Take the Money and Run

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I’m Quinn Rose and I didn't go to art school, but I still love to learn about art and have opinions about it.

Betty: And I'm Betty. I also didn't go to art school, but I also love to learn about art and sometimes read news about art and laugh about them.

Quinn: I think that news from the art world rarely makes mainstream news. I think the last time was probably the Banksy painting that got halfway shredded, which—we’re not going to do another full episode about Banksy. We did talk about Banksy and that painting did recently get resold, like the half shredded one, for like three times as much. Just saying we called it. But anyway, so [laughs] not what we're talking about today. We're talking about the latest piece of art news that has hit the internet, which went a little bit viral a couple months ago. After an artist, I'm just going to describe this as like the broad strokes, which is the first thing that I heard about it.Was all the headlines were like an artist gets commissioned to do a work of art for a museum, instead he pockets the money and submits blank canvases titled “Take the Money and Run.”

Betty: Yeah. I heard about this too. Like actually a friend of mine sent me this article and was just like, you know, have you heard about this? Cause it sounds ridiculous and quite, quite an interesting thing to read about.

Quinn: We're basically today going to go through what happened here. And then I think we're just going to talk about it because it's such a fascinating subject. And I think we're just going to like, you know, share thoughts and opinions. There are a couple of key things here that are important context. So first of all, this artist, his name is Jens Haaning. This happened in Denmark. So he's an established artists, he’s very well known, especially in Denmark. He's very well known for doing like pretty out of the box, provocative modern art. Like he is not a traditional artist by any means. And he's kind of, he's like a little rapscallion artist, you know, out there. That's his, that's his reputation. And this, the other major player in this is the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. So they have this exhibit that is, it’s up right now. So if you're in Denmark, check it out. The exhibition is called Work It Out. And this is all about work and the future of work. Some questions that are, that I'm quoting from their website right now that sort of the artists in this exhibit are tackling are “what is work and why do we work? Are there limits to our working lives Can we in the future create a more sustainable working life for the individual and society? And how can art and the art museum create the framework for new thinking about the working life of the future?” So they're making this exhibit, they hit him up and they're like, “hey, Haaning. 10 years ago you made these works.” It was called An Average Danish Annual Income and An Average Austrian Annual Income. They were first exhibited in 2007 and in 2010 and they use actual cash. It shows the average income of the two countries. Which translated into US dollars—sorry, Betty—but translated into US dollars, the Danish income was about a $37,800. The average Austrian income is about $29,000. And it’s, you know, it's in actual bills and it's this physical statement and physical display of average annual income, which obviously you can see why they would be interested for this works exhibition. So they're like, “hey, can you do this?” And he was like, "yeah, no problem.” And then two days, two days before the exhibition opens, he emails them and he’s like “actually? No,” and he mails them back—so these blank canvas containers were supposed to be full of the money and they were just empty and he's like, “this is called Take the Money and Run.” And I'm going to just say—I'm almost done the background and then I want to hear your initial thoughts. But my favorite thing about this is the museum director Andersson said that when he actually saw Take the Money and Run in person for the first time he laughed out loud. So what are your initial thoughts to this background?

Betty: Yeah, when I initially heard about this, like whenever I hear about news, like these shocking news in the art world, like my first instinct is to not have like an initial judgment about it because I'm like, there must, like there must be more. And there usually is. So like initially I was initially just kind of confused because I had thought that it was like he was supposed to be like paid this money for his artwork, but then I realized that oh no, it's actually, the money itself is the artwork. And yeah, like I thought it was, I thought it was really funny, but I would say that like, obviously this artist is well known in Denmark, but I've never heard of him. And most likely nobody else outside of Denmark has ever heard of him until now. And so I think similar to the last, some of the stuff we talked about before, like that one time we talked about these people burning a Banksy artwork to draw attention to NFTs, like immediately, I'm just like, well, this is probably some sort of publicity stunt type of thing. Which it kind of is. Like, I’m skeptical about it, but I'm like, this person is an artist. Like you know, he obviously wants to send some sort of message about it. And it, or it probably isn't just him committing fraud, but in a way it is.

