The Scotsman - Business - Art for artists' pensions sake

I missed this article back on April 19 when it came out, but I guess there's a minor international trend to set up retirement trusts with contributed art works. From Tim Corrnwell, Arts Correspondent, writing in the Business Section of The Scotsman:

A PENSION trust where artists will pay installments in their own artworks was launched in London yesterday, dangling the prospect of a retirement nest egg for a very insecure profession.

The UK trust would aim to cover 250 working artists, vetted by experts before they join the scheme. They would contribute 20 artworks over 20 years, to be sold when prices are judged to be right...

A similar scheme was launched in the United States last year. After the launch of the UK scheme yesterday, Berlin is set to be next. The Artist Pension Trust offered few details on what cash sums artists could expect to receive from a collection that would run to 2,000 works of visual art, from video to paintings...

On that last point, perhaps it's because in the real world it's impossible for The Artist Pension Trust to have any idea whatsoever what prices the art will fetch down the road. Especially the art they haven't seen yet. At a guess.

Despite Mr. Cornwell's minor confusion about where money comes from and how it is allocated and by whom, the article is overall an interesting read. (Use title link.)

For more details, see www.artistpensiontrust.org.

I wish The Artist Pension Trust and its associated artists all the luck in the world. After all, the program is showing a fair amount of both initiative and prudence, and it promotes personal responsibility in a community-cushioned kind of way. I don't know about you, but I find that much better than asking for government handouts ripped from the pockets of taxpayers.