should form the actual colours and contours of the artwork, and the final piece should not be a mere abstract interpretation.” Maybe it did and that’s why they got the money back, but if not I’d side with the artist

It seems that was basically what it was. He had an earlier 2010 work called "An Average Danish Year Income": https://www.sabsay.com/artists/43-jens-haaning/works/9668-je...

He was asked to reproduce it for 2021 using the money given

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

#20

Post by dreamcompiler »

mg wrote: post #8

This reminds me of a common theme in the art world. I wonder if there is a name for it. Maybe "Low effort art"? Examples off the top of my head: John Cage "composed" a song consisting of just silence. Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal which he simply purchased from a store. Yves Klein exhibited 11 paintings that were exactly the same. They were simply blue, no structures or subject. But he priced them all differently…

> John Cage "composed" a song consisting of just silence.

I used to think 4'33" was the most ridiculously arrogant piece of pseudo-art in the history of pseudo-art.

But people still talk about it today, 70 years after it was composed [0], and they will still be talking about it 500 years from now. So I've changed my mind. It does exactly what good art is supposed to do: It makes you ask questions.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

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