paul robertson, Author at Unoriginal Sins

07 Jul THREE SUNDIALS. 1974. ONE OF 150 SIGNED & NUMBERED COPIES.

Posted at 17:36h in Artist's Books

Exeter: The Rougemont Press, 1974
27 x 20cm, 16pp. Original pictorial card covers. Artist's book comprising three orange and brown offset designs for sundials (one is a centre-fold double page) and brown divider pages. Each is also a visual/concrete poem - for example the double page sheet has four boats - a clipper, a barque, a mumble bee (name of the boat rather than the type) and Snow - again a type of boat. The four sides of the sundial therefore has one each of these boats and represents the four seasons (Spring- clipper/Summer Mumble Bee/Autumn - wood barque and winter - wood snow) hence adding time passing through the year to the daily cycle of hours. This is one of only 150 signed by numbered copies. Near Fine.

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04 Jul MEETING OF LADY ROSEBERY, BLACK AND WHITE OIL CONFERENCE. 1974.

Posted at 11:13h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Edinburgh/New York, Demarco/Ronald Feldman, 1974
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp announcement card for the editioned print here released by Beuys' New York Gallery although the publisher was Demarco. The colour image of the meeting (where Beuys looks bored) between the artist, the socialite and the architect is reproduced on the front, verso information about the print. VG+.

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26 Jun GOURD. 1974. SIGNED & NUMBERED BY FINLAY.

Posted at 16:03h in Prints + Posters

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987
27.9 x 20.9cm, brown on white laid paper silkscreen with a drawing by Ron Costley after Finlay's instructions of a cross section of an aircraft carrier with airplanes and plan from above of the landing strip. Just as certain fruit gourds carry their seeds only at the right moment to discard them to the air so does this weapon of war. One of 350 copies in a light card folder which is signed and numbered in pencil on the back by Finlay. Slight crease bottom left through both folder and print.

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22 Jun HOMAGE TO MALEVICH. 1974. ONE OF 300 SIGNED & NUMBERED EXAMPLES.

Posted at 09:46h in Prints + Posters

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d (1974)
28 x 28cm, printed paper folder content of a 28 x 28cm red, blue and black offset lithographic print.
The image is of two world war fighter planes (one on fire having been shot down) and airborne debris - drawn on Finlay's instruction by Michael Harvey.
The style is clearly that of Malevich's Supremacism - an abstract form that used hard edge geometric shapes to create works - in fact Melevich had created a painting of a plane in flight called "Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying" in 1914/5 which is similar in many ways albeit in different colours.
The Tate Gallery claims that "Finlay has said that Malevich would have seen himself as ‘the best aeroplane’, and that the victim in the dog-fight might be Vladimir Tatlin, a rival Soviet artist."
One of 300 copies signed and numbered by Finlay on the back of the folder. VG.

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06 Jun JOSEPH BEUYS: THE SECRET BLOCK FOR A SECRET PERSON IN IRELAND. 1974.

Posted at 21:01h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Edinburgh: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1974
13.6 x 8.6cm, 2pp announcement card with a Beuys drawing from the "Secret Block" reproduced on the front. This is one of Beuys' most important works - a group of drawings made by him in the early 70s. VG+.

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06 Jun WILD HAWTHORN WEAPON SERIES. 1973.

Posted at 16:14h in Artist's Postcards

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1973.
10.2 x 14cm, 2pp. The first of Finlay's cards to feature the Oerlikon cannon (in a painting by Susan Goodricke which gives the weapon a charming air of romance). The name of the gun is altered to O'Erlikon under the image. VG+.

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01 Jun WELCHEN SINN HAT MALEN? 1974. WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT OF BYARS ON COVER.

Posted at 21:34h in James Lee Byars

Hamburg: s.p. (Hacker), 1974 15.2 x 10.5cm, 28pp (self cover). Theoretical artist's book written by Hacker at a time when he was visiting professor at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kiinste, Hamburg. The book asks the question - "What Is the Sense of Painting?" and is part of the artist's slow return to the act of marking canvasses. The cover of the book shows a b/w photograph of James Lee Byars during a performance and a second b/w image inside the book appears to also be Byars performing on the side of the Rhine in the rain but this is uncredited. Small cut to the top right of the book that runs through all the pages but it is not very distracting. Else VG+. ...

21 May I LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICA LIKES ME (COYOTE). 1974.

Posted at 12:32h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

NYC: Rene Block Gallery, n.d. (1974)
15.2 x 11cm, 1pp. Announcement on thin card for the inaugural exhibition at the gallery in New York and one of Beuys most famous performances where on leafing the aircraft he was wrapped in felt and taken to the gallery on a gurney in an ambulance. In the gallery he lived with a coyote in a space along with copies of the Wall Street Journal, straw, felt and his crook. He spent eight hours a day in the space interacting with the wild animal before being taken back to the airport by the same method. One portrait of the artist by Ute Klophais in negative under text. An important event in the history of art. VG+.

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19 May QUELQUES SOUVENIRS DE LA PREMIERE COMMUNION D’UNE FILLETTE RECUEILLIS ET DECRITS PAR CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1974. ONE OF 25 COPIES SIGNED & MARKED H.C.

Posted at 20:02h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Paris: Editions Georges Fall, 1974
22 x 16cm, 16pp (self cover). Artist's book which show objects from Annette Messager's first communion along with three photographs of a young girl (not Messager) preparing for the ceremony. The images are "representational" of the various objects and not the actual items used in Boltanski's partner's life. Each has an objective description below as if in a historical journal. Staples are a bit rusty else VG+. Scarce.

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19 May JOSEPH BEUYS ZEICHNUNGEN 1946 – 1971. 1974.

Posted at 11:18h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Krefeld: Museum Haus Lange, 1974
12 x 22.5cm, 2pp announcement card for a show of drawings from Beuys' earliest period. One drawing - "Tierfrau un Tier" from 1956 - is reproduced in b/w on the back of the card. VG+ although two punched holes for storage.

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16 May MOWER IS LESS. 1973.

Posted at 15:49h in Artist's Postcards

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1973.
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. A card which has the title text in green on white in a cursive font. A simple pun about cutting grass is also a comment on minimalism - of which this card is an example. VG+.

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09 May LES MORTS POUR RIRE DE CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1974.

Posted at 14:36h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Dudweiler: Edition A.Q., 1974.
20.9 x 14.8cm, 32pp plus card covers with printed tipped on title label. First edition of this artist's book which again has photographic images of Boltanski dressed in suit and hat miming various methods of suicide - hanging, cutting one's throat or arms, drownings which all are shown in a second photograph to be fake - the knife is plastic, the drowning with a brick around the neck is only in a bowl of water, the hanging is from a rope that is not attached at either end.
However the last image of suicide is of the artist shooting himself in the head with a gun. That photograph has no associated proof of "fake" image so one may well assume the joke is on Boltanski himself as it was not fake, and he has in fact died.
This edition was printed in only 150 copies with 20 "du tete" copies and is very hard to find indeed. This copy is in VG+ condition although the label is slightly marked by the glue coming though the cheap paper. Reference: Flay Boltanski Catalogue Page 112.

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