Picture Of The Week (3)

Modern art can be bewildering at times and sometimes you wonder whether the artist is taking the piss.

Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg in Denmark commissioned Danish artist, Jens Haaning, to recreate his 2010 paintings, “An Average Danish Annual Income” and “An Average Austrian Annual Income”. These two pieces of work each featured cash to the value of the then average incomes in the two countries. The museum gave him $84,000 to use in the works and undertook to provide an extra $6,000 if required.

The canvases were duly delivered by the artist to the Museum. When the staff unpacked the canvases, they had a bit of a surprise. Both were blank and were entitled “Take the Money and Run”.

Although the curator laughed at first, he now fails to see the funny side and is demanding that Haaning either fulfils his side of the bargain or pays the money back. Haaning responded by saying “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”.

It will end in tears, methinks.