Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
3.2 x 5.1cm, 8pp, single sheet, concertina folded card printed black on light brown. There are three panels which read:
lamp-stook
jug-stook
table-stubble
A stook is a group of sheaves of grain stood on end in a field. The three visual poems seen at twilight (reflecting colour of the paper stock employed here) are the mistaken images from a distance of a lamp and a jug and when the light gets bad, a simple irritation on the flat earth. Evening, the title of the card, can mean two things - the time of day and the evening out of an image towards less detail and more flatness. VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
12.7 x 4cm, 4pp card (top hinged) printed black on bright yellow with a poem:
SHORT POEM ON SANDPAPERING


evenly





eventually

The spacing in the typography indicates time passing - and the colour presumably the common beige of the sandpaper. The similarity of the two words seems to suggest one evolves out of the other - which reflects how sandpapering will initially make something even but time is needed for it to work well. VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9 x 14cm, 2pp card printed black on bright yellow is the text:
Inside every toilet roll a ship's funnel is waiting to be let out
which indicates Finlay's love of modelling. An earlier card shows three such funnels made to look like funnels in a photograph.. VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.2 x 10.5cm, 4pp card with a drawing of a plane with two cockpits that share wings - probably a North American F-82 Twin Mustang - and the text FINIS AMORIS UT DUO UNUM FIANT which translates into Love ends as two are made one. The legend originally was found in the frontispiece of The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (1914) by Pavel Florensky, a Russian thologian, where two cupids seem conjoined in an etching of a statue. VG+.

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Salzberg: Die Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, 1999
15 x 21cm, 2pp. Announcement for a symposium "Die Position der Kunst an der Schewelle zum Nueun Jahtausendpost" with Liam Gillick, Bettina Rheims and others. Beuys work "Telephon S ________ E" reproduced on the front. VG+. ...

Haute-Normandie: Editions Vitriol, 1999 17 x 14cm, unpaginated in cream silk covered boards and in original black plastic slipcase with hole. Monograph and exhibition catalogue with one full colour images of Byars. Text is white on white. VG but the choice of silk was unfortunate as it seems to sweat and stick to the plastic slipcase. The whole in a pink paper wrapper with gold closure sticker. ...

Köln. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 1999 22.5 x 14.55 cm. Unpaginated. Artist’s book published after the artist’s death - every page is black as are the boards and slip case and texts by Byars are included on some pages by die cut holes. One of 333 copies - fine. Rather beautiful. ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
16.6 x 11.9cm, 2pp card printed in full colour with an image of the Finlay public work at The Haagse Stream and Court Pool inn den Haag. The entrance of the stream into the larger pool has ET IN ARCADIO EGO in stone above it - given the history of the watercourse which was at one time heavily polluted due to passing through a city dump, then the work reflects the meaning of the original Poussin painting. This card was sent to Janet Boulton by Finlay and has a note in blue ink on it: "Thank you for the lovely momento. To treasure alone with the table sculpture. What a relevant surprise. Love Ian." We hold an exhibition catalogue for this work which is catalogued in the relevant section and discusses it in more details. VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
19 x 16.5cm, 1pp card printed black and brown on white. A drawing of A one masted boat by Nina Ivancic is denoted by Finlay as:

FOLK BOAT
billyboy

Billyboy boats are "bluff-bowed one-masted trading vessels, native to the NE of England." and there is a warning "not to be confused with the famous Folkboat ('people's yacht')". VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
19.5 x 18.8cm, 1pp card printed black and brown on cream. A line art drawing of the patched sails of a boat with the number FY 27 by Andrew Whittle is conjoined with a quote from Peter Anson's Mariners of Brittany.

"The trousers and jumpers of the men vary in hue from the brightest orange vermilion to the palest rose pink, and are decorated with every imaginable sort of patch."

A patch is defined by Finlay as Patch, n, a whole part.
As noted in other works Finlay saw the act of patching as denoting care and giving worth to things. This image is also found in the unique large sculptural work FY27 in this collection. . VG+.

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Barcelona: Joan Miro Foundation, 1999
16 x 11cm, 48pp, with black boards and tipped on title label. This book accompanied the exhibition "Variations on Several Themes' and is identified often as an exhibition catalogue but this is incorrect - it is an artist's book in itself.
The first pages of the publication have a new concrete poem which is based on Christina Rossetti's devotional works, and Eugen Gomringer's Constellation form of visual poetry. The words boat, net, wind, fire, vine, flock, sun, lamb are recombined in different placings to create five different imagined scenes.
At the back of the book there is an essay by Thomas A. Clark in English who points out that the structure of the poem is from Gromringer's 5 mal 1 konstellation' and the words used are from Rossetti's "Letter and SPirit". That essay is better than I can write here so we shall leave this here although we will point out that in the late 90s religion as a subject begins to be more apparent in Finlay's work.
We have re-classified this book as an artist's book and not just a catalogue

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