Quinn: Wait, okay. You hit on so many important things there that I want to, that I want to talk about. First of all—but I do not think we can highlight this enough where I think the very common perception, and this was my perception when I first heard about this story is that like, he was paid money to create an artwork. And instead he sent back like this conceptual blank art. And when I first heard that and I was that's so funny and also like, kind of fair enough. But that's not what happened. They lent him $84,000 and he is contractually obligated to give it back. We're going to, I guess I’ll get into this now. This is $84,000 that they handed over to this guy—well they put it in his bank account, and there is a contract that says at the end of his exhibit in January, like you give us the money back because the money's supposed to be in the museum. And the museum directors are basically, like they're taking this like pretty well, but they're like “it's still our money and we do still expect him to give it back and we're hoping that he will and it'll be fine. But if he doesn't, you know, we might have to sue him a little bit.” Like there is kind of this energy where they're like, oh my God, please, please give it back.

Betty: Right now they're just probably hoping that he, when the time comes, when January rolls around. Cause I guess technically right now he hasn't totally like broke his contract. Like he says he intends to which sort of like, that's not okay, but he technically still has until January to change his mind. And it's possible when that date comes around and the exhibit closes, he might just be like, never mind, here's your money back. Cause he doesn't want to get sued. But well right now, he seems to say he has no intention of doing that.

Quinn: Okay at this point, I want to turn to like, what, as you were talking about like, oh, is this just a publicity stunt? And like, what is he actually saying with this? Because first of all, they basically, a lot of people have accused the museum of like, hey, is this a publicity stunt, were you in on it? And everyone in museum is like, "we swear to God we did not know about this.” Like he did this to us, which I believe. I totally believe. There is a part of this, almost no one who isn't like very involved in the contemporary art world would have heard of Jens Haaning before, who’s not in Denmark. And no one would have heard of the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art either. You know, like, it's not a world renowned museum. It seems very nice. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to diss this museum. I'm just saying like, this is not like—it’s not like the Louvre, you know. On one hand he may have pulled in a ton of monetary value in terms of pure publicity for this museum. There's an, there's an entire FAQ page just about this one piece on their website now, because it's so like, I mean obviously, so two people are looking it up. And they're like, hey, have you seen increased traffic from those? And they're like, ah, it's kinda too hard, too soon to tell like, you know, our exhibits are popular when they open, like who can say. But I'm saying like even a tiny percentage of people who heard about the story looked up the museum at all. And if even however many percentage of people who heard about the story, like are actually in Denmark or nearby and like decided to check it out for that reason. Like, if I was ain Denmark, I would 100% go. I mean, I feel like that has to be something. But, oh my God. Okay. I'm so, I'm having a ball about this, if you can’t tell. All of that was an aside to what I'm trying to get to, which was his actual sort of artist statement to this, which I think is interesting. And I wanted to do a little bit of a reading series. So I've sent you a quote from his press release that he made, obviously translated into English. And I was wondering if you could just read his, this quote from his press release for us.

Betty: “Everyone would like to have more money. And in our society, work industries are valued differently. 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 a part of. And if the structures are completely unreasonable, we must break with them. It can be your marriage, your work. It can be any type of societal structure." End quote.

Quinn: I think this is such an interesting and smart tact to take, especially if you remember the questions I read earlier that they say this exhibit is all about, which is, one of those was “how can art and the art museum create a framework for new thinking about the working life for the future?” And he literally just started playing Rihanna's B- Better Have My Money and walked out. [both laughing] So, what do you, what do you think about his statement here? What is your opinion?

Betty: Learning about what this artwork is a part of, like what the actual show, the show's message or theme, what it’s trying to explore, make this make a lot more sense. And I definitely agree that—I’ll get into it, like I still, like, there's still parts of it that kind of bother me right now right now, but I will say I do agree that it is smart in terms of like, getting attention to, you know, like what he's trying to draw attention to, which is again, working conditions of artists, and this show is about working conditions in general. So I think it, it definitely makes a lot more sense knowing what this show is about. Like what you were mentioning earlier is a lot of these news that we hear about in the art world is about things that are super expensive or works that are sold for millions of dollars or artists who are paid exorbitant amounts of money because they're so famous. But it does seem like Haaning as well as probably a lot of artists who display their works in the Kunsten Museum, as well as in most places, like don't make a lot of money, like that’s—and we've, I think we've talked about this before. But it's like, what makes the news are obviously these few people who have ungodly amount of money, but the reality is most artists are, like their work isn't valued in a way that's you know, reasonable or at least that's the argument Haaning seems to be making. I do like the idea, I do like the fact that he's drawing attention to this because I think, I think it's something that not a lot of people really talk about. Like we're always talking about the pieces that are, that are sold for millions of dollars.

