22 Oct

Posted at 20:02h in Exhibition Catalogues

London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1965
20.5 x 21cm, 82pp plus card covers. Spiral bound. An anthology of experimental and concrete poetry which was published as the exhibition catalogue for a show at the ICA of the same title. Curated by Jasia Reichardt - who also wrote the long text - this was a breakthrough exhibition which brought works by Ian Hamilton Finlay, Jiri Kolar, Hansjorg Mayer, Pedro Xisto, Ladislav Novak, Dieter Rot, and numerous others to the attention of the British public.
Finlay like the others has a short biography and then Reichardt lists a number of works and publications up to 1965. EarthShip (the rare paper sculpture) is reproduced in b/w and a letter from Finlay to Pierre Garnier from 1963 is also printed which could be regarded as the former poet's credo. Similar texts for the other artists. VG+.

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05 Oct

Posted at 08:42h in POSTERS

Paris: IV Biennale Internationale de Paris, n.d. (1965)
30.5 x 23.5cm, 1pp printed black on brown manilla paper. The small typographic poster for the Galerie du Tournesol's "annexe" for the Festival with Boltanski, Bonnevill, Indali, Le Gac, Mollien, Ramon and Romero noted as being included. The poster has blue ink handwritten annotations by Boltanksi relating to Benneville and Ramon but these are very hard to read. One of the very first documents that show Boltanski as an artist not just the director of the gallery.
In The Possible Life of Christian Boltanski" 2007, Boltanski claims his first ever public artistic endeavour was the showing of a film "The Impossible Life of Christian Boltanski" at the Ranelagh Cinema jn May 1968 (coincidentally the month and year of the student -worker revolts in Paris) but this poster suggests otherwise with Boltanski's name as one of the artists exhibiting at the Galerie du Tournesol. What was shown is not known but it is unlikely that Boltanski included his own name without showing something.
Extremely rare documentation in VG+ annotated condition.

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26 Sep

Posted at 22:24h in Object + Paper Multiples

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1965
31 x 21 x 18cm., printed shoebox content of a paper sculpture made up from 19 printed cards that are stapled together in such a way that the shape can be varied to create "various permutations of the poem depending on arrangement of the organic curved shapes". The work is most probably meant to be placed to resemble a ship at sea. The words all relate to the earth and elements.
This is by far one of the most rare of Finlay object multiples - it is estimated that fewer than 50 were made. The staples after 60 years are very minorly rusted and the outer box lid has one tear along the fold but else this is in remarkable shape.

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18 Sep

Posted at 15:19h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1965
5.5 x 20.6cm, 28pp. Original wrappers and typographic blue dustjacket. The inner pages have single words or short phrases printed in an italic font. The text in page order is: "air/ in blue/ leaf/ blue bark/and blue leaf/ a leaf/ a barque/a blue leaf/ a barque in leaf-blue/aire" The book title Cythera is from the title of the painting - The Embarkation for Cythera ("L'Embarquement pour Cythère") by Jean-Antoine Watteau. The painting is usually regarded as highly romantic (in a love sense rather than the movement) and the couples represented by Watteau are heading to board a boat to go to the mythical idyll.
When one reads Finlay's text the sense is of romance, beauty and of the joy of being at one with nature. The text also reflects the idea of a journey and, finally, the punning of bark/barque and air/aire brings a musical aspect to the poem which might also be inferred in the painting from the stylings of the putti dancing in the air. One of Finlay's most beautiful books.
This example has a handwritten dedication by Finlay to a "Janie R" in blue ink and is dated 1965.

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15 Sep

Posted at 18:42h in Artist's Postcards

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1965)
22.8 x 11.3cm, printed 1pp. Folded on both sides allowing the card to stand as intended. Printed olive green and blue on white.
JOINT WITH AS ISSUED:
13 x 11.4cm, 1pp diagrammatic card with a key to the various hearts in the standing card.

This (officially the third Standing Poem) is related to the earlier Standing Poems in various ways - firstly that the sides of the sheet bend in to allow the work to stand up, secondly a repeating pattern of shapes (roughly formed hearts) are printed in a lattice pattern over the sheet.
The Standing Poem 2 versions both have hearts as one of their motifs. It is almost as each card in turn was an evolution from the previous one (which is a reasonable argument and reflects the fact that the earlier cards had images on them that "evolved" within the card).
The colours used here differ though - olive green and blue on white is attractive but doesn't tend to evoke any particular meaning.
The separate key card that Finlay added to the paper sculpture indicates the hearts are all different and have titles - they are Little Heart, Wooden Heart, Pond Heart, Owl Heart, Jersey Heart, Umbrella Heart, Bobbin Heart and End Heart. It is hard to see any reason why these names are chosen. Other than the lazy distribution of the hearts (again somewhat loosely reflecting a constellation) it seems nothing more than a love poem of sorts. But a little thought reminds one that there are physical elements of the prefixed objects that look heart like - an owl's forehead, the point of the unfurled umbrella, a neckline from a Jersey and so on. Finlay loves a visual pun or simile and here it is if obscured.
This is a scarce card - Murray in his flawed catalogue raisonne claims it as the fourth ever card published but it is more accurately the sixth if one includes the earlier typescript from 1963 in this collection. VG+ condition.

