02 Jun

Posted at 18:09h in Letters + Documents

Little Sparta: s.p (Finlay), n.d. (c. 1985) 30 x 21cm, 1pp offset sheet with a text by Finlay regarding a proposed "Free Arts scheme": essentially a method by which potential buyers of art can make regular advance payments to a bank account. The proposal did not take place. Staple top left is a little rusty and the additional pages to which it was originally attached (a xerox of a letter to Christopher Macintosh) is catalogued separately here as the two documents were not related. VG+....

16 May

Posted at 15:05h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Ahrensberg-Wulfsdorf: Haus de Natur, 1985
9.5 x 21cm, 4pp announcement card with a b/w image of Umseitig (a photograph of a nesting dove with overpainted stamp) on the front. A group show with works from Beuys, Robert Filliou, Lili Fischer, Ilse and Pierre Garnier, Marianne Greve, Heiko Hofmann, Georg Jappe, Tonia Kudrass, Klaus Staeck and Manfred Wigger. This example is signed in red felt tipped pen by Beuys over the image. Internally museum details. VG+.

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07 May

Posted at 10:49h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
21 x 21cm (unfolded), 2pp red on white card. The text "EVERY GOAL NEGATES" comes from the German atheist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach in his book 'Thoughts on Death and Immortality' - in full it is 'Every goal negates; where there is no destruction, no negation and sacrifice of independent existence, there is no purpose." - emphasising the role of destruction and loss in the world.
Here Finlay has made this into a paper dart which is a weapon of sorts carrying Feuerbach's message to the person hit by the paper. VG+.

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29 Apr

Posted at 10:15h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Heidelberg: Edition Staeck, 1985 15 x 10.5cm, 2pp artist's postcard with an image of an flag drawing by Beuys with printed over-written text. This was Nr 15 of Series D of Originalgrafik series of cards issued by Staeck. VG+. ...

23 Apr

Posted at 20:10h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
42 × 32.1cm, red and black silkscreen on cream paper. A diagram that can be cut out and formed into a Corinthian capital for a column (drawn by Nicholas Stone). On the diagram there is a definition: "CAPITAL n. a republican crown."
A republic is a state without a king - hence it would not have a crown. The Corinthian capitals (also known as orders) is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture and hence regarded as the most advanced - and it was also the most ornate (somewhat like a bejewelled crown). There is a tension in this work by Finlay that is never quite resolved. Perhaps the other meanings of capital are also important here - as the uppercase beginning letter of a sentence and/or the city in which the government (perhaps a republican governement) is based. Fine condition.

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19 Apr

Posted at 16:03h in Monographs & Essays

London: Reaktion Books, 1985 28 x 21cm, 318pp plus boards and dust jacket. Hardback first edition of one of the largest of Finlay monographs. Texts by Abrioux and introductory notes and commentaries by Stephen Bann with over 370 illustrations, 68 in full colour and 19 in two colours. With by Stephen Bann. Slight wear to dj else VG+.

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19 Apr

Posted at 15:14h in Monographs & Essays

London: Reaktion Books, 1985 28 x 21cm, 318pp plus card covers. Paperback first edition of one of the largest of Finlay monographs. Texts by Abrioux and introductory notes and commentaries by Stephen Bann with over 370 illustrations, 68 in full colour and 19 in two colours. With by Stephen Bann. Slight wear to spine else VG+.

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16 Apr

Posted at 22:46h in Invitation Cards

Amsterdam: Print Gallery, 1984
30 x 21cm, 2pp announcement leaflet with one concrete poem "La plume est dans le jardin" reproduced on front and the horizon of Holland on the back . "Finlay's texts have gradually been incorporated into a spiritual environment. We are showing a number of them enlarged."
Folded with two punched holes for storage else VG. This copy is address to Hansjorg Mayer.

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20 Mar

Posted at 09:35h in James Lee Byars

NYC: Michael Werner, 1985 30 x 21cm, unpaginated (24pp) plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue with four b/w images of works and one in colour (tipped on). VG. ...

20 Mar

Posted at 09:30h in James Lee Byars

NYC: Mary Boone, 1985 27.5 x 23.5cm, 20pp + 2pp black endpapers and card covers also in black with gold foil stamping. Exhibition catalogue displaying four works all full colour and one double page and a full page photographic portrait of Byars wearing his gold suit while standing on rocks. Short essay by Remo Guidieri. Very good +....

18 Mar

Posted at 10:32h in Artist's Books

London: Barbarian Press, 1985
32 x 21cm, 12pp (rough edged paper) plus card covers and printed dustjacket. Letterpress printed. Artist;s book which has 80 epigrams and aphorisms by Finlay on a wide range of issues. There are four on concrete poetry, for instance,:

The Muse of concrete poetry reverse Mnemosyne's gift: depriving the poet of song, she gave him sweet eyesight.

Concrete poetry was less a visual than a silent poetry.

The conrete poets regarded language itself as rhetorical.

COncrete poems were thought childish because they were seen but not heard."

This is a charming and musing book with no central theme so can be dipped into at random. It was one of only 150 numbered copies. VG+.
Strangely Murray has this book twice in his catalogue raisonne - once in 1981 (which is erroneous) and again in 1985 - which is correct.

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