“Isn’t it true that the absence of the portrait is itself the portrait?” One could paraphrase a well-known advertisement to tell the story – with Kafkaesque connotations – which comes from the Kunsten Museum in Copenhagen. Modern art, as we know, is often hermetic: from the banana hung with scotch by Maurizio Cattelan to the so-called “Artist’s shit” (copyright Piero Manzoni) there are many works that have sometimes made the purists of beauty raise their eyebrows. What happened in Copenhagen, however, seems to have come out of the pages of a script of the comedy of the absurd, with a painter – such as Jens Haaning – who has raised the bar of Dadaism to unexplored peaks.
These are the facts: the museum management had commissioned Haaning to reissue some old works: the theme of the exhibition, on display until mid-January, is the relationship between art and work. And if on the first it is the critics who have to pronounce themselves, it was the Danish painter who turned up his nose for the treatment of the second: the fee, in fact, was agreed at 3 thousand and 400 euros. Too little according to Haaning, who decided to take revenge with a mockery in full Lupine style: he delivered only the white framed canvases to the museum, pocketing the banknotes that should have adorned them. A booty of 534 thousand crowns, more than 72 thousand euros. Asked for explanations from the top museums, the painter surpassed himself, defending the goodness of his performance: “This is the true art: having stolen their money”, declared in an interview with Danish radio Dr. “They paid me a starvation wages, so I, who have always fought against social injustices, reacted, mine is not a crime, I took what was due to me ».
A tale a la Robin Hood, which however was denied by the director of the Kunsten Museum, Lasse Andersson: «We have respected every agreement with Haaning, and he harms us in return. Ours is a lively and important museum in Danish cultural life, but at the same time a poor institution with little money. Our remuneration was honest and fair at market levels, especially since the two works we had commissioned were not new paintings, but replicas of two of his previous paintings ». The museum wants the money back by January 16, and is threatening to file a complaint. But Haaning has refused any negotiation for now, inviting all the underpaid artists to do like him. In the meantime, however, he has already renamed his work: “Take the money and run!”.