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18 Aug

Posted at 15:06h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1965
20.3 x 12.8cm, 32pp. Original wrappers and typographic dustjacket. Three pages have the word "ark" on thin paper followed by a group of differently sized pages that are white, red, yellow and blue in turn. On the first white page the word "arc" is printed. The biblical ark that Noah built was rewarded by the christian god with a rainbow "as a covenant between him and the earth". The book (again claimed to be kinetic) is a physical manifestation of that myth - the ark is given a colourful rainbow (with wrong colours) in page form. In case one had missed the meaning of the book a 19 x 8cm, 1pp insert was added quoting Genesis 2 13 - 15 which tells of the coming of that rainbow. VG example.

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15 Jul

Posted at 13:39h in Poor Old Tired Horse + Broadsides

Ardgay, Ross-shire; Wild Hawthorne Press, 1965
26 x 21cm, 8pp. The fifteenth number of Finlay’s poetry publication with contributions by Margot Sandeman who provided drawings for the entire publication, George Mackay Brown, Eli Siegel, Edwin Morgan Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hamish McLaren, Theodore Enslin, Libby Houston and R.L. Cook. VG+ condition Scarce.

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10 Jul

Posted at 18:34h in Page Works & Contributions

Stuttgart: Edition Rot, 1965
15 x 15cm, unpaginated (c. 48 pp.) plus original wrappers. A single number of this long running concrete and experimental poetry journal edited by Max Bense and Elisabeth Walther. This number has contributions by Finlay, Emmett Williams, Ladislaw Novák, Josef Hirsal, Bohumila Grögerová, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Eugen Gomringer, Gerhard Rühm, Åke Hodell, Franz Mon, Timm Ulrichs, Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari, Reinhard Döhl, Edgard Braga, Pedro Xisto, Jørgen Nash, Diter Rot, Pierre Garnier, et al.
The Finlay contribution is a lesser known work:

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07 Jul

Posted at 10:31h in Letters + Documents

26 x 22.2cm, 1pp. 223 words. A signed typed letter written at Gledfield House, Ardgay, by Finlay on c. 7 June 1965 soon after he had moved from Edinburgh, and just before he moved into the farmhouse on the estate, the first of his garden retreats, where he was to live for the following year: “We are not yet quite settled for we are in the basement of the ‘Big House’ till we get in the farmhouse in some 2 weeks… We still feel upheavaled… The farmhouse looks very nice, especially as it has a real sluice beside it, making a sound of running water. There is quite a large, and quite a wild, garden in front, and a big wood behind…”. Finlay asks to delay sending things to Hunter as “The earthships (the paper sculptural multiple Finaly issued) here need to be assembled and they are at the foot of mounds of heavy boxes… Once we are in the farmhouse we will be able to unpack properly.” The letter is signef=d “Ian” in red ink, with the typed addition “Sue too…”. Folded for mailing, o/w Fine, together with the original mailing envelope addressed in red ink by Finlay with stamp and 1965 franking (which allows dating of the missive)....

18 Jun

Posted at 14:54h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1965
173 x 10.5cm, 16pp. Original wrappers and typographic dustjacket. Regarded as a "kinetic" booklet in Murray's catalogue raisonne, the text has similarities with that found in the Canal Stripe series in that the words are printed in a single long line (reflecting a canal waterway or an object moving in one direction or the flatness of a horizon). The first page is a series of blue dashes that then can on the next page be seen overprinted on the phrase "the little sail of your name in red. That phrase is then set on its own on the next page without the dashes and then finally again in the penultimate page overprinted with blue dashes and then finally the dashes alone remain. The effect is a word picture of a boat appearing and then disappearing over the horizon. That inferred movement is why it is regarded as kinetic. VG.

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15 Jun

Posted at 18:37h in Artist's Postcards

Edinburgh: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1965)
5.8 x 14.2cm, printed 1pp. Folded on both sides allowing the card to stand as intended. The inner images are of an apple and stalk in black which metamorphoses step by step into a heart. Alongside that graphical change the word LOVE slowly emerges also first with a l then LO then LOV then LOVE. On each step the letter shapes added have some similarities with the red apple shape changing - for example the V in love appears as the top of the round apple indents in a V shape as part of the way to the final image. This is then mirrored by a second exact group of images and text in parallel.
The previous standing card (Standing Card 1) involved a pear appearing and disappearing - here an apple has a similar fate. In a simple card expressing love is a depth of metaphor and physical similarities. Like much of the best of Finlay the work has multiple readings.
This is the second version of this Standing Poem 2 - it is slightly larger than the earlier (?) version, the colours are blue and black and printed on light yellow card. The black colour of the apple/heart image is a single tone in this one (in the other card they are red and black). The text L LO LOV LOVE is in italic on this version. It may be that this card was designed before the red/black version but there is no record of whether that was the case or not so it is moot. The fact it is a slightly more simplistic design perhaps suggests it was first but traditionally this is usually regarded as the second version.
This is a scarce card - Murray in his flawed catalogue raisonne claims it as the third ever card published but it is more probably the fifth if one includes the earlier typescript from 1963 in this collection. VG+ condition.

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