paul robertson, Author at Unoriginal Sins

15 Jul COMPRA VENTA. 1998. TWO VOLUMES IN SLIPCASE.

Posted at 11:26h in EXHIBITION CATALOGUES

Valencia: La Imprenta Comunicación Gráfica, 1998
25.4 x 18cm, slipcase content of two volumes - both 25 x 17.6cm, 86pp and 212pp respectively plus blue boards. The ornate exhibition catalogue(s) for a major site-specific installation where Boltanski placed many objects and pieces of furniture in a former silo and offered them for sale. When any item was sold, a white sheet was placed over the object to create an ever increasing sense of being a mortuary. Additionally hidden audio speakers were placed among the objects, recounting personal stories and memories attached to each item. Some of the stories are recounted in this book. Essay by Jose Miguel G. Cortes.
Texts are in Spanish and Catalan, with an English summary in the first volume. Illustrated throughout in b/w. VG+.

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08 Jul OAK/BARK/BOAT. 1998.

Posted at 19:47h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 14.1cm, 1pp artist's card printed black on grey. The text has a quotation from Heidegger's The Country Lane. Heidegger often walked a particular lane deep in his thoughts but this scene mentions how children he encountered made pretend boats from peeled oak bark and how "those play voyages knew nothing yet of journeys upon which all shores are left behind" - a consideration of how death is not a thought in the happy minds of the young. VG+.

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06 Jul TEA PARTY AT 136 AND OTHER WORKS. 1998. POSTER SIGNED BY MONK.

Posted at 21:38h in Jonathan Monk

Paris: Yvon Lambert, 1998
42 x 30cm, 2pp small poster with an appropriated image of a man standing on his head but Monk has rotated the image such that the man supporting the gymnast is upside down and the acrobat is the right way up. Verso gallery details. This was Monk's 16th ever solo show and the first at Yvon Lambert's gallery. The poster is folded twice for mailing and is signed in pencil on the back by Monk. VG+.

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03 Jul LES SALTIMBANQUES. 1998.

Posted at 19:21h in Artist's Postcards

Glasgow: WAX366, 1998
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. Full colour artist postcard by Finlay's former assistant but visual poet in his own right. A photograph of one of Finlay's toy boats seen from outside the building through the window is on the front, vwrso standard postcard design. The title references "Family of Saltimbanques " painting by Pablo Picasso in 1905 - an itinerant group of actors. ...

01 Jul FOLDS. 1998. TWO CARDS IN ENVELOPE.

Posted at 19:39h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10 x 6.5cm, envelope with printed label content of two 3.5 x 5cm 1pp folded cards.
The first card created by Thomas A Clark and Laurie Clark reads "FOLDING THE LAST LAMB" meaning the animals have been placed in a pen. The second card by Finlay reads FOLDING THE LAST SAIL" which has a double meaning of storing a sail and/or folding a sail around a dead sailor as a form of coffin before burial at sea.Both cards are folded - adding a physicality to the metaphors by altering the cards themselves.
This is the second version of Finlay's card - previously published by the Wild Hawthorn Press in 1997 in a larger size and alone but with an acknowledgement to the Clarks. This version has both the original card and its adaption.VG+.

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27 Jun B OATS. 1998.

Posted at 19:34h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
10.5 x 15.1cm, 1pp artist's card printed blue and ochre on white. The text has a "b" then "oats" allowing it to be read both as oats and boats. Beneath is found "The Orcadian is a crofter with a boat while the Shetlander is a fisherman with a croft" apparently a traditional saying. Hence one can read the Oats/Boats as a direct representation of the saying. Finlay lived for some years in Orkney in a fisher community where he was employed as a shepherd. VG+.

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19 Jun EN PAERE. 1998.

Posted at 16:46h in David Bellingham

Glasgow: Wax366, 1998
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp artist postcard with a colour photograph of a light fitting where a pear is replacing the usual bulb. Photograph by Bellingham. VG+.

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18 Jun UNTITLED. AIRCRAFT CARRIER. (FROM LITTLE SPARTA: PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN). 1998.

Posted at 18:57h in Photographs

30 x 24cm, b/w original photograph taken by Robin Gillanders of Little Sparta for his book "‘Little Sparta, Portrait of a Garden". This shows one of Finlay's garden sculptures of an aircraft carrier. Gillanders took the images between 1994 and 1998. Originally a gift from the photographer to Janet Boulton, one of Finlay's later collaborators and a friend to both Gillanders and the poet. VG+.

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17 Jun IN A FAUVE PAINTING…. 1998.

Posted at 19:26h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1998
9 x 13cm, 1pp artist's card printed red on white. The text "IN A FAUVE PAINTING THE MOST IMPORTANT COLOUR IS GREY" which is of course a jarring statement as the one thing Fauvism is identified with is a bright colour palette. VG+. .

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17 Jun PRINT PRICE LIST. 1999.

Posted at 11:36h in Miscellany

Edinburgh: Ingleby Gallery, n.d. (1999)
21 x 15cm, 2pp offset price list of available Finlay prints handed out a solo exhibition. Two punched holes for storage else VG.

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14 Jun VARIATIONS. 1998.

Posted at 10:55h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1999
9.8 x 10.6 cm, 12pp, plus card covers and dust jacket. Content of 16 b/w drawings of knots used in netting by Gary Hincks- the subtle differences between them and the sequential way they are presented reminds one of the schematics of Sol Lewitt. The last pages of the book have a line by Finlay:

Variations on a Theme of Diamonds
net

A one line poem which notes the shapes of the netting as the ropes are pulled into diamond shapes. And the value of such nets to the fisherman.

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10 Jun CUP DU MONDE/WORLD CUP. 1998. POSTCARD COLLECTION.

Posted at 20:20h in Artist's Postcards

Edinburgh: Morning Star Publications/Water press. Wax366, 1998
16.2 x 22.9cm, printed envelope content of four artists' postcards by David Bellingham, Alec Finlay, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Kevin Henderson issued on the occasion of the 1998 football world cup in France.
Ian Hamilton Finlay's card is "Relative Geography" which was a concrete poem originally published in "Tea-leaves and Fishes" from 1966. The text reads:

Britain: North Pole Equator South Pole Brazil: North Pele Equator South Pele

Pele of course was the world famous footballer who was often regarded as the Greatest Of All Time. All cards are VG+ in like envelope. The co-publisher Morning Star Press was the idea of Finlay's son Eck Finlay (now Alex FInlay).

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