20 Mar

Posted at 09:26h in James Lee Byars

Halifax, UK: Henry Moore Institute, 1996 30 x 20cm, 32pp in black embossed covers. One colour and one b/w tipped on photographs. Artist's book where Byars asked the open-ended title question of four European thinkers: their Responses are reproduced in the original language and in English. The event took place during Byars' display of his large scale sculptural work 'The Monument to Language' - which is reproduced herein. Slight wear to the thick black wrappers with minor damage at top and bottom of spine. ...

16 Mar

Posted at 15:20h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
6.5 x 5cm, 4pp black on white small artist's card which internally reads:

BOREAS
Plank bender

The drawing is of a tool used in model making that allows thin wood to be bent. Boreas being the North wind which makes growing trees bend under the forces of nature. VG+.

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13 Mar

Posted at 21:05h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
6.5 x 9cm, printed custom folder content of 10 6.5 x 9cm, 1pp black on deep blue cards. Each card has a epigram by Finlay on it:
"5. The sail and the keel practice dialectic."<BR< This sentence brings Hegelian dialectics into the consideration of a boat - the keel is at the bottom of the boat, the sail at the top, one keeps the baot upright, the other pushes it along. One without the other would have no effect - the synthesis of the two creates a journey.
All fine in like folder.

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13 Mar

Posted at 13:09h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
11.7 x 9.2cm, 8pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket with a line drawing by Mark Stewart of the golden temple to Apollo found on the edge of Lock Eck. Internally Finlay has four couplets one per page:

the flock of stones
the text from Virgil

the stray shot
the frozen gulley

the blue bow-rope
the bust in plaster

the black Bren
the golden temple

The lines describe the temple and with the title REDOUBT compares the small building with a military base (appropriate for Apollo). VG+. ...

11 Mar

Posted at 17:08h in Object + Paper Multiples

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. 16 x 10.5cm, transparent resealable plastic bag content of a 12.2 x 6cm, brown manilla label with string. On the label is a poem by Finlay:

Simple and
useful,
attached

like the Idea
in Plato,
a circle

incised in
its rectangle

of cardboard
and string.

The poem describes the label but compares it to Platonic philosophy where items have perfect forms which are perceived by humanity.

Limitation unknown. VG+. Scarce....

10 Mar

Posted at 09:47h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1996?) 11 x 8cm, 8pp plus card covers. Artist's book with two poems by Finlay that share a similar structure - that of a one-word poem:


On the left:

An Example of Closure

X



and



On the right:

An Example of Opening

X. "X" can stand for a kiss and is often appended at the end of messages, it can also be used in place of a name and therefore found at the beginning of letters. VG+. ...

09 Mar

Posted at 16:37h in Miscellany

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. 12 x 9cm, 1pp ex libris (printed on card) with a drawing of a tank turret and the text above it: "SI FEDEM FREGERIS, FIDES TIBI PENITUS DISSONABUNT: which is given in an English translation as "IF YOU BREAK FAITH WITH ME, THE STRINGS OF YOUR LYRE WILL SOUND COMPLETELY OUT OF TUNE". Finlay as designated the tank (a Rh 202) as a Lyre in the drawing. One of a small number of Ex Libris designs Finlay made. VG+ Scarce. ...

07 Mar

Posted at 13:37h in Uncategorised

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1990s?) 8.2 x 10.7cm, 4pp outer folder with image of old unused flowerpots by Gary Hincks and inside a poem by FInlay:

CORNER

Earthenware,
earth & wear.

The meaning of which is obvious - the old pots on the front showing "wear". VG+. ...

04 Mar

Posted at 20:23h in Jonathan Monk

London: CIty Racing, n.d. (1996)
30 x 42cm, b/w offset exhibiton poster with a design by Monk (taken from a 1970s teen film) and a title taken from the Tommy Steele song (from Half A Sixpence). This was Monk's tenth only exhibition and his first in London. A folded and mailed copy sent to the poet Douglas Park. ...

02 Mar

Posted at 15:12h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
10 x 6.8cm printed manilla envelope content of a 9.8 x 6.6cm, 2pp black on green card with texts on both sides which are quotations from others to which Finlay has added text. The first discusses the meaning of PAN to the Greeks - the final part of which notes Arcady to be the "homeland of the Panzer divisions" a common Finlay trope. The other text discusses the Poussin painting ARCADIAN SHEPHERDS - Finlay's addition claims the words on the tomb to be VIRTUE and TERROR (from the French revolution) instead of the original "Et in Arcadia ego". The latter another common Finlay theme. Both VG+.

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01 Mar

Posted at 15:00h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1996
12.7 x 13.9cm, 1pp full colour reproduction of a painting of one of Finlay's toy boats by Janey Boulton. On the reverse is a Finlay "definition" poem -

SPARROW, n. a plain brown bird of the finch family.

The card is a visual poem with the painting having similar colourings to the bird and it seems likely that the model is also somewhat small. VG+.

...

23 Feb

Posted at 10:45h in DELUXE ARTIST’S BOOKS

Paris: Yvon Lambert 1996
41 x 30.6cm, outer folder eight 40 x 30cm, 1pp b/w reproductions of appropriated photographs printed on semi-opaque paper and with eight transparent 40 x 30cm overlays with text printed in red.
The short titles associated with each image seem incongruous - an image of a young woman in swimming costume with a blanket over her head is noted as "La Belle Hotesse" (the Beautiful Hostess), a priest with a baby is denoted as Intense Souffrance (intense suffering). However the overlays can be moved around and placed over different images - and the titles given new context. Or more accurately the photographs are given new associations with any new text - which one may suggest is the point of the work: an anonymous image is read by a viewer using conscious and unconscious visual cues but when a language descriptor is added new associations are formed and the semantic context changed. Concessions are made.
This is one of only 50 signed and numbered examples on a colophon sheet. VG+

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