In 2021, the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art commissioned conceptual contemporary artist Jens Haaning to recreate two of his previous works. The works depicted the annual salaries of an Austrian and Dane worker using banknotes, lending him $76,000 for the artwork, which he was to return at the end of the museum’s Work it Out exhibition.

Jens Haaning instead returned two framed blank canvases to the museum, making his intentions of not returning the money clear: “This is only a piece of art if I don’t return the money,” Haaning stated in a New York Times interview. “I believe that I have created a good and relevant piece of artwork, which could be hung on the wall.”

Despite complaints from the museum, it was included in the Work it Out exhibition from Sept 2021 to Jan 2022, alongside a print-out of an email in which Haaning explained his work.

When the exhibition closed, Haaning kept to his promise and did not return the money, prompting the museum to file a lawsuit against the artist. Copenhagen City Court used the contract between the artist and museum and the disbursement receipt as evidence of an existing agreement to repay the lent money after the exhibition’s closing, adding that although Haaning has said that he did not intend to return the money, the museum hadn’t agreed to those terms. The court also explained that Haaning’s work was deficient, as he had agreed to deliver two different pieces according to his contract.

Haaning has been ordered to pay the museum back $70,000, allowing him to keep almost $6,000 from the loan as compensation for the showing of “Take the Money and Run.”

In a New York Times interview, Haaning explained that he expected the ruling and planned to contest it, having not yet repaid the museum, because keeping the money is itself the art.