01 Dec

Posted at 11:27h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
9.7 x 5.7cm, 8pp plus printed red wrappers. Artist's book which lists two groups of names - the first Angelique, Tilleul, Pavot, Serpolet, Cheverefgeuille and Thym are listed as "a litany for Prairial". These are French names for herbs and Prairial is not only the Ninth revolutionary month (beginning in May) but also the time when the Law of 22 Prairial, also known as the loi de la Grande Terreur, was passed that gave power to the Committee of Public Safety that Robespierre turned into the dictatorship of the Terror. Herbs, of course, are picked and chopped up and consumed.
The second list "A requiem for Thermidor" has the names of the members of the Committee of Public Safety - Fleuriot, Hanriot, Couthon, Payan, Robespierre and Saint-Just. These were the victims of their own Terror when they were guillotined during the Thermidorian reaction (Robespierre went to his death in severe pain as he had tried to commit suicide only to partially blow off his own jaw in the attempt, Saint-Just was dignified and stoic).
The colours of the book papers are red, white and blue - the colours of the republic's tricolour.
The Litany is one of religious praise - here for the spring but with foreboding and foreshadowing of the destruction of the Terrorists. The requiem a cry of pain for the deposed leaders who killed so many by dictat.

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28 Nov

Posted at 18:36h in Joseph Beuys Cards 1980 - 23rd January 1986, Joseph Beuys Cards 1980s, Joseph Beuys Postcards

Lund: Galleriet, 1981 21×14.8cm, 4pp. Exhibition invitation / multiple consisting of a piece of felt-like cardboard folded in half. On the first page there is the name “Joseph Beuys” blind-stamped which has been smeared with fat. Internally there is a b/w image of Beuys and the exhibition details. Rare.

JOINT:

Original green postal envelope. ...

21 Nov

Posted at 09:06h in EXHIBITION CATALOGUES

Chalon-sur-Saone, Maison de la Culture de Chalon-sur-Saone, 1981
30 x 21cm, 56pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue for a photographic exhibition which alongside Boltanski included Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jamesd Collins, Jan DIbbets, Ger van Elk, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert & George, John Hilliard, Urs Luthi, Annette Messager, Peter Roehr and Ed Ruscha. Unusually each artist's work is displayed in colour but shot from a distance which shows how it is exhibited on a wall,
Boltanski's work are two photographs from the Composition Grotesques series. An extract from an artist's interview is reprinted at the back of the catalogue (from 1977). VG+.

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01 Nov

Posted at 14:34h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
5 x 7cm, 4pp. One of Finlay's smallest cards - here with a drawing by Lucius Burckhardt of a face with a republican hat above a capital from a classical column. not the best sketch ever as it looks jumbled and hard to see but there you have it. Inside the card is one of Finlay's "definition" works - the double meaning of the "A REPUBLICAN CROWN" is joined with a quotation from Gerd Neumann about Callimachus the Greek poet of the disappearance of a capital which reads like word salad. You can take from the above that this is not my favourite of cards.

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17 Oct

Posted at 09:35h in Letters + Documents

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
17.8 x 12.1cm, 8pp plus printed card covers. By the 80s the press published small catalogues of new works and old stock. previously they had circulated single sheets or even xeroxes. This was a sign of increasing financial success and improvements in print technology/affordability). VG+

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10 Oct

Posted at 09:11h in Joseph Beuys Cards 1980 - 23rd January 1986, Joseph Beuys Cards 1980s, Joseph Beuys Postcards

Paris: Yvon Lambert, 1981
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp announcement card with a reproduction of the cover of the artist's book by Beuys published by Yvon Lambert on the front. Verso minimal details and a rubber stamp impression "Joseph Beuys/10 Oct 81/Yvon Lambert, Paris". A mailed example that shows some franking ink marks on the front due to the postal experience else VG+.

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