Jens Haaning
Jens Haaning (born 1965) is a Danish conceptual, contemporary artist living and working in Copenhagen.

Haaning has produced a body of artworks since the 1990s, which attempt to offer an acute reflection of a complex and changing society in the West. The works address the existing structures of power and communication in the global society and necessitate a debate around subjects such as migration, displacement, nationalism, and other aspects related to human coexistence.[1]
Often the works consist of interventions in institutional structures or public spaces. Examples of these are: Middelburg Summer 1996 (1996), which was a temporary relocation of a factory employing immigrant workers to the exhibition space in De Vleeshal, Middelburg, The Netherlands, and Turkish Jokes (1994), a sound piece with a tape-recording of jokes, told by Turks in their native language, which was originally played in a public square in Oslo, Norway. Haaning is known for provocative artwork, with one art historian calling him "the ultimate trickster".[2] In 2021, Haaning was lent $84,000 to create pieces for KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg in Denmark. Haaning sent the museum two blank canvases entitled Take the Money and Run.[3]
Exhibitions
Haaning has exhibited extensively, the main exhibitions include: Documenta XI, Kassel, Germany (2002), the 9th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey (2005), Traffic at CAPC Museé d'art contemporain, Bordeaux, France (1996), Vienna Secession, Vienna, Austria (1997, 1998, 2007), Publicness at ICA, London, England (2003), the 6th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2002, 2006) and latest a large survey of Haaning’s works from the 1990s until 2017 at Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Gothenburg, Sweden (2017).
References
- "GIBCA • Jens Haaning". www.gibca.se. Archived from the original on 2019-01-13. Retrieved 2017-12-08. Archived 2019-01-13 at the Wayback Machine
- "Jenns Hanning Delivered Two Blank Canvases to a Danish Museum". The New York Times. September 1, 2021. Retrieved September 1, 2021.
- Sherwood, H., "Danish artist delivers empty frames for $84k as low pay protest: Denmark museum of modern art says Jens Haaning’s Take the Money and Run violates legal agreement", The Guardian, September 28, 2021.