Quinn: Yeah. And even within this piece—a really cool factor about this is we have a lot of exact monetary amounts, which also, this is a part where there's some discrepancies in his story and the museum's story. Which is quite interesting, but basically, so he claimed that he was—it was going to cost him about $3,000 out of pocket to recreate this art due to things about like, different amounts of money used and just like other expenses. And he claims that that was sort of the initial inspiration for taking this choice instead, of saying like this is unfair treatment and exploitative and why should I be paying out of pocket for this? And so I'm going to make this, this artistic statement about the relationships between artists and museums instead. However, the museum director Andersson claims that the contract that he is under was provided up to almost $7,000 for work expenses. So that amount of money that he said he would have been out of pocket should have been covered by this contract, according to the museum. Even further though, so this museum they don't, they're not acquiring this piece that he's, that he's making and recreating. They work, this museum primarily works in terms of just a viewing basis, rotating exhibits. And so they're not paying him to buy his work. He was going to receive a fee of 10,000 kroner, which is only like twelve, thirteen hundred dollars. Which, I mean not to say, I mean, if you want to give me $1,200, like I'll take it, but I'm saying like, that's not a ton for, you know, artwork. And plus there is a viewing fee that is allegedly determined by the Danish government. There was no specific information in these articles about what that amount was, but we can assume it's probably not a ton. So a couple different numbers flying around here. He claims it would have cost him money to make this, the museum is saying that's not true, but regardless he wasn't getting paid a ton to make it and there’s—listen, there's a whole conversation out there about like, oh, well, if he was just putting money in a frame, like how much money can you pay someone to do that anyway? But like that’s, that’s a conversation—that’s a whole separate conversation. We're operating under the assumption of like, okay, like he's an artist and this is his craft and he should be paid for his labor. So like, what is the amount that he should be paid for that labor, according to sort of like these different sides. And it's also fair to say, you know, he signed this contract, right? Like he is very much under contract. So shouldn’t he have just not signed the contract if he wasn't happy with the amount of money he was getting paid? But I mean, people do things all the time that exploit their labor because the world sucks. But anyway, there's a, I feel like that there is a lot of twists and turns to the monetary aspect of this.

Betty: Yeah, for sure. I do agree, like twelve, thirteen hundred dollars, again, better than zero. Like, it's probably better than not having work. So presumably he took it because he's like, well, it's something, but it really isn't a lot of money. And like, even to like, again, I don't know how much time and effort it is to put money into canvas, but yeah, just it's, it seems, it doesn't seem like it's a lot of money if somebody wants to make a living from doing this. Like I did read that you know, the Work It Out exhibition, I guess it's trying to explore working conditions of common people. Like, you know, this work is supposed to highlight the average wage of Austrian and Danish people. And then it's also supposed to explore like other aspects of working life and ways to make it sustainable for individuals and things like that. So it makes sense to question how artists are compensated in society. Is that fair? You know, along with like, you know, other questions that it asks about other professions. I think it is important as a part of this show to point out stuff like this. But I do think like one thing that I was mentioning earlier that bothers me, like, is the fact that, again, since this museum, like you mentioned, is not the Louvre. Like I presume it's not like the museum has a lot of money. And as somebody who has worked at a museum, really the museum itself is, is not rich. And also quite often they're publicly funded. So the money is technically taxpayers' dollars or at least partially comes from that. So it, it really just seems like, even though it, you know, he is pointing out like these unfairness about artists, like artists and how they're compensated, it seems like it's not fair to blame it on museums who are also kind of on the losing end quite often as well.

Quinn: That's a really interesting part of this because the museum has said— well not the building, the people who work at museum have said, we don't have a ton of money. They said that this money specifically that they lent him came from, and I quote, “a modest fund earmarked for building upkeep.” I think there's two different questions here, because I think there's the question of, is this a good piece of art? And then there's a question of is this an ethical piece of art? And I think that the second question is this interesting linchpin of like, who is the greater victim here, its it the artist or the museum? Not necessarily—things can be simultaneously true. I think that there are tons and tons of organizations that have very little money that are extremely exploitative. You hear this all the time, nonprofits, museums, anything to do with entertainment or culture, basically anything that is not extremely lucrative, like outside of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, you know, like there are all these places, but also like so often extremely exploitative from the people who work there and work with them because those are the kinds of places that people work with and work for because they were very passionate about it. And this is all getting to a point of like, oh boo hoo, like this guy, you know, like he's a pretty successful artist in Denmark, apparently. Like he talks about having miserable working conditions and it's like, some people work on farms, Haaning. Like that has to be said and acknowledged. But also, you know, he doesn't work on a farm. He's an artist. And so he's speaking through the medium that he has. And so all of us to say is like, no, I don't think that it's quote unquote “ethical” to steal from a not very well funded place, but that doesn't mean that the place is ethical either, and it doesn't make a statement that he's making invalid.

