Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
17.5 x 12.7m, 2pp. The card reproduces a photograph by David Paterson in b//w of old rhubarb leaves overgrowing part of the Little Sparta garden. The title of the card makes a joke of the image , the Italian translated to "rhubarb ruins". VG+.
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Edinburgh: Chapman Publishing, 1994
21.4 x 14.6cm, 208pp plus card covers. A single issue of the literary magazine entirely dedicated to Finlay with essays by Ivor Cutler (!), Ian Steven, Gael Turnbull (written in the 60s), Francis Edeline and others. VG+.
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Aachen: Ludwig Forum fur International Kunst, 1994
29.5 x 21cm, 20pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue which is heavily based on the catalogue from Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Lessons of Darkness 1988. The text is an extended biography illustrated chronologically by works in b/w but updated to 1994. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
7.9 x 6.5cm, 4pp. The Christmas song "O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum" is echoed in a translation that changes the Christmas tree to a Hazelgrove.
O Hazelgrove, O Hazelgrove,
How beautiful is thy gear.
Hazelgrove being the name of a trawler - BCK 35 - out of Fleetwood. The gear being its equipment. (The number is now allocated to a new ship). VG+.
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Malmo: Malmo Konsthall, 1993,br.
27 x 21.5cm, 1290pp plus original wrappers. Plus 27 x 21.5cm, 8pp printed insert. Artist's book which appropriated a telephone book from the Swedish city Malmo which Boltanksi placed a printed label on the front cover. Inside he circled an area of the district map using felt-tipped pen and additionally added an addendum of names and addresses and numbers as a separate insert which claims "You cannot call these inhabitants of Malmo, they died in 1993".
This book is one of only 25 signed copies (on the inside cover) aside from the unsigned edition of 400 issued during the exhibition "Christian Boltanski" in Malmo. The book is in original mailing box sent to M. Berg.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1994) 10 x 6.4cm, 16pp plus card covers with French folds. Artist book with four reproductions of watercolours by Ron Costley of four trees - a bonsai tree, an apple tree, a lemon tree and a Christmas tree. On the inner back french fold Finlay lists four names - that of G. Couthon (the French revolutionary leader who has a cripple and had to live in a specially designed wheelchair), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who grew fruit trees in his orchard), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (who wrote the poem "The land where the lemon trees bloom..") and Caspar David Friedrich (who painted naked fir trees in one of his most famous works). Hence each painting reflected some aspect of their allotted historical person. One of Finlay's most beautiful books. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
11.7 x 15.9cm, 1pp. Printed blue and orange on white card - the drawing of the boat is after William Gilles (as I write this I am only 100 m from Gilles former house) by Gary Hincks. Finlay often compares boats with lemons. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
10.3 x 14.8cm, 1pp . Printed brown on light brown card - the HASTING(S) LUGGER has both the meaning of a boat and also a mild dig at Finlay's friend, the poet, Harry Gilonis (from Hastings). The boats were very large and sluggish with crews of ten and usually 3 masts. Above the main test is "Storm Brewing. Tea Brewing" - another comparison between boat and man. The print colour also being that of strong teas. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
4.5 x 14cm, 4pp . The card has a definition work -
PLANK, n. a segment of the skin or rind of a small boat, especially a small fishing boat. See Lemon.
placed in a brown shape that resembles a boat. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
Two cards in same format although one is printed blue on white, the other brown on white - each 6.7 x 10cm, 4pp (assymetric fold) . The cards both have PL on the front but when opened the blue card reads PL/OVER and the brown card reads PL/OUGH. Both are things (bird and farming equipment) that one would find in spring. The blue and brown, of course, reflecting the sky and dirt (blue and brown being often used by Finlay in part for the sky/earth dichotomy but also an oblique reference to Wittgenstein). VG+ in like envelope.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
8 x 6.8cm, 4pp card with a digital photographic montage of the proposed temple along with a poem by Finlay internally:
Near
the donkey's fence
the rowing boat
leaves
for the Claude.
Claude is perhaps Claude Lorrain painter of idealised landscapes often looking out to see with a sunset causing a sense of wanderlust but the word is similar to the Clyde; the Scottish river that begins at the Falls of the Clyde which is not so far from Dunsyre and Little Sparta. The rowing boat also is perhaps being compared to an upturned leaf in its leaving.
Finlay also produced an artist's book as a proposal for this monument which again compares one thing - the vengeful god Apollo with Saint-Just another famously judgemental figure. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1994
12.1 x 8.3cm, 2pp card with a poem by Finlay after Eugen Gromringer's "Cars and Cars" although Finlay moves the context to that of fishermen and their boats. Finlay also notes Theocritus, Idylls XXI - The Fishermen - where two fishermen discuss a dream in which one sees a golden fish and after discussing the meaning of the dream, they come to the realisation that their wealth will come from their catches. Finlay repeats (after the original) in different combinations the images of creels, men, net-ropes, cobles - each creating a subtly different image ending with "men and men". VG+.
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