Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989 10.0 x 12.4cm, 8pp folded card with a proposal for a stone pathway 16'8" x 12" x 3" where the top of the stone becomes gradually more pitted from a smooth start. The inside of the card has a drawing of the proposed stonework by Andrew Townsend. VG+. ...
Berlin: Galerie Jule Kewenig, 1989.
49 x 34.5cm, 8pp. Exhibition catalogue in the form of a large broadside with a text in German and English. by Remo Guidieri. Five large b/w images of works - Boltanski has an image from his comic performances on the back. VG+ although folded as issued by the gallery.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
28.6 x 34.5cm, black on white lithograph with two texts describing paintings. Folded sheet that opens to 28.6 x 70cm. The first - A guitar, a wine bottle, the bust of a goddess - we believe is a work by Picasso, the second text an updating of the first - A wine bottle, a pair of binoculars, a gun - is possibly a description of a Saint-Just vigilante waiting for agents of Strathclyde Region to arrive (in reality they did not have guns apart from perhaps a water pistol).
The print was issued during the exhibition Nature Morte at the Galerie Philimene Magers in Koln. VG+.
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Moscow: Maison Centrale de L'Artiste, 1989
11 x 15.5cm, printed envelope in red and black on cream content of four different postcards with images of the exhibition and two 21 x 15cm, 2pp leaflets with texts in French and a reproduction of two press articles in Russian.
The exhibition catalogue in unusual format for a group show of French artists which included Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Sophie Calle, Robert Filliou,, Paul-Armand Gette, Jean le Gac, Annette Messager, Philippe Parreno, and Sarkis amongst others. The images on the cards do not seem to include any obvious Boltanski work. All VG+ in slightly word and minorly torn envelope.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
22 x 17.5cm, 20pp plus card wrappers and printed dust jacket. texts by Finlay are reproduced in English and French in a typographic only design. Later these works were reprinted as large posters and exhibited at the 369 Gallery in Edinburgh.
THE BLADE STAINED WITH BLOOD IS NO MORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION THAND THE ALTAR STAINED WITH BLOOD IS GREECE AND ROME.
and
WE WILL VIEW THE FRENCH REVOLUTION MORE SYMPATHETICALLY IF WE SEE THAT THE FACTIONS REGARDS THEMSELVES AS SOVEREIGN NATIONALS IN A STATE OF WAR.
Finlay both admires the unerring purpose of the Terrorists / revolutionary and sees both the purity and the rot within at the same time. The French translations were by Yves Abrioux. VG+.
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Bremen: Neues Museum Weserburg, 1989
84.3 x 59.5cm, full colour lithographic offset exhibition poster with an image of a Boltanski memorial work with biscuit tins and photographs. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1989)
7.3 x 8.2cm, 4pp artist's card with two texts -
on the left "as in rat-a-0tat" and on the right "Order is repetition".
The card is "dedicated" to Yves Hayat who had been a friend to the artist but attacked him after the Catherine Millet accused Finlay of being fascistic because he included a swastika in one of his works. The rat-a-tat clearly references shooting from a machine gun - and (metaphorically) Hayat is being murdered by words. VG+. ...
Ontario: Peter Day, 27 July 1989
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp card with printed logo and a hand-written note from Peter Day mentioning that he has included a set of 8 stickers and 2 texts works which he collaborated with Finlay on. "They were streetworks put up in appropriate locales on Bastille Day. They also serve as a vanguard of the Finlay show I'm doing that opens September 16th, 1989 in Toronto. More street works for that & an extensive publication documenting the "French Affair:. How are you & Andy Goldsworthy? Urgently await his material."
JOINT:
Unaddressed printed envelope with a design by Day.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
42. 29.7cm, full colour on white paper offset lithograph which parodies a typical cover of the somewhat bizarre Scottish publication - the People's Friend much beloved of grannies and well-wearing middle class knitters. The joke here is that Marat's poisonous journal that condemned indirectly so many people to the guillotine was called "L'ami du peuple". One of Finlay's more amusing works. Slight browning or possible minor foxing due to paper else VG.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
59 x 59cm, blue on white silkscreen. The work is entirely typographical, the text - SWALLOWS LITTLE MATELOTS - hand-drawn by Michael Harvey. The font is light and sans serif - and the ease of line reminds one of the bird's flight against the blue sky. Additionally the Ws and Ms in the rhythmic drawing reflect the wings of these nimble birds. Finally the poet's words reminds everyone that these fabulously fast and social animals have similarities to sailors. A lovely print which in its simplicity deceives. VG+.
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Edinburgh: Morning Star Publications, 1989
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp card. The card has a drawing by Stephen Duncalf of small aircraft parked on grass. A fete champetre is an outdoor entertainment (like a garden party) so the visual poem likens the rather makeshift airport to such an event. One of 1,000 copies printed. VG+. ...
Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
10.5 x 8.2cm, 4pp purple outer folder. Internally a 10.5 x 8.2cm, 4pp sheet with a poem
A Memory of the 90's
exquisite bloater
The decade is being compared to a cured herring. Given the date of publication Finaly presumably is referring to the 1890s - a decade that sometimes referred to as the "Mauve Decade" because of William Henry Perkin's aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion (and the folder here is indeed purple) and also as the "Gay Nineties" because of a perceived happiness despite the economic depression in the USA and elsewhere hence "exquisite". An "bloater" perhaps refers to the way such memories are dry and distant.
This was one of a series of "poems in folders". VG+.
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