The frame game
Art may be the ultimate luxury, but Alexander Kennedy says it’s possible to pick up a bargain, and an innovative new scheme even means you can pay for your art in interest-free instalments.
cspite French artist Marcel
Duchamp‘s suggestion of
using a Rembrandt as an ironing board. priceless things ol'ten tend to be useless. ll your tired and disillusioned shopping soul is crying out to move beyond the clothing racks and the record stores in the search for a higher purpose. art is the perl’ect commodity. (‘ulture can be bought. it only you know how to go about it.
There are as many ways to buy art as there are 'must haye‘ pieces. The most traditional route to purchasing a piece is \‘ia the gallery. but you can also contact an artist directly or
trawl through sortie web pages. It
you don’t haye the ready cash but need an art lix right now. a good place to start looking is the Scottish Arts (‘ouncil website. Here. almost 30 galleries haye opted into the Own Art scheme. in which the SA(' ol'l'ers interest—tree loans from U00 tip to £2000. which cart be added to the price of a more expensive piece.
The loan is paid back in ten monthly instalments. so you should be able to purchase a piece on eyen the most modest ol‘ incomes. The Modern Institute. Sorcha Dallas (both based in (ilasgow) and Doggerlisher (lidinburgh) haye now joined the list. which includes galleries from all oyer Scotland.
It is using this scheme that. armed with a commission from List editor Nick Barley and a £500 budget. I apply my learned eye and very green art buying skills to the task at hand original artwork.
l‘irstly. Barley tells me his briel':
Get...atitle
purchasing a piece ol
‘l’m looking l’or an original artwork - not a print -- which will be a birthday present l‘or my wile. ldeally I‘d like it to be made by someone who is liying or working in Scotland. but that’s not essential.‘
It shouldn‘t be dil‘l‘icult to find something that lits the bill. but with names and images hurtling through
my head (and paranoid l‘antasics ol‘
kniyes being sharpened il‘ I get it wrong) sticking to the ‘()wn Art' scheme seems the most sensible option. Barley won‘t eyeii notice £50 a month: going without the odd boo/y lunch won‘t kill him. Alter leal'ing through pages on
gallery websites. and scrolling through works by internationally acclaimed artists. I chose llana llalperin at [)oggerl’isher. lidinburgh. llalperin recently exhibited in the gallery. showing photographs and drawings based on her stay near Iildl’ell. a volcanic ash cone in Iceland. Her work develops the Land Art tradition ol~ the 70s. dragging it back into the gallery space. and imbuing the process with personal narrative (the yolcano has been dormant for 30 years —- haying last erupted at the time ol her birth).
Alter a few weeks of deliberation. Barley decides to take ‘Boiling Milk Soll‘ataras’. a large photograph mounted on board (pictured below). And the price'.’ He will only tell me that I‘ve blown his budget . . .
www.scottisharts.org.uk; www.countereditions.com; www.britart.co.uk; www.fruitmarket.co.uk; www.sorchadallas.com; www.themoderninstitute.com
‘Boiling Milk Solfataras’ by llana Halperin
What’s on offer from £50 to £1500 (give or take a little)
£50-£1OO Admittedly, it is difficult to get an objet dad for under zi t()ii, l)tit Lapland. a collective of artists from Glasgow and Edinburgh. produce affordable multiples. ‘Guggenheim Level' by Jim Hamlyn is a tiny wood and brass spirit level angled to match the incline of the spiralling ramp in the Guggenheim. New York (5330).
£100—£500 What about a cake for the art lover in your life? Sarah Lucas has (:r(3£1l(}(l :1 limited edition of 'rich and ruin soaketi' cakes. V/Ill) photographs of toilets. fag ends and meat printed on the icing (S7480). It you'd rather have something that won't go past its sell-by date so quickly. you could buy a limited edition print by Ellen Gallagher for little more than. S‘l()0 from the Fruitinarket Gallery in Edinburgh. The Modern Institute has an edition of posters by Simon Starling that documents ten of his recent projects. and it's on sale for ,iust 8‘200. Or you could have a Tract-2y Einin print from Counter Editions for 5.1300.
£500-£1,500+
Martin Maloney's sauce-bottle lamp
bases from Counter Editions iiiicludiiig hand-painted neo- expressionist tigures encircling the lampshade-i are both practical and enlightening “Good Doggie'. 3‘090r A more serious corner construction by Michael Stiiiiipf ilroin Sorcha Dallas) would be my best buy and set you back about S‘lBtX) — a snip at the price.
Katy McAu/ay wants to acquire a little extra status
required). You could, for
of land on Mars to single
The going price for the
I Nobody wants to be a nobody. That’s why Pop Idol, superheroes and dictators were invented. If you’re of the ilk that longs for fame, fortune, or even just respect and a better chance of being able to book a table in a top-class restaurant, then buying into a little bit of breeding may be what you need.
Acquiring a title can be achieved in about as many ways as you can stuff a stag (which may be
100 THE LIST at; ()(:l :«1 No. moi.
example, engage in some cerebral labour and earn yourself a PhD. You could join the army. You could do an immense amount of good work for your local community and hope that the Queen notices.
Alternatively, as a number of online lawyers have suggested, there’s absolutely nothing wrong (in a strictly legal sense) with changing your name by Deed Poll from, say, Fred McTavish to Baron McTavish.
However, in much the same way as a clutch of companies - some of questionable repute - has noticed our strange enthusiasm for purchasing the intangible from plots
shares in our favourite football clubs, some online gift retailers are now making it possible to procure for yourself the title of laird.
A quirk in Scottish law entitles any person to use the designation ‘Laird of somewhere’ merely by owning land in that ‘somewhere’. As a result, a number of companies are selling very small ‘souvenir’ plots of land in the Highlands that enable buyers to become lairds.
privilege is usually around £40, which can entitle you to receive a copy of the title deed and the right to visit your ‘plot’ of land. Does it mean you are a member of the aristocracy? No. Can you put your title on your driving licence or credit card? No. Will we all be getting a lairdship for Christmas anyway? You can bet your tartan wellies we will.
I To buy a title, go to www. scotti'shhi'gh/andti't/es.com.