Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
17.6 x 11cm, 4pp grey outer folder with a drawing of a guillotine. Internally a 17.6 x 11cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:

1794.

The steeples fell silent.


The guillotine tolled.

1794 was the year in which the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre became the most powerful centralised body in the state (or at least Paris). There had been a concerted campaign against the church by many of the Revolutionaries (but not Robespierre who thought it counter-productive) and churches and parts in many parts of France were closed. What was not closed was the guillotine. The tolling of that instrument of death is compared with the silence of the bells.
This is one of a series of works which the Wild hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
9.8 x 9.3cm, 16pp and card wrappers and printed light green dust jacket. Drawings by Kathleen Lindsley of various baskets containing bread, wheat leaves and finally, heads are denoted as DOMESTIC, PASTORAL, PARNASSIAN and SUBLIME. Again Finlay sees the extremes of the Terror as somehow pure and homely even if evil.
Staples are a bit rusted else VG+. ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
21.2 x 3.6cm, 4pp and blue card wrappers. Internally there is a text by Finlay merging Saint-Just and Rimbaud.

"Whoever desecrates sepulchres is banished."

A poem about respecting tradition and by extension classicism. VG+

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1990) 13 x 8.8cm, 8pp plus card covers. Artist's book with two poems based on originals by Symons and Goethe:

Murmur
of many
waters

Rustle
of redbrown
reeds
(After Symons)

and

The trees
are all
so still

A little
breeze
springs up

(After Goethe).

Finlay often alters short works or selections by other poets or authors. The changes brings a new meaning to the translations - often modernising. VG+. ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
21 x 19.7cm, blue on white lithograph with folded flap - the drawing by Hincks is of Robespierre's basic lodging and a quote from Lamartine's "History of the Girondists" describing the room and pointing out that it was in some manner as if "Jean-Jacques Rousseau had quitted his cottage to become the legislator of humanity, he could not have led a more retired of simple existence".
The poem by Finlay on the inner fold reads:

His bed
a meadow
his brow
in shadow

which places Robespierre's famous austerity as a landscape, his philosophy clearly from Rousseau's belief in the purity of nature.
VG+.

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Bordeaux: Musee d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, 1990
28 x 22cm, 206pp plus boards and typographic dust jacket. Exhibition catalogue for the seven artists (all of whom were very established practitioners by 1990).
Each artist has a section in the book dedicated to them and Boltanski has 10pp which has images of works not seen elsewhere before plus one fold out in full colour of an installation (here "Inventaire des objets appartenu a la jeune fille de Bordeaux").
VG but the dust jacket is slightly torn near the spine.

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Haute-Vienne: Musee Departmental, 1990
17 x 12.5cm, 4pp announcement card for a joint show between the partners. Inserted inside the card are two colour offset lithographic prints on thin paper. Boltanski's is a brightly coloured image of some purple flowers on a purple background. VG+.

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Glasgow: Third Eye Centre 1990 83 x 59cm, orange and black offset lithographic exhibition poster for a number of public artworks by artists in Glasgow - including Judith Barry, Stuart Brisley, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Rosemary Trockel and Ian Hamilton Finlay amongst others. Finlay's work is still visible today - the Bridge Pillars at the River Clyde at the Broomielaw. VG.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
21.4 x 13.7cm, 4pp red outer folder. Internally a 21.4 x 13.7cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:

THE REVOLUTION

The Revolution is frozen; all
principles are weakened; there
remain only red bonnets
worn by Intrigue.

The waves in the rye grass
never reach the shore.

The poem is denoted to be from S-J (Saint-Just) and IHF (Finlay himself). Finlay is comparing Saint-Just's complaint of the stagnation of the revolution to the movement of grass in wind which may look similar to waves but do not affect the sea.
This is one of a series of works which the Wild hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
14 x 12.4cm, 4pp and printed card wrappers. Internally are two poems by Finlay.

TOMBSTONE
Sundial
without
a gnomon

opposite to

MARBLE
Parachute
of
the gods.

Both images are of stones. The tombstone is a reminder of the passing of time even without the gnomon. The beauty of marble has landed from the heavens above.

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