Danish artist takes the money and runs
A Danish museum loaned an artist 534,000 kroner (over €71,800) in cash to recreate old artworks of his using the banknotes, but he ended up pocketing the money and sending blank canvasses with a new title: “Take the Money and Run”.
Jens Haaning, a Danish artist, was commissioned by the Kunsten Museum in the western city of Aalborg to reproduce two works using the cash – Danish kroner and euros – to represent the annual salary in Denmark and Austria.
But the museum’s director Lasse Andersson told AFP that “two days before the opening of the exhibition we got an email from Jens telling us he won’t be showing the works we agreed on”.
The artist was true to his word, sending two blank canvasses.
Mr Andersson said he laughed out loud and decided to show the works anyway in the museum’s modern art exhibition that opened on 24 September.
While the museum’s director has seen the funny side so far, he indicated that would only last until the end of the exhibition.
France lops metre off Mont Blanc’s height
French experts say they have measured Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in western Europe, at almost a metre lower than its previous official height.
Geographical experts said that after an expedition in mid-September the mighty mountain in the heart of the French Alps was 4,807.81 metres high, lower than their last published estimate of 4,808.72 metres in 2017.
“Now it’s up to climatologists, glaciologists and other scientists to look at all the data collected and put forward all the theories to explain this phenomenon,” they told a press conference in the town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, at the foot of Mont Blanc.
As alarm grows worldwide over the melting of glaciers, the official height of Mont Blanc has been on a downward slide for over a decade. The highest reading was 4,810.90 metres in 2007.
The mountain has been losing an average of 13 centimetres in height annually since 2001, the geographical experts said.
Walking stick owned by Michael Collins sold for €60,000
A walking stick reputedly owned by Michael Collins has sold for more than five times its estimate at auction in Belfast.
The phone buyer, from the Republic, purchased the stick for £52,000 (€60,000) plus fees at a sale at Bloomfield, a record for the auction house.
Police files tracking Collins’ activities during the War of Independence also sold for £6,800 (€7,900) at the police and military-themed sale.
It was also bought by a phone bidder from the Republic.
The stick was bought by an as yet unidentified organisation in the Republic.
It is hoped it could be displayed publicly in the near future.