Glasgow-based sculpture group art gifts will widen community access to the arts

Feb 11, 2021

Glasgow-based sculpture group art gifts will widen community access to the arts

World-class sculptures will be donated to a Scottish primary school and a housing association as part of a drive to broaden access to art.

Glasgow-based Sculpture Placement Group (SPG) is gifting the works as part of what’s believed to be the first ever subscription scheme of its kind.

SPG Club members each receive two specially commissioned limited-edition works a year by internationally acclaimed sculptors at affordable prices. Each edition is limited to 39 pieces of which four will be donated to a charity or an organisation serving the community.

Andy Holden, whose work features in The Tate permanent collection, is soon to start work on the first piece and SPG Club members will be able to follow its development before it is delivered in the early summer.

The second will be from Holly Hendry who has exhibited throughout the UK and Europe and is currently preparing a solo show and large-scale outdoor commission at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea.

The sculptures will be specifically designed for indoor settings.

A work by each of the artists will be donated to Kirktonholme Primary School in East Kilbride and Govanhill Housing Association in Glasgow. SPG is in discussion with other groups about two further donations.

Kate V Robertson, of Sculpture Placement Group, said: “We set up SPG Club to give many more people the chance to enjoy, and collect, sculpture by high quality contemporary artists.

“We know what a struggle the past year has been for teachers and everyone working in schools. We are really pleased to be teaming up with Kirktonholme Primary as the staff there have such strong belief in the importance of the arts.

“Likewise we are big admirers of Govanhill Housing Association – they are really committed to the community, and we hope that the sculptures will be something they really enjoy.

“We will work with the school and housing association to provide information and resources that will help to appreciate the artworks. 

“It’s really important that everyone feels entitled to experience art in their surroundings and hope that these gifts will enhance their new homes.”

Linda Wright, Headteacher of Kirktonholme Primary School, said: “We are looking forward to using sculptures as creative inspiration for the students and believe that the arts will be important when we are into the recovery phase of this pandemic.”

Some SPG Club memberships are still available – the last chance to sign up for 2021 membership is 28 February – so it could make a superb Valentine’s Day gift.

SPG Club membership is £45 a month and subscribers receive:

  • Two limited edition sculptures a year delivered directly to their homes
  • A certificate of authentication for each piece
  • Artist profiles and information about and how each work was madeG
  • Behind-the-scenes access to the making of each sculpture 
  • Live artist talks and events 
  • Information and advice on how to care for and display the sculptures.  

SPG Club is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation and Creative Scotland.

SPG, which also runs a sculpture adoption scheme, is dedicated to getting contemporary art into new settings and locations. The not-for-profit Community Interest Company aims to find ways of making art more affordable and create a more sustainable market while ensuring that artists – many of whom are on low incomes – are properly paid for their work.

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Notes to editors

About Sculpture Placement Group

  • SPG is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company formed in 2017, to address the practical and economic challenges of working in the arts – particularly with sculpture, to diversify audiences to contemporary sculpture and to find ways for the arts to work more sustainably.
  • Sculpture Adoption Scheme is one of SPG’s flagship projects. Since launching in 2018, over 100 artworks and over 50 organisations have registered. It has completed 35 adoptions, to a variety of organisations.
  • Current adopters include City of Glasgow College; Glasgow University; The Centre, Cumbernauld; Glasgow City Chambers; Page/Park Architects; Dumfries & Galloway College; Tramway & the Hidden Gardens; Bannockburn House; Grantown Society, the Highlands.

About the artists

  • Andy Holden’s work includes sculpture, large installations, painting, pop, performance, animation and multi-screen-videos. His first major exhibition was Art Now: Andy Holden (2010) at TATE Britain.
  • Holden created Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, an hour-long animated film which explored the idea that the world is now best understood as a cartoon. It was first shown at Glasgow International and later toured to Ukraine, Canada, America, Germany, Malta, Dubai, Denmark and Tate Britain, and was included in the Future Generation Art Prize at the Venice Biennale in 2017.
  • Holden’s recent work Natural Selection, commissioned by Artangel, was made in collaboration with his father Peter Holden and explored questions of nature and nurture, and mankind’s changing relation to the natural word. The work toured to Leeds art Gallery, Towner Art Gallery, Bristol Museum and four venues in Scotland before being acquired by the Tate of the permanent collection. Holden has been selected for the British Art Show 9 which opens in 2021.
  • Holly Hendry is often known for site-responsive sculptures and installations concerned with what lives beneath the surface – from hidden underground spaces to the interior workings of the body. Casting is central to her process in which she uses materials including steel, jesmonite, silicone, ash, charcoal, lipstick, soap, foam, marble, aluminium and grit. 
  • Her projects often directly reference scientific research. 
  • Hendry had a solo exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park titled The Dump is Full of Images in September 2019. Her installation Deep Soil Thrombosiswas included in the Biennale de Lyon 2019. 
  • In 2018, Hendry was chosen as the inaugural artist for the Art Block in Selfridges’ flagship store in London. She created the monumental sculpture Cenotaph for the Liverpool Biennial in the same year. The work was included in the Biennial’s touring programme and shown at The Tetley, Leeds, in June 2019.

About Creative Scotland

  • Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. We distribute funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery.

To find out more

For media information contact Kate V Robertson at [email protected] or Matthew Shelley at [email protected] or 07786704299.