Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg has announced that a settlement has been reached between artist Jens Haaning and the museum. With support from the Obel Family Foundation, the museum is now acquiring the work Take the Money and Run (2021). The museum made this announcement in a press release.
The story of how the museum lent Jens Haaning half a million Danish kroner (approximately EUR 66,700) made headlines around the world in 2021. Originally, the money was to be used to recreate two of Haaning’s works from 2007 and 2010. These would show the average annual income in Austria and Denmark in the form of the full amounts presented as actual banknotes (euros and Danish kroner) displayed in frames. The two works were to be featured in Work it Out, an exhibition about modern working life. But when the museum opened the shipping crates, they found only two empty frames and no trace of the money.
At the same time, the museum received an email from Haaning, who informed the museum that he had elected to create a new work, one still relevant to the exhibition concept. The new work bore the following title: Take the Money and Run (an Average Austrian year Income, 2007 and an Average Danish year Income, 2010). At the time, the artist told Kunstkritikk that the new work was about him taking the money.
This was followed by a few years of controversy and exchanges back and forth, not least in the media, where artist and museum were regularly at cross purposes. The new work – consisting of the empty frames – was on display at the museum alongside the artist’s explanatory email throughout the exhibition period. Afterwards, the work remained in the custody of Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg. Haaning demanded the work back, while the museum demanded its money back.
In September 2023, Kunsten won the dispute in the Copenhagen District Court, which ordered Haaning to pay the costs of the case and to pay back the museum DKK 492,549. Haaning appealed the verdict, and the case was to be heard in the High Court a year from now. Since then, the parties have allegedly continued to negotiate, and now a settlement has been reached regarding the money – with the added outcome that the work becomes part of the museum’s collection.
Director of Kunsten, Lasse Andersson, said: “It is important for contemporary art, for the artist Jens Haaning, for Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, and for the artwork Take the Money and Run that a solution has been found. This means that Jens Haaning’s Take the Money and Run is secured as part of Kunsten’s collection and can be displayed to the public.”
Director of the Obel Family Foundation, John Amund Tønnes, added: “The conflict over the Haaning artwork has put the museum in a difficult situation, and we are very pleased to be able to contribute to the resolution of the matter amicably while the artwork ends up in the museum where it belongs.”
At Kunsten, Take the Money and Run joins another piece by Haaning: the museum already owns his artwork Turkish Jokes (1994).
“Jens Haaning’s practice is significant, and he is among the most prominent Danish artists internationally, with exhibitions at venues such as Documenta XI in Kassel, MoMA PS1 in New York, and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin,” reads the press release, which compares the controversy surrounding Take the Money and Run with another work in the museum’s collection, the Danish Surrealist Wilhelm Freddie’s Sex-paralysappeal (Sex Paralysis Appeal, 1936). Back in its day, Freddie’s work was seized by the police and the artist was sentenced to ten days in prison as the sculpture was deemed to feature prohibited pornographic content.
Kunsten did not disclose the cost of acquiring the controversial work. Jens Haaning cannot disclose any details about the settlement either, but in an interview with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation he said: “I have been allowed to keep the half a million kroner, and I have received some money on top of that. And they in turn are allowed to keep the work. That’s all I dare say – perhaps I have already said too much.”
