It's Called Art: Artist Ordered To Pay Museum More Than $77,000 After Selling Them Two Blank Canvases

The world of fine art is completely insane. None of it makes any lick of sense, and one artist took advantage of that and made a lot of money.

Money that they now have to give back.

According to the BBC, a court has ordered Danish artist Jens Haaning to pay The Kunsten Museum in Aalborg, Denmark, 500,000 kroner. That's just a bit under $77,000.

That's because the artist had been paid for an art piece and sent the museum exactly that. He titled the piece "Take The Money And Run" and it just so happened to be comprised of two blank canvases.

Perhaps he's a big Steve Miller Band fan, but the truth is it was actually meant to act as a form of performance art, with the piece being that Haaning was able to get the museum's money in the first place.

At least, that's what he said in court.

Which is a compelling case. How many times have we seen fine art dummies pay thousands for a banana stuck to a wall or a metal balloon animal? Too many, that's what I say.

And it just seems to me that Haaning did nothing but highlight that kind of insanity.

Two people take a look at "Take The Money And Run" by Jens Haaning. Yeah, it's just a blank canvas but that probably didn't stop one of these two from analyzing it to death. (Photo by HENNING BAGGER/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

The Art Museum Still Displayed The Blank Canvases

The museum didn't see it that way. Nonetheless, the absurdity of the situation did give them a laugh.

"He stirred up my curatorial staff and he also stirred me up a bit, but I also had a laugh because it was really humoristic," museum director Lasse Andersson said in a 2021 interview with the BBC.

Haason reportedly said that he had planned along to embed the money he got from the museum into the canvases, but that never happened.

In a way, I kind of feel like Haason got the short end of this one. The museum paid him for art, he gave them "art," and then it got all kinds of press. More than they would have gotten if he had painted a sunrise or something stupid.

Instead, he got the people talking, which would have meant people visiting the museum.

Tough break for him, but surely he's cooking up something fresh for people to overpay for.

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