NYC: John Gibson Gallery, 1986
10.5 x 15cm 2pp. Announcement card for a posthumous show which took place only 9 months after the artist's sudden death. Image on the front of a Beuys performing Titus Andronicus/Iphigenie aktion (with a live horse) in 1969. A unmailed copy -VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
3.1 x 13.3cm, 4pp Artist's card printed black and red on white - the word MARAT is extended to MARATAPLAN! Tthe typography and colour changes emphasis the "rataplan!" which is onomatopoeia - the sound of a drumbeat. The open card causes the neologism MARATAPLAN! to be a clarion call for the ideologue Marat. VG+.
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Paris: Association Francaíse d`Action Artistiqu, 1986
19.5 x 13cm, 256pp plus wrappers. First edition of this artist's book published during the 42e Biennale de Venise. There are 110 b/w images of various faces taken from Boltanski's collection of found portraits and group shots which are presented without any background information at all although they were all exhibited in the associated exhibition in Venice in the usual manner of the artist (with lights and various trappings of religious monuments). There is a preface in French, English and Italian by Suzanne Pagé. Slight faint stains on front cover else VG+. Scarce.
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N.p. (Glasgow?): n.p. (Hughson Gallery), 1986
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp. Gallery issued postcard (who represented Margot Sandeman) with a reproduction of a painting by the artist based on a poem / "definition work" by her friend, and oft collaborator, Finlay. Each of the 11 painted works had Finlay's original hand-typed poem glued onto the canvas and Finlay later signed all the works on the back of the canvass to given them the status of a work by himself as a collaborator. There were 11 such paintings made.
The definition here reads:
SHEAF, n. a bouquet of corn, grasses, wild flowers etc in the likeness of a torch.
These works were forgotten about until a visit to Sandeman by Paul Robertson in c. 2008 brought them to his notice. Sandeman agreed to exhibit the works at Robertson's gallery and to produce an artist's book together reproducing the works. However within a week of Robertson's visit Richard Demarco found out about the paintings via his assistant who had also visited Sandeman and Demarco went to the artist (who he had known for many years) and took the works away with him when he left. Robertson was not able to exhibit them or publish the book. They were later exhibited posthumously to Sandeman's sad death at Summerhall by Demarco - ironically at a time when Robertson was the visual arts curator for the building.
VG+ - an unknown artist's card presumably because it was not published with Finlay's knowledge. Very scarce.
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Glasgow: Hughson Gallery, 1986
10.5 x 15cm, 4pp. Gallery issued postcard (who represented Margot Sandeman) with a reproduction of a painting by the artist based on a poem / "definition work" by her friend, and oft collaborator, Finlay. Each of the works had his original typed poem glued onto the canvas and Finlay later signed all the works on the back of the canvass to given them the status of a work by himself. There were c. 12 such paintings made.
These works were forgotten about until a visit to Sandeman by Paul Robertson in c. 2008 brought them to his notice. Sandeman agreed to exhibit the works at Robertson's gallery and to produce an artist's book together reproducing the works. However within a week of Robertson's visit Richard Demarco found out about the paintings via his assistant who had also visited Sandeman and Demarco went to the artist (who he had known for many years) and took the works away with him when he left. Robertson was not able to exhibit them or publish the book. They were later exhibited posthumously to Sandeman's sad death at Summerhall by Demarco - ironically at a time when Robertson was the visual arts curator for the building.
VG+ - an unknown artist's card presumably because it was not published with Finlay's knowledge. Very scarce.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
18.2 x 14.1cm, 1pp Artist's card with an appropriated image of the dead or dying Marat on his deathbed with a sword labeled "I was a member of the National Trust" hanging like the sword of Damocles as a threat above him. The original David etching from which this was taken is used as a threat or suggestion to members of the National Trust because the organisation had published the Follies book suggesting Little Sparta was one such folly. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
18.2 x 14.1cm, 1pp Artist's card with an appropriated image of the dead or dying Marat on his deathbed with a sword labeled "I was published by Jonathan Cape" hanging like the sword of Damocles as a threat above him. The original David etching from which this was taken is used as a threat or suggestion of how the publishing house might be found following their fall out with Finlay. VG+.
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Monchengladbach: Galerie Lohrl, 1986
15 x 10.5cm,2pp announcement card for a posthumous show of sculpture (planned before the artist's sudden death early in the year from a heart attack) with one work Halbzeit from 1984 reproduced on the front in b/w. VG+>
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Leeds: New Arcadians, 1986
21 x 15cm, 44pp plus wrappers. A single number of this poetry and literature review - here dedicated to a long essay (by Finlay) explaining the background to the Little Spartan war. B/w photographs throughout. While a number from a journal we regard this as an artist's book. VG+.
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Dusseldorf: Grabbeplatz Kunstehalle, 1986
21 x 15cm, 4pp plus 2pp insert. Announcement card for the year of Beuys' death with one colour image of a collage-painting "Gerat" from 1953 on the front and internally museum details. The insert is a short typographic text on Beuys. Some pinholes top right on the card which pass through all the pages else VG.
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Koln: Michael Werner, 2986 35 x 60cm, b/w exhibition poster with an especially drawn graphic by Immendorff showing all of the participating artists in a scene - Broodthaers being dead by this point is sitting at a table aloof, James Lee Byars is standing near one of his sculptures at the back of the scene while Baselitz is working on a sculpture swinging an axe wildly, the others are also making art. The best of ephemera. Foled several times for mailing else VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
Original printed folder 64.5 × 42.5cm, content of nine poster prints, each of 64 x 42cm, 1pp. A colophon/title page is joined by eight textual sheets with quotations from the speeches of Louis-Antoine Saint-Just, interspersed with aphorisms by Finlay composed as "Imaginary Speeches for the revolutionary". The portfolio was published on the occasion of the exhibition "L'Art et le Sacre Aujourd hui" at the Cistercian Abbey in L'Epau, France, where the texts were intended to be installed on four columns inside the abbey building. During the heroic anti-clericalism of the French revolution the Abbey was transformed into something far more useful - an agricultural outbuilding surrounded by gardens.
This is both a print portfolio but also a proposal for an architectural installation - hence we have placed it in the the appropriate section here which in fairness to Murray he also places it as 6.20.
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