Exhibition Catalogues - Unoriginal Sins

06 May FREEWHEEL. AN EXHIBITION OF GRAPHICS AND POETRY ORGANISED BBY JOHN FURNIVAL AND DSH. 1967.

Posted at 09:26h in Exhibition Catalogues

Nottingham/Cambridge: Midland Group Gallery/Arts Council Gallery, n.d. (1967) 17.8 x 17.8cm, 12pp plus wrappers with a design by Tony Stokes. Exhibition catalogue for an early visual poetry show (even if Furnival and dsh called it "graphics and poetry". Foreword by dsh. There were works (all listed) by Ken Cox, Furnival, dsh, Hansjorg Mayer, Tom Phillips, and others as well as Finlay who contributed a large number of items.
Firstly the catalogue notes twelve different sculptural works - five of which were toys and, then, Column Poem, 4 Sails (Glass Version), fir/far in sheet metal, wave/rock (in two versions) and arc/arc in both sheet metal and perspex. There are prices - one could buy the works for between £40 and £70 - to which an annotation refers to Finlay saying "and a bargain at that".
Additionally the two large works Finlay exhibited in the Brighton Concrete Poetry show were also here - Sailor's Cross (in wood) and Purse-Net Poem (in sheet metal). Further listed in the show are various formats of Au Pair Girl (with Jon Willcocks) two of which were "perspex version 1" and "photographic version 1" and Ring of Waves with Ann Hildred, Homage with Angela Willard, Net Planet with Sue Hudson and Acrobats (letterpress - in two verstions) with Ann Stevenson. The joint work Finlay did with students from Bath College under Joh Furnival's tutorage was also displayed - Eavelines/headlines.
Looking a tthe other contributions one could easily suggest that the show was mostly Finlay.
It is perhaps worth noting that by this exhibition in 1967 Finlay had clearly entered the world of art in the sense of creating three dimensional recognisable sculptures - his first poems in the concrete format were only 3 years earlier. This is scarce publication and in VG+ condition.

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22 Oct BETWEEN POETRY AND PAINTING. 1965.

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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14 Jan LEDLANET NIGHTS EXHIBITION. 1963. FINLAY’S FIRST EVER EXHIBITION.

Posted at 16:59h in Exhibition Catalogues

N.p. (Near Edinburgh): n.p. (John Calder), 1963
26.5 x 10cm, 14pp (one page is half size). Mimeographed with similar card cover. The extremely rare first exhibition catalogue that was Finlay's first show alongside the Cobra artist William Gear and Alexander Trocchi and others. Each artist has a page dedicated to them and Hamilton-Finlay's (sic) test is somewhat amusing - including a reworking of his "Notice - please do not feed the boats." and notes Finlay as the inventor of the "Wold (sic) Hawthorne Airship (banned)."
According to wikipedia: " Ledlanet Nights in Kinrosshire, Scotland, was an arts festival that operated from 1962 for around ten years (...