Hairy moment for gallery staff - and there could be more to come

VISITORS to one of Scotland's leading galleries should expect the unexpected, after a maverick artist unveiled the first of 50 proposals he will be bringing to reality over the next few weeks.

Staff at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh donned false beards for the day at the instigation of London-based Peter Liversidge.

He is famed for coming up with eccentric proposals and then trying to bring them to life.

As part of the gallery's 50th anniversary celebrations, every day Liversidge will be enacting one of his proposals unannounced, with a new type-written note explaining his vision.

A gallery spokeswoman said: "In keeping with the fleeting notion of ideas, these works will change every day. Liversidge's 'proposals' are liberated from everyday life as ideas in their purest form. They can be things of ephemeral beauty or sheer silliness but never fail to provoke thought as well as a smile."

Liversidge, who had a major exhibition of proposals staged in the city earlier this year, previously created a summer snowstorm at the new Jupiter Artland sculpture park attraction.