Art fairs are expensive for dealers but popular with the buying public, as Clare Henry discovers in the run-up to Glasgow's event.

COMMERCIALISM does not usually rear its ugly head in my column. But occasionally it's useful to look at the economics of art: at the difficulties both artists and dealers face trying to earn a living in the recessionary 1990s.

Art fairs are one popular way of showing, buying, and trading art. The best-known, long-established fairs are at Basle, Chicago, and Madrid. London failed in its efforts to make Olympia an international venue in the 1980s and Islington took over. Now in its eighth year, last week ART96 looked better than it had for a while, with visitor figures up to 30,000 from only 20,000 last year.

London is one thing, but how will the new Glasgow Art Fair fare? That's the question currently on everyone's lips. Glasgow is putting #180,000 into a three-day art fair in George Square from April 19-21 as part of its 1996 Visual Arts Festival. It's the first time Glasgow has put this toe in the water, although Edinburgh has tried it before - with little success - at Festival time.

Glasgow hopes for between 35 to 40 galleries to fill the two pavilions to be built on either side of the Scott monument. Each stand will cost the dealer #1000 for a basic affair with three lights. Extra walls, additional lights, or telephone in the tent cost more. This is cheap, for it's subsidised by the city plus #25,000 from GDA and #18,000 from the European Regional Development Fund. So far the Scottish Arts Council has only agreed to fund subsidised galleries like Transmission - which seems a bit hard on commercial folk like Ewan Mundy and Cyril Gerber who has done sterling work on Glasgow's steering committee. Transmission and company will get 75% costs covered.

London dealers Redfern and Piccadilly told me on Friday that the main reason they had agreed to come to Glasgow's fair was ``because of Gerber and old time's sake, with relationships going back over 25 years''. Pamela McMahon, of the district council, says she's very pleased with the response so far and even has a waiting list. ``Some big London names like Gimpels, Flowers, and Raab are already committed.''

Ironically neither Redfern nor Piccadilly is at ART96 (nor top dealers Waddington or Juda) which features 80 leading British commercial gal-leries, including eight from Scotland and many others such as Flying Colours, Jill George, and Courcoux, exhibiting Scot-tish work priced from #75 to #50,000.

Islington is a good annual indicator of sales and climate. From the vigorous, high-flying, high-priced 1980s, when the art market was buoyant as never before (and probably never will be again), to the trough-of-despond early 1990s, when London froze in the grip of negative equity, Lloyd's crash, and crumbling yuppies, it's interesting to pick up the story today when it's a buyers' market.

``The fair shows there's more serious interest from genuine collectors and fewer time wasters than last year,'' says Jane Houldsworth of Flying Colours. ``Scots are as popular as ever.'' She sold 40 of her 80 pictures.

However, ART96 is expensive for dealers. Flowers East (which shows five Scots among its stable: Howson, Watt, Bellany, Kondracki, and Renny Tait) paid #12,000 for their big stand at #175 a metre if booked six months ahead or #185 thereafter, while it cost Edinburgh's Scottish Gallery #8000 to take a small stand (#1000 just for lights: ``a rip off'') because of transport. Dealers pay 50% of the selling price; artists pay for canvas, paint, materials, framing, etc - which leaves then little profit.

So why do people buy at art fairs? ``I think they feel comfortable in a supermarket sort of setting,'' say Flowers. ``It's accessible. There's less pressure and it's not precious.'' And, explained Mundy, there's also a noticeable knock-on or spin-off factor when new clients then go on after the fair to buy from galleries.

But costs worry everyone. ``Other countries offer government subsidy,'' explains Flowers. The city of Madrid underwrites its fair, as do Paris and Cologne, to encourage foreign dealers. In the UK there's no trade subsidy so dealers don't come from abroad. Happily Glasgow is following the foreign pattern, and by sending a delegation of seven from Glasgow, learning from Islington's experts.

ART96 is small compared with Chicago or Basle but still hard on the feet. I spotted interesting new work by Ann Oram at the Scottish Gallery along with Blackadder, Rae, Morrison, and McLaren. At around #400 Janice Gray's quirky humour is welcome light relief and her knack with animals, evident in Old Sea Dogs and Sniffing Elephants, has earned her a 1996 residency at Edinburgh Zoo.

London's Raw Gallery features Eddie Summerton's icy icons (he has a solo show there in February) while the Rebecca Hossack Gallery has given over her entire catalogue page to Greenock's favourite son, George Wyllie, who is ``exploring possibilities for paradise'' - which must be good as she sold his big steel sculpture, Blake's Bike to an English collector.

Hossack, who's presenting London's only Burns night exhibition (featuring eight Scots including Wyllie, Flockhart, and John Taylor), also shows Pollock and Peter Thomson, while Houldsworth Fine Art features Paul McPhail's superb, powerful, and huge Blackface Mask which I first admired in his studio last summer. It sold yesterday for #3000.

Highland Arts from Inverness has a scoop: the only one with cash from the European Regional Development Fund. This enabled it to produce a glossy colour catalogue featuring Highland-born or based painters Carlisle, Semple, Hawkins, Pelly, McNaught, MacPherson, Forbes, White (recently moved north from Edinburgh), and Iain Scott vice-versa.

Glasgow features strongly, with Gerber/Compass, Billcliffe, Mundy, and Glasgow Print Studio selling well (a #4500 MacPherson oil went on the first night). Mundy sold Howson's Nijinsky fast and Gary Anderson, whose last solo show was a sell-out, proved popular. ``We took a bit of everything to London, including an early #22,000 Bellany,'' said Mundy. ``We are happy and will be coming back next year.'' Flowers is also heartened. ``Things are up 50% on last year,'' he believes.

Significantly only PSI had the courage to put all its eggs in one basket, with solo shows (oils by Newton and sculpture from Sleeman), but astute buyers could make a killing on modern masters: classic folk like Crosbie and Gear, who are often underpriced. Young figurative artists are much more expensive. Conceptual art and installation does not go well over the average mantelpiece, so there was a noticeable, if understandable, lack of it. However, Glasgow's Louise Hopkins caused a stir and keen interest. Meanwhile, computerised art on the Internet kept to a small corner - so far.

What kind of pictures you hang on your walls say a lot about you and it requires confidence as well as money to buy modern art. Easier far to leave an empty Dulux magnolia space than make a statement. But how sad! Better any splash of joyful colour than no joy at all.