Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press / The Committee of Public Safety, 1988 4.4 x 9.9cm (folded size), 4pp artist's card with the text: "THE DESMOULINS CONNECTION. "Liberalism, n. a state of affairs in which the tree cuts down the axe" and printed black on yellow. Issued by Finlay as part of a series of c. 13 similar small cards each attacking enemies of the poet. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press / The Committee of Public Safety, 1988 4.4 x 9.9cm (folded size), 4pp artist's card with the text: "THE DESMOULINS CONNECTION. "Deserters don't like to be reminded that this world is a battlefield." Saint-Just Vigilante on certain liberals who dislike disputes." and printed black on grey. Issued by Finlay as part of a series of c. 13 similar small cards each attacking enemies of the poet. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press / The Committee of Public Safety, 1988 4.4 x 9.9cm (folded size), 4pp artist's card with the text: "THE DESMOULINS CONNECTION. In liberal democracy the Police may be unarmed but Fashion carries a gun." and printed black on grey. Issued by Finlay as part of a series of c. 13 similar small cards each attacking enemies of the poet. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press / The Committee of Public Safety, 1988 4.4 x 9.9cm (folded size), 4pp artist's card with the text: "THE DESMOULINS CONNECTION "Don't be overheard saying that violence exists in the universe: you may get shot." Saint-Just Vigilante, after listening to Julian Spalding's radio interview with Ian Hamilton Finlay." and printed black on grey. Issued by Finlay as part of a series of c. 13 similar small cards each attacking enemies of the poet. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press / The Committee of Public Safety, 1988 4.4 x 9.9cm (folded size), 4pp artist's card with the text: "THE DESMOULINS CONNECTION/Millet, Hirschfeld, Hayat - certain natures compare to human nature as a modern slurry-pit to an old-fashioned farm-midden" and printed black on yellow. Issued by Finlay as part of a series of c. 13 similar small cards each attacking enemies of the poet. VG+. ...
NYC: n.p., 1988
5 x 5cm, b/w transparency with a detail of the Boltanski installation "Monument Canada" from 1988. Handwritten legend on the plastic - a slide provided by a gallery to press or clients. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988
8.5 x 12.7cm, 4pp. Artist's card with a reproduced photograph of a Nazi rally where the red swastica flags are brightly coloured against the drab of the uniforms below which the text 'When Pleasures are Like Poppies Spread' (from Rabbie Burns) is continued "or banners in the beds of Roehm's Brown shirts".
Poppies, of course, have became a symbol of war remembrance and the comparison to the banners of evil amongst the crowd seems initially inappropriate but, more deeply, the visual metaphor is perhaps closer to a symbol of forthcoming death. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988 5.5 x 9.8cm, 4pp (assymetric fold). A remembrance card for Martin Waters who was one of the Saint Just Vigilantes. VG+. Scarce. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988
15.4 x 24.4cm, black and light brown on white card - original linocut reproduced in offset lithograph. The print is folded with a text "Every effect remains in its cause, proceeds from it, and reverts upon it." a quote form Proclus, Elements of Theology. The image is of a group of boats close together in a harbour.
When boats are berthed in such a manner there is a tendency for them to move in synchronicity due to the waves. The classical quotation about cause and effect reflects that movement in some poetic manner. VG although there are sadly two ink lines on the outside of the card (where there is no image) and someone stupidly has not realised what the card was.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988
13.4 x 8.3cm, 1pp. Artist's card with a parody of the famous Haiku by Basho - here updated to being an attack on Michel Blum. The poem now reads:
old pond
frog pontificating
plop
The "frog" here becomes a charged none-too-acceptable reference to Blum's French nationality and the "plop" infers failure or something more scatalogical.
Not Finlay's finest hour although he use of the word "frog" was probably marginally more acceptable in 1988 than now. VG+.
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Madrid, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 1988
23.8 x 33.5cm, 68pp. Original thick boards. Artist's book (although also exhibition catalogue as it was published at the same time as the exhibition of the same name) with 22 b/w photographic illustrations of crime scenes (as usual without comment or legend) taken from the El Caso Detective magazine (plus tissue guards). Biography and essay in French and Spain by Daniel Soutif "Et in Boltanskia Ego". VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988.
Four 29.3 x 38.2cm, offset lithographic prints in a folder - three of the sheets are drawings by Iain Stewart of the proposed column-bases for trees (essentially sculptured bases in stone with text that are placed at the bottom of a tree trunk.
Here the trees are to be planted in doubles next to each other each with a double column-base. There are three sets proposed - TWO FRIENDS - with the names of LeBas and Saint-Just (both comrades in arms and both part of the French Revolutionary Terror); TWO VICTIMS - Camile (Desmoulins) and Lucile, his wife - both of whom were murdered by Robespierre's fiat; and TWO MARTYRS - the brave Corday (Charlotte) who murdered the evil Marat in his bath - but as Finlay points out both were regarded as Martyrs by their supporters.
The forth print in the set acts as explanatory colophon for the portfolio. To my mind one of the best Finlay proposals.
Slight tear bottom right in the folder which minorly affects each print.
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