16 Sep

Posted at 14:01h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Stuttgart: Galerie Brigitte March, 1983 16.3 x 23cm, 2pp announcement card envelope promoting Agnetti's "La Cultura Dimenticata quasi a Memoria" (Culture Almost Forgotten by Memory) and Joseph Beuys' "Wirtschaftswerte" - also known as the Economic Value goods where Beuys displayed non-branded goods from Eastern Germany to promote the idea that the economy does not need the advertising and competition between overpriced items. This is a mailed example with stamps and frankings and has a red rubber stamp impression of the Haupstom stamp. This card was hand address to Lucrezia De Domizio. Some slight creasing to edges but overall VG. ...

06 Sep

Posted at 14:52h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
22.5 x 9.5cm, 4pp, black on grey thin card with a drawing by Alexander Stoddart of a bust of Saint-Just with the name of the revolutionary altered to read "Satin Juts" - an anagram of the name. VG+.

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24 Aug

Posted at 11:43h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Frankfurt am Main: Städtische Galerie im Städel, 1983 30 x21cm, 4pp announcement for a solo show with a major sculpture "Bergkonig 1958 - 1961" in bronze. Originally planned in 1958, it is an early work by Beuys with a "crown" above a mass that suggests a fallen figure (perhaps having been decapitated). Five b/w images of the work (including a sketch and painting) along with a text in German by Klaus Gallwitz and a biography of the artist with a small portrait. This example has been rubber stamped with a Haupstrom stamp in blue and signed in pencil on the front by Beuys. VG+....

31 Jul

Posted at 22:23h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
17.8 x 132.8cm, 1pp. The card has a descending text based on a form of "all X lie":

all governments lie
all generals lie
all Grecians lie
all gypsies lie
all gymnosphists lie
all grocers lie
all Graces lie

Finlay wants the repeated phrases to hint at the effect of cynicism on order - obviously some of the lines are ridiculous - and that, in some sense, that distrust of oppositional forces (such as the Hebertists who were determined to wipe out Christianity during the French revolution and the Dantonists who were more willing to accept the church as a force in the land - both were executed in turn by Robespierre who himself was not anti-clerical or at least not anti-theist) is ultimately corrupt. VG+.

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30 Jul

Posted at 08:29h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
14.2 x 15cm, red on white folding offset lithograph. There are 16 panels ten of each with a three word poem - for example

beast
brute

or

lute
lyre
luger

The trios of words are all alliterative within a panel beginning with the same letter. They all also end with a weapon or a reference to fascism. The "chant" is encouraged to be repeated when one gets to the end.
The "Region" here is Strathclyde Region and this is another of Finlay's acidic attacks on their bureaucracy.VG+ condition.
This is categorised as a print by both Murray and the Wild Hawthorn Press but it really is a folding card but for ease we have left it here in the prints section of this online collection.

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21 Jul

Posted at 19:52h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.(1983?)
8.4 x 7cm, 8pp single folding card printed on one side only in blue and red on white. The first panel lists the publishing details, the second shows the ship that has reef knots that look like the decorations on the side of the drums of the revolutionary army - the boat is called The Littel Drummer Boy and the panel remembers Bara the martyr, the third panel has the name Viala with a tricolour ribbon - here memorialising the death of the young martyr Joseph Agricol Viala who tried to demolish a bridge while under attack and died calling for Liberty and finally, the text "Hommage A David" who was a third martyr to the Terrorists murdered in his bath. A card in honour of three Republican deaths.
This example is signed "To Janet (Boulton) yours Gary (Hincks)" in blue and red crayon. VG+.

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20 Jul

Posted at 22:33h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
18 x 13.6cm, 1pp. The "play" consists of extracts from letters sent to Finlay from Strathclyde Region and the Scottish Arts Council interspersed with quotations from Gertrude Stein. Stein's texts (due to Finlay's clever selection) mock the official texts that proceed each. An ironic and somewhat biting attack on Finlay's enemies which is at the same time comic. VG+

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07 Jul

Posted at 16:42h in Page Works & Contributions

Noordwijk: MW Press 28, July 1983
38 x 28cm, 32pp plus 8pp smaller insert. Artist's journal in the form of a tabloid newspaper which here has an 8pp contribution by Finlay documenting the first of the Little Sparta Wars. Various letters and statements from participants in the war from both sides are joined with 6 photographs by Dave Paterson. The paper is fragile due to being very cheap and is unavoidable browned. Folded for storage. Very scarce.

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07 Jul

Posted at 15:53h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
16.4 x 12.6cm, 1pp, black on white card. The illustration is a parody of a work by Theo van Doesburg, who was a leading figure in the De Stijl abstract group. The text "Join the Saint-Just Vigilantes and be a counter-composition" references a series of paintings by the artist where the shapes are placed on the diagonal. The inference being that the Saint-Just Vigilantes are awkward and difficult, not on the square. VG+.

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