Betty: You know what that's, that's a great point. And again, like, I do, you know, knowing people who work in the museum and art gallery industry, it's true. It's not just the artists themselves who aren't paid very well. Like a lot of people I know who are museum staff, even curators, like people who are people who do like, in my opinion, very important work. Maybe not to other people. But they're quite often, they're not compensated well, like a lot of people work these contracts with no benefits and are not in the greatest working conditions. Again, it's not like sweatshops in a third world country miserable, but yeah, it's not great. And yeah, I've definitely heard about like, you know, people who do believe that like a lot of these, you know, museums or organizations that aren't very well-funded do try to take advantage of people and that is definitely the case. And I, and I think in a sense, like, at least to me, he's not just pointing out how, like he thinks like artists aren't being appreciated for their work. It's kind of like, it's a wider industry problem. But then it just, I guess the other thing that it makes me think of is like going back to your question of like, you know, is this a “good” work of art? And I'm doing air quotes with my hands. People can't see. But it is good, I feel like, if he can, if this particular work gets people to think about this question that he is invoking. But the problem is I feel like the general public of people who hear about this news is just going to see this as another, like, oh, this is just some artists doing a dumb stunt or like, you know, trying to be funny. Or—I feel like people are going to categorize this as another example of some contemporary artwork that they don't think is even real art. [laughs] And it now also involves an artist who is doing something unethical. So it's like, I feel like it doesn't paint artists in a good name and could actually have the negative effect of being more detrimental. Like people might value artists even less now because of it.

Quinn: Oh, yeah. I think a lot of people very much view this as like champagne problems kind of thing, because I also think that there's a very popular conception, and it's completely understandable why, but the very popular perception of like, anyone who's in a museum is rich. And like anyone who's in a museum is very successful. And like being—like the association with art museums is automatically very high status, which is not necessarily true at all. You can be in an art museum and still be very poor. You can have a million followers on Twitter and still be very poor. Like I think that the human brain, like it's extremely easy to connect visibility with success and financial success, especially, when I would say a good lot of the time, that correlation is actually much weaker than we would assume it is. I wanted to share my last kind of direct quotes that I have from him here, which are statements that he made on Danish radio, again translated into English. And first of all, I laughed out loud when I read this. He says, “the work is I have taken their money.” First of all, I want that—I want that on a t-shirt. “The work is I have taken their money" is so goddamn funny. [both laughing] He goes on to say, "it's not theft. It is a breach of contract and breach of contract is part of the work," which is the funniest distinction I've ever heard.

Betty: That's great.

Quinn: He's a conscientious objector to this contract that he signed. [laughs] Okay, but I do want to read the more serious quote and then we can discuss all of the above. And I alluded to this a second ago, but he also says “I encourage other people who have working conditions as miserable as mine to do the same. If they're sitting in some sh— job and not getting paid and are actually being asked to pay money to go to work”—again going back to discrepancies there—but “then grab what you can and beat it” is what he says. And I think we absolutely have to mention the fact that we are in a huge labor upheaval in—I know in the United States it's definitely happening. I assume it's very similar in Canada. And there are a lot of extremely real and extremely tragic reasons why there is a massive labor shortage right now, but one effect of this has been in addition to just people being fed up is an absolute tidal wave of people quitting their jobs. And quitting their jobs in some, sometimes quite satisfying and dramatic ways that are shared on social media. And it's not because like, oh, like working sucks. I mean, everyone knows working sucks. That's why you get paid to be there. But because labor practices in… a lot of places—I don't know if I can say most places, I haven't counted personally, but it feels like most places—especially in low wage positions, hourly positions, labor practices are so wildly exploitative and bosses are so cruel. And it's just simply not worth the money anymore to people. And so I think that this piece, while, again, like this is coming from like a guy who is like an artist in Denmark and we don't know his life situation, his personal financial situation or anything like that. I think that the message that he is trying to send is very much in line with the kind of temperature of the labor force out there right now.

