22 Jun EL CASO. EDITION FOR PARKETT. 1989.
Zurich: Parkett Editions, 1998
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp announcement card for the release of the artist's book by the Swiss publishers - an image of the ring bound book on the front.. VG+.
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22 Jun AVENUE STUDIOS, FULHAM ROAD*. 1989.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
13.4 x 9.2cm, 4pp red outer folder with a drawing by Kathleen Lindsley. Internally a 13.4 x 9.2cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:
Avenue Studios, Fulham Road*
Rose
Pettigrew
Pettigrew
Rose
Rose Pettigrew was the most significant of Whistler's models but later is recorded as falling in love with Philip Wilson Steer (apparently unrequited). Steer was one of the artists who lived at the Avenue Studios which gives this poem it's name.
By reersing the model's name in the second part of the poem, Finlay is comparing her to an English rose.
This is one of a series of works which the Wild hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.
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22 Jun STILL-LIFE. 1989.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
10.4 x 14.1cm, 4pp light brown outer folder. Internally a 10.4 x 14.1cm, 4pp sheet with a poem and a drawing (a still life)by Carlo Rossi.
The poem is:
Still-life
"From the Monad and the Dyad
Come the numbers"
- Of 'le violon', 'la musique',
Et 'la carafe'.
The poem cites a pre-Socratic saying meaning that number is an emerging-property of units and elements. Those elements in a still life are a violin, music and a jug which are common in most period still-lives.
This was one of a series of "poems in folders". VG+.
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20 Jun BLADES. 1989. ONE OF 250 COPIES.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
15.3 x 10.6cm, 16pp plus card wrappers and red dust jacket. Four poetic works all relating to the French revolution. The first is
July 28, 1794
Refreshment for the wild flowers
which is a direct reference to the deaths of the members of the Committee of Public Safety who were the effective dictators of the Terror. The wild flowers being fed blood and bodies.
A Riddle
To those who watch, a waterfall; to its victim, a glacier.
The truth of the relativity of the observer when facing the guillotine.
One of only 250 copies. VG+.
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20 Jun AFTER. 1989.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
13.5 x 13cm, 12pp plus silkscreen blue card covers. Drawings by Grahame Jones. The poems in French are all based on those by Verlaine and Denis. The first is
After Verlaine>
Les violons
De l'automne
(Les triangles
Du Printemps..)
One ofFinlay's most lovely of books. VG+.
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18 Jun THE BICENTENNIAL PROPOSALS: THE FRENCH WAR, THE WAR OF THE LETTER. 1989.
Toronto: Art Metropole, 1989
25 x 16cm, 116pp plus printed wrappers. Exhibition catalogue and monologue examining the dispute between Finlay and Catherine Millet and others with a long sympathetic essay by Peter Day. Works reproduced in b/w throughout. VG+.
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12 Jun LA GALERIE DES LOCATAIRES. 1989.
Paris: Carte Segrete Editeur, 1989
27 x 21cm, 134pp plus printed blue card wrappers. Exhibition catalogue for a conceptual group show (which doesn't have a physical gallery to exhibit in) which includes documenation of early work from 1972 onwards from Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Andres Cadere, Annette Messager, Sarkis and others.
Boltanski's section includes images of work not shown elsewhere including Ombres - an installation in windows where shadows of interesting events could be seen from outside and French WIndow - a similar work elsewhere.
VG+ - very scarce.
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31 May RESERVE. 1989.
Warszawa: Galeria Foksal, 1989
21 x 15cm, 4pp. Exhibition catalogue with two colour images of the installation - second hand clothes left on the floor in the gallery spaces - a format used by the artist in a number of different venues. VG+.
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25 May CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1989.
Geneve: Galerie Marika Malacorda, 1989
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp - typographic announcement card for a solo show, verso gallery details. A mailed example with hand written address but else VG+.
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04 May JOSEPH BEUYS. 1989.
Barcelona: Galeria Alfonso ALcolea, n.d. (1989) 15 x 21cm, 2pp announcement for a posthumous show - the front of the card shows Beuys' poster/design for Dillinger the video work he made with Klaus Staeck. Verso gallery details. VG+. ...
27 Apr GROVE. n. AN IRREGULAR PERISTYLE.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
38 x 45cm, black and cream on white laid paper - the image by Gary Hincks is of a grove of trees around a classical temple after WIlliam Stukely. The definition of Grove is "an irregular peristyle" and a quote from Milton. The pristyle is the corridor between a colonnade and the wall of the inner building - hence the definition here suggests the trees are creating a further group of columns around the building. We do not know the date of this work - wee suspect the late 80s. VG+.
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23 Apr SEVEN DEFINITIONS. PERTAINING TO IDEAL LANDSCAPES. 1989.
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1989)
33.5 x 48.5cm, printed folder with calligraphic text by John Nash. Content of seven 33.5 x 48.5cm, 1pp lithographs in folder. Each work is one of Finlay's later "definitions" works - the structure being that of a word such as GROVE followed by a poetic definition and then a longer quotation from a classical source using the word in a manner that reflects the definition. For instance:
PEACE n. according to St. Ignatius of Loyola the simplicity of order
War on the castles, PEACE to the cabins
Slogan of the French revolutionary armies.
All elements fine in like folder.
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