Redefining Conceptual Art - A Metaphorical Blank Canvas Of Jens Haaning

If you though a banana stuck to a wall is peculiar art, you’re in for a treat as a Danish artist, Jens Haaning, is redefining the realm of conceptual art and challenging the current working conditions of artists.

What happened?

The Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg in Denmark commissioned Jens Haaning to reproduce two of his earlier pieces made in the 2010s, An Average Danish Annual Income and An Average Austrian Annual Income, first exhibited in 2007 where he represented the annual wages of Austrian and Danish workers by framing piles of kroner and euro bills. The museum provided the artist with 532,549 Danish kroner (approximately $84,000) to use in creating the reproductions. When asked to return the money and fulfill the contract the artist said: "This is only a piece of art if I don't return the money.”

The reboots were meant to appear in Work it Out, the museum’s current exhibition on the role of artists in the labor.

Along with an undisclosed compensation for the project, the institution lent Haaning $84,000 — plus offered an additional 6,000 Euros, if needed — to be displayed in the work itself, in order to address the inflation that has occurred since the works were originally exhibited.

When the works arrived at the museum, its staff was understandably surprised to find two blank canvases, with exactly $0 in cash on them. Nevertheless, they are currently being exhibited and are experiencing a high inflow of popularity, mostly due to the scandal that surrounds them.

While the contract technically pertains that the money has to only be returned in January so it hasn’t been broken just yet, Haaning is very clear about his intention to keep it. “The work is that I have taken their money,” Haaning told the Danish radio program P1 Morgen. “It’s not theft. It is a breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work. Take the Money and Run questions artists’ rights and their working conditions in order to establish more equitable norms within the art industry”.

THE WORK IS THAT I HAVE TAKEN THEIR MONEY. IT’S NOT THEFT. IT IS A BREACH OF CONTRACT, AND BREACH OF CONTRACT IS PART OF THE WORK.

 What does it mean?

Conceptual art assumes that ideas will take precedent instead of a certain aesthetic, which is what this artwork definitely is. Is this a heist? Perhaps, even though the museum still seems to be pretty amused by the situation and I’m sure delighted by the amount of publicity the whole stunt has generated, which ultimately brings me to my next point.

How scandalous is this really? In the current world of contemporary art, where bananas  are taped to a wall, cheese has hair and pebbles are scattered on the floor and called art, is a blank canvas so extremist?

The idea behind contemporary art in itself is that what is expressed by the artist in a physical realm is only a part of the story of the piece. Whether we can definitively say that Haaning has not done exactly what he was supposed to, which is reproduce, we can just as easily agree (and the museum does as well) that what he created instead is a completely new piece, with an updated and  revolutionized outlook on today’s reality of a contemporary artist.

All of which is proof that he has grown as an artist and his work has evolved and developed, from a more simplistic and realistic portrayal of wealth to a fully metaphorical rebellion against the current existence and reality of the art market.

Is the publicity collected and accumulated from this stunt what they were after all along? The other thought that comes to mind is that it’s too good to be true and uncoordinated. The exhibition is experiencing more traffic than it ever would without a publicity stunt such as this one and so it brings a question — is the “happening” nature of this spectacle an artwork in itself?

The scandal redefining the pure nature of what constitutes an art work — and similarly to the outrage which followed the shredding of Banksy’s Girl With Balloon — is starting to attract a performative addition to the piece of work that the artists produce. Not to say that it doesn’t coincide with where our society is heading as we explore the deep realms of turning our lives into more and more shocking performances exhibited on social media.

Haaning’s updated work of art recognized the realities of today’s publicity, and for that he will be remembered and praised certainly more than if he had obediently turned in his own reproduction. With this he pushed the idea of conceptual art further, continuing the work of his peers who help us reimagine and redefine our own relationship to contemporary art.

And so the artists are starting to go into the direction of commenting on their business with ridicule, but is it a legitimate premise when the art market has evolved to such level of pretentiousness that it’s begging to be criticized? Perhaps by adding a level of separation in order to gain the needed perspective and distance from the seemingly scary and overly serious industry, they have found themselves in the middle of is exactly what is needed to refresh its image and identity.

I agree with the philosophy of questioning the reality and current nature of the art world, I think it is absolutely important for the people, the artists and other members of the community to keep an active check on the consciousness of the industry. Nevertheless, it has become increasingly popular to conduct stunts for the sake of popularity and scandal alone, I think it’s also important to always keep in mind who benefits from the controversy itself.

The point of art was always to shock, to outrage, to push boundaries, to challenge ideas. But what every artist can tell you is that their ultimate goal is to become recognizable enough to have a platform through which they can express their ideas and for them to be noticed. What comes with that is fame and money.

So it really brings me to this idea of a short spectrum between doing something for the good and sake of art, clashed with this urge and need to be recognized and heard and doing it for the sake of publicity and the shock factor.

Take for example Marina Abramovic or Damien Hirst, who even though initially pioneered the world of performance and conceptual art, who pushed all boundaries of what we thought was beauty and emotion, with their rising popularity have become more commercialized, that one might even risk to say less authentic and raw in the work they’re doing because of the rising stakes that come with influence.

It’s a delicate balance of two contradicting stakes between pushing the ideas forward and being famous enough for your ideas to actually be noticed. But when does conceptual art become a media spectacle for pure publicity? Where are we going to draw this delicate line?

What has been happening in the sphere of the art world and especially during the pandemic — which was extremely difficult for many artists — is worth discussing. This is what Haaning wanted to do here, and it’s more than a worthy cause.

What I want to turn our attention to is to keep being mindful about whether certain methods of acquiring attention are actually truly serving the purpose of the conversation, or whether auctioning off bigger and bigger scandals is the way to go in forming a real dialogue over what is happening and changing in the art world.