Betty: I think I did read briefly that in this Work It Out exhibition, they have some other works. There is one where I can't find the name of the artist right now, but it examines the working conditions of nurses. And then another artist, Josh Kline, he has a a work that is a FedEx parcel that has reproductions of severed arms of delivery men, which is, I guess a way to talk about, maybe he's trying to say that working for FedEx is like having your arms cut off or I don't know. Like but yeah, like what you're saying is, is absolutely a thing that's happening right now. Like, you know, I'm sure it's happening everywhere. I've heard so many instances, just here in Canada of nurses just quitting. There is a huge shortage of nurses, like everywhere, again, in a time where healthcare work is so critical. And this, like I said, like I was saying before, yeah, I think it doesn't, it doesn't just call attention, or at least it seems like he's not just calling attention to like you know, artists who are not getting paid well, like he is saying he wants to like question these structures in general. The one thing that I do think I personally want to emphasize, like, you know, to people who hear about this news and just think it's a ridiculous art stunt. Which it kind of is, but like I think he is right, that the role of art museums isn't just to display pretty pictures. Like it's about talking about like important questions in society and having a conversation about these important issues. So is an art work that's just conceptual idea art? To me, it definitely can be like, it doesn't necessarily have to be something physical. I can just, like he said, the artwork is not the physical blank canvas. It is the action you took to breach the contract, which there is precedent for like, there's lots of artworks that’s not like the physical piece that is actually like a performance or, you know, whatever action that people took. And usually the types of works are to like question or talk about something, talk about an important issue in society. So I do think that's okay. But again, going back to what we were mentioning before, it's just, it takes away from his message when he is literally doing something unethical, like I think it covers up or it distracts from the message that he's trying to send.

Quinn: Yeah. It's just a very interesting little thought puzzle that he's created over like, is he the bad guy or not? And I think that a lot of that is going to come down to: does he give the money back? And it's such a weird, tricky thing. Cause it's like, oh, if it gives the money back then he's kind of, you know, taking the wind out of his own sails there. Because it like, it kind of wrecks the own statement he was making. But if he doesn't give the money back, then he has officially stolen $84,000, which is a—it’s a lot of money. I honestly don't know who I’m rooting for in this story. I think that this is, I completely agree with his message. I think—I love that his, that this has reached so far because I think that's great for him and the museum because it’s gotten so much publicity and like nobody loses there. I totally get your point about reinforcing negative ideas of artists and modern artists. But I also don't believe in respectability politics. So like, I'm like, whatever, if people have bad opinions because they haven’t researched it, like, that's not his fault. So that's my personal opinion. I just don't care about that stuff. [laughs] I guess my final concluding thought on this is just like, I just think it's so interesting and I honestly am like really glad it happens because I think it creates such an interesting conversation for people to have which is what art is trying to do. And that's awesome. I think he did a really good art piece in that way. And I mostly am just going to be really interested to see what happens to this money. Like, has this man spent this money? Like, is he going to distribute it to charity in a really sort of publicity stunt kind of way, is he going to spend it in a publicity stunt kind of way? Like, is he, is the statement going to continue? Is he going to give it back? I feel like this we're going to have to check in later.

Betty: Maybe we'll do a follow-up after January to see, to see what, what has happened. But yeah, like you mentioned earlier, this museum and presumably him has gotten a lot more attention because of this and now attention doesn't always mean money, but hey, maybe as a result of this, the museum can make $84,000 more than they did the year before. And maybe be cool with it, I don’t know.

Quinn: Yeah, that seems like a pretty big jump, but like, hey, maybe it's appreciation over time. You get that name recognition. You get those feet in the door. You never know. Alright, well, that is going to do it for us for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. You can find our show notes at relay.fm/pictorial. Or you can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @PictorialPod. You can also follow me on Instagram @aspiringrobotfm.

Betty: And you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram @articulationsv, and I am also on YouTube as ARTiculations. And speaking of YouTube, we have a YouTube channel, Pictorial Podcasts, where we upload video versions of our podcasts, usually a few weeks after the audio has gone out. For this particular episode, you'll probably just be seeing a blank canvas. So not as exciting as usual. But you know, you'll see something.

Quinn: It's just a blank video as a statement. Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts!