06 Jul

Posted at 18:40h in PHOTOGRAPHS

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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05 Jul

Posted at 15:05h in Artist's Postcards

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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25 Jun

Posted at 22:22h in Prints + Posters

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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20 Jun

Posted at 16:14h in Artist's Postcards

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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26 May

Posted at 15:15h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

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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23 May

Posted at 19:59h in Proposals

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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22 May

Posted at 21:25h in PHOTOGRAPHS

8 x 16cm, original b/w photograph of Christian Boltanski behind his Les Ombres Shadows installation at the Lessons in Darkness exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Mounted on brown card which is signed by the artist in blue ink underneath the image. Photographer unknown. On the reverse is a newspaper cutting with the legend from the original publication of the image in 1988 and a date in red ink impression. Unique.

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15 May

Posted at 13:51h in Letters + Documents

Little Sparta: Sue Finlay, n.d. (May 1988)
An original vintage xerox (recto) of a circular letter from Sue Finlay to "Inez" (Inez Horst-Aletrino - a Dutch painter who was close to the Finlay family).
Sue Finlay explains that she has just returned from France where she met Donimique Bozo of the Ministry of Culture with her lawyers. She notes the coming election meant it was very hard to meet politicians. She intends returning to meet the Minister of Culture and the President in June.
"Meantime it becomes more and more clear how evil this witch-hunt truly is. Attempts have been made to use the whole machinery for pursuing Nazi war criminals! Jonathan Hirschfield has approached Simon Wiesenthal and the Jewish congress as well as "employing" Michel Blum of the soidisant Ligue des Droits de l'Homme to discredit and destroy us. God alone knows what lengths these people will go to in order to prevent justice being done."
She continues to ask if Inez can help by writing to newspapers and journals.
This was a circular letter sent out to several people (with the name of the recipient written in to the xerox and hand signed.


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05 May

Posted at 16:46h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988
17.4 x10.1cm, 2pp. Artist's card with a drawing of a sculptural work where an urn is covered with a flowing material - possibly a shroud. Similar to the editioned print of the same name (which is in red and black) also by Gary Hincks this is a memorial for the Terror and those who died but also an indication of Finlay's commitment to neo-classicist style and his belief that it is radical and confrontational. VG+.

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