24 Apr

Posted at 17:45h in Object + Paper Multiples

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorne Press, 1990
30.4 x 12.5cm, two printed card labels with string and twine respectively in envelope.
The more extreme Jacobin grouping within the French revolution are compared with the Girondists (who were also committed revolutionaries but who were ousted in the insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793 as being insufficiently committed to rooting out perceived traitors to the cause). The latter insurrection of the more extreme of the Sans Culottes led to the Reign of Terror. Twine is much rougher than string - and the metaphor is that of the less cultured people of Paris being less sophisticated and less willing to accept compromises. Only 100 copies of this simple but striking object multiple were made. VG in like envelope.

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21 Apr

Posted at 07:36h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
14 x 12.4cm, 4pp and printed card wrappers. The cover drawing of a boat is by Gary Hincks, internally are two poems by Finlay.

3 Sailboats
Juan Gris
Jean Cocteau
Erik Satie

opposite to

3 Sansculottes
Puvis de Chavannes
Camille Pissarro
Jean_Baptiste Corot

Finlay is associating the the thematic interests of the latter three painters (the lives of the poor and oppressed) against the bourgeois interests of Gris, Cocteau and Satie. The sansculottes being the working class mob in Paris during the revolution who could by sheer numbers overthrow the various attempts at moderate government and led eventually to the rise of Robespierre and the Terror. VG+.

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02 Apr

Posted at 16:28h in Exhibition Catalogues

Basel: Kusntehall Basel, 1990
30.5 x 23cms, 92pp, plus original card covers and pictorial dust jacket. Exhibition catalogue for a major exhibition of works with a short essay in German by Thomas Kellein. Eight b/w photographs of Little Sparta and many works reproduced in colours. VG+.

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27 Mar

Posted at 22:15h in Prints + Posters

Lugo: Exempla, Firenze & Exit, 1990
25.8 x 19cm, 4pp single sheet of folded card in printed envelope. The card opens up to show a photograph by Martyn Greenhalgh of an automatic machine gun which has holes on the barrel to reduce heat. The gun can be seen against sheets of unused musical notation paper - hence the gun with the hole's becomes a violent form of Pan's reed pipes. The image is printed in light green to further emphasise the vegetative aspect of the work.
This is one of 150 signed and numbered copies (on the back of the envelope). VG+.

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24 Mar

Posted at 18:47h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
17.8 x 8.2cm, 4pp card. The front of the card has the text: "TWO MILESTONES/TWO LIVES" in red and then below "Varennes/Vincennes" in green.
The first "milestone" here was the town where the King Louis XVI was stopped when he and Marie Antoinette and their children tried to flee France after they were being held hostage by the revolution. The second milestone is the forrest where Rousseau wandered and had a "revelation" regarding the role of science and arts in human morality which he claimed changed his worldview. Both places changed the history of the individuals and one may argue the world. VG+.

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22 Mar

Posted at 21:45h in Invitation Cards

NYC: Christine Burgin Gallery, 1990
18 x 12.5cm, 1pp typographic announcement card for a US solo show. VG+ although there is some handwriting on the back which seems to relate to prices of certain works.

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22 Mar

Posted at 15:37h in Poems in folders

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
18.4 x 11.1cm, 4pp red outer folder. Internally a 18.4 x 11.1cm, 4pp sheet with a poem:

KING

ohne
titel

sans
title

without
a head

The poem compares an artwork that has no title to a beheaded monarch who also presumably has no title once dead.
This is one of a series of works which the Wild hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.

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19 Mar

Posted at 16:12h in Exhibition Catalogues

Milano: British Council, 1990
30 x 21cm, 32 pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue for an Italian solo show - twelve works reproduced in full colour and texts in English and Italian by Giovanni Damiani. Staples slightly rusty else VG+.

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15 Mar

Posted at 16:22h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
9.5 x 6.cm, 4pp, Artist's card with a drawing of a boat on the front.

Internally there is a list of names:

Elegy
Elizabeth Campbell
Isa Wilson
Charlotte Chambers
Yvonne Risager
George R. Wood
Mary Robinson
William Risager
These appear to be names of boats (the Yvonne Risager and William Risager being built in 1955 according to Fishing News, a publication Finlay often read) . On the back of the card are the boat registrations numbers:

PL56, D, NI20, SD50, A465, BH32, BA110

One presumes the elegy is for lost or ruined boats - but this is the author's speculation. VG+.

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13 Mar

Posted at 18:02h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990 11.0 x 7.7cm, 24pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket. One of Finlay's proposals for a public work in Nordhorn in Germany. The proposal is for a large but low lying rusting Cort-en steel sundial near the Vechte river with a latin inscription (to reflect the monastery nearby) that reads "Ex Templo" which means "from the Temple" (ie the sky) as well as "from the moment", there is a proposed viewing point on the opposite side of the water which Finlay intends to stress the inaccessibility of the promontory. The drawings and plans are by Kathleen Lindsley and Malcolm Fraser.
Finlay also appends to the book several of his Detached Sentences on Sundials such as "Clocks scold, sundials preach.". One of only 250 copies published. VG+. ...

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