Jens Haaning: "Take The Money and Run"

The title of the artwork was a clue to the artist’s intentions — “Take the Money and Run.”

A Danish museum gave about $83,000 to an artist to reproduce a pair of works displaying the cash, reflecting the nature of work in the modern world.

Instead the artist, Jens Haaning, delivered two blank canvases without a scrap of currency in sight, which are featured in the exhibition that opened last week at the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Haaning concedes that he did almost no actual work on the project after receiving a commission from the museum, in the northern city of Aalborg, but says he is keeping the cash — in the name of art, of course.

“This is only a piece of art if I don’t return the money,” Mr. Haaning said in an interview. “I believe that I have created a good and relevant piece of artwork, which could be hung on the wall.”

The reaction from the Kunsten Museum has been mixed — at least publicly.

Artistic merits aside, Mr. Haaning did not fulfill his original commission, Lasse Andersson, the museum’s director, said in an interview. He said the artist was given 532,549 Danish kroner to reproduce two of his previous works, in which he had framed piles of kroner and euro bills to represent annual wages earned by workers in Austria and Denmark.

Therefore, the museum expects Mr. Haaning — whose actual commission payment had been set at 10,000 kroner, less than $1,600, plus expenses — to return the money that was supposed to be contained in the artworks after the exhibit closes in January, Mr. Andersson said. Otherwise, he added, he is prepared to take legal action.

Read the full article in the New York Times here.