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+. ...
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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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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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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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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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. ...
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 +....
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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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
7.4 x 10cm, 10pp accordion fold with a text:
The perfect sentence/primly holding its proper content/like a plain little jug. With a drawing of such a jug byKathleen Lindsley.
Finlay creates a metaphor for good writing - simplicity and function. VG+ ...
Firenze: Zona Archives Outside Projects, 1985 10.5 x 15cm, 1pp. Announcement card for a series of installations placed in “secret” throughout Florence. Other artists include Daniel Buren, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Terry Fox, General Idea, Jenny Hozer, Barbara Kruger, Sol Lewitt, Maurizio Nannucci and Lawrence Weiner. Fine. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1985)
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp, a leaflet/card on glossy paper with a text:
On paper Francis Picabia was wickedly witty; in paint he was restless, stylish and shameless. Thirty five years after his death, one of the most provocative voices in modern art shouts louder than ever."
The text has been appropriated by the Saint-Just Vigilantes. VG+. ...
Bruxelles: Editions Lebeer Hossmann, 1985
21 x 14.5cm, 64pp. Original printed wrappers. A curiosity in that the first half of this book is a short story by Harding followed by a text on the work of Finlay and Sarkis in French issued on the occasion of an exhibition LITTLE SPARTA & KREIGSSCHATZ in Chapelle Sainte-Marie, Two colour photographs and 16 b/w images of sculptural works and works in Little Sparta by Marius Alexander. An artist's book? An exhibition catalogue? We have decided the latter. VG+.
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