Hornsleth Arms Investment Corporation

- a Hornsleth solo exhibition at Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen, 16th of May - 18th of June 2008

Detailed information: Danish version, English Version, Pressemedelelse på dansk

Large image of share
Large image of painted share

Large image of share in gallery show 1
Large image of share in gallery show 2
Large image of share in gallery show 3
Large image of share in gallery show 4

HAIC is an art work

HAIC is a shareholder company incorporated under the laws of Denmark

HAIC invests in listet arms related industries on the stockexchanges

HAIC has A-shares and B-shares

HAIC A-shares controls the company and are controlled by the artist

HAIC issues 100 B-shares to potential investors

HAIC shares are art works of art

HAIC shares are certified certificates of ownership

HAIC shares can be issued in various sizes

HAIC shares can be issued as works on canvas or on paper

HAIC shares can be painted upon additionally

HAIC will make all information accessible on the website www.hornsleth.com

HAIC dedicates by application part of its profits to invest in idealistic projects

HAIC dedicates part of its profits in to buy rain forest areas to establish Hornsleth Nature Reserves

HAIC will let the art and the artists further the process

The shares will be exhibited and offered to potential investors at the Hornsleth solo show:

The idea is to establish and run a certified shareholder company, which in itself is an art work, a social sculpture reflecting on art theoretical and contemporary cultural issues.

Can a company be an art work?
Can a art work be a share and vice versa?
Can an art work at the same time be valuable as art and as a certified share in a company?
Can you deal with having a piece of the arms industry in your living room?
Can the art collector take a position to the global arms issues by having an HAIC share ?

HAIC is a long term art project initiated in May 2008 with a specific plan:

1. June, emission, production and delivery of shares to collectors

2. July 3rd, extra general assembly, registration of company capital, DKK 535.000,00

3. Identifying exactly which companies produce which arms and arms related services

4. Researching which arms shares are performing best

5. Speculating in selected arms shares

6. October 2009 general assembly for share holders according to danish corporate law

7. The assembly will present the annual report and discuss events and further actions

8. Book to be published with documentation and texts, presented at general assembly

Press release danish english

Image of share high res

Image of painted share high res

Image of Kristian von Hornsleth high res

Interview clip TV DR2 14 may 2008 in danish

May 2008 Hornsleth Arms Investment Corporation aps CVR no. 31416957

Danish PDF English Version PDF

GPV Industri, GPVB, DK
Dassault Aviation, AM FP, F
EADS EAD FP, F
Rheinmetall, RHM GY, D
Thyssenkrupp TKA GY, D
Finmeccanica FNC IM, I
Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace, KOG, NO
Santa Barbara, owned by General Dynamics, ES, USA
BAE Systems Bofors, ejet af BA/LN, S
Saab, SAABB SS, S
MOWAG, owened by General Dynamics, CH, USA
BAE Systems, BA / LN, UK
Cobham plc COB LN, UK
Rolls-Royce, RR / LN,UK
BAE Systems Inc., BA / LN, USA
Boeing BA, USA
General Electric (primarily through GEAE) GE, USA
General Dynamics GD, USA
Honeywell HON, USA
Lockheed-Martin, LMT, USA
Raytheon Corporation RTN, USA

The first part of the stock capital of 50.000 € was spent on weapons shares. It is the intentention to place the online realtime stock curves of each aquired stock on this website soon, as well as the collective value.
Look at the current group of stocks in the H.A.I.C. here!

Read all about which countries have which arms industries, and see how much they spend according thier GNP

Interviewed by Kristian von Hornsleth

TEXT 2

Kristian Hornsleth fullfills the idea of Joseph Beuys "art versus capital" to the extreme. Today the value of an artwork is received as an highly profitable investment. The idea of art as human and humane capital is losing its meaning. The symbiosis between ethics and aesthetics is completely lost in the postmodernistic nihlistic marketing of arts.

Von Hornsleth shows with this project the other side of investments, the dark side of the medal. Traditionally a lot of the money of evil businesses like drugs or weapons, or the possibilities of tax shelters were constructed through the art world and possible through the rising prieces of artworks.

The people who keep the capital in societies and profit from societies lost the consciousness of responsibility of capital instead they pose themselves as protegees of artists and literats. In combination with the highly profitable investment it is nothing but a token gesture. Capital should be linked to responsibility. Responsibility is linked to humanism, no responsibilty, no humanism. The project shows the lack of ethics as part of the aesthetics and shows a brillant example for negative dialectics.

Wolf-Günter Thiel, art historian, Berlin, May 2008

TEXT 3

This text is an extract of the longer version more info below

Weapon investment has always been one of the most important businesses. Nowadays, though, it has even become a precondition for the functioning of our globalised economy. Whether you want to make safe investments in oil exploitation in civil war areas or you want to get your fair share of the cocaine plantation in Colombia, investing in 'The Hornsleth Arms Investment Corporation', HAIC, represents the last resort of transcendentality of humanity by truly inhuman means. The price for over-humanised societies, in which free and functioning market economies pretend political participation and democratic liberal rights, is to be paid by an holy alliance of weapon production and weapon use in order to maintain the binary logic of accumulation and repression. "Invest in HAIC, weapons for coca and oil for food!"

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© Sebastian Lasinger, artist and social scentist, Linz /Michael G. Kraft, philosopher and social scientist, Vienna