Museum Lends Artist $84K, Who Keeps It, Calling It “Art”

Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? It is a question with no definitive answer. But it is a question that creates a lot of controversy, especially when there is a lot of money involved. The artist argues that he has completed his contract, the museum says that he did not. You decide.

Watch the video and then do the accompanying English language exercises.

The news is a consistent source of entertainment, knowledge and discovery that never ceases to exist and always comes out with more and more material each day. Because it plays such a vital part in our lives and is so important to keep up with, it is without a doubt a piece of your everyday routine that can’t go ignored.

Whether it is to understand the ramifications of recent legislation passed, to hear about recent events and grasp the potential consequences to your country, or simply hear about what is happening in other countries in order to compare them to what’s happening in yours, the news is certainly a staple in our lives and the most consistent way to get information.

This is why Scrambled Eggs has decided to unite two of your biggest worlds: learning English and keeping up with what is happening in the world. We hope our challenging daily exercises, composed of listening, vocabulary and comprehension exercises in English, will satisfy both of those above worlds in a satisfactory and also entertaining way.

So enough about introductions, let’s get to today’s Learn English with the News topic:

Adapted from this article

Now that you’ve had a listen, let’s put your knowledge to the test with some of our vocabulary and comprehension exercises:

And that’s it for today’s English lesson, where you can improve your English with the news and current events. Do you have any comments or special requests for us for the next edition of Learn English with the News? Be sure to leave any feedback you have in the comments section below, as we would love to help you on your quest to learn the English language!

For other Learn English with the News segments, be sure to check out the rest of our posts:

https://scrambledeggsinglese.it/tag/learn-english-with-the-news/

Full Text:

A new art exhibition in Denmark ran into problems when an artist, Jens Haaning, who was supposed to use $84,000 to create two reproductions of famous earlier works instead kept the money. The exhibition, called Work It Out, is based on a theme: the future of labor.

Haaning previously used framed cash to represent the average annual salaries of an Austrian and a Dane.

However, when gallery staff received the pieces, they were shocked: the frames were empty. Haaning says he is keeping the money in the name of art.

The new piece, which he calls “Take the Money and Run,” has caused a dispute between Haaning and the museum on the topics of labor, the value of work and contractual obligations, precisely the theme of the exhibit itself.

While Haaning’s new work is displayed in the museum, they are still trying to retrieve the $84,000, hoping that it will be returned before January or they will have to contemplate legal action. Haaning has stated that he has no plans to give back the cash, nor is he worried about any consequences. He believes that he has created a better piece of work than simply recreating the older pieces as planned.

Haaning’s piece is not the first work to question the value of art itself. In 2019 Maurizio Cattelan taped a banana to a wall. Banksy shredded a painting at auction in 2018. And, in 1958, Yves Klein exhibited an empty room to thousands of people—an invisible work of art.