Proposals - Unoriginal Sins

13 Mar SEVEN BOLLARDS: A PROPOSAL FOR A SHOPPING CENTRE. 1993.

Posted at 13:57h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1993
11.6 x 9.2cm, 16pp plus card covers and dust jacket with title label. A proposal for the Gyle Shopping Centre, Edinburgh which consisted of seven bollards near a landscaped area each with two boat names and registration number etched on them one above the other to create seven short poems. Drawings by John Andrew and Gary Hincks. In the notes Finlay explains each poem and its Greek reference.

One sich poem is:

OLIVE
LEAF
BCK 210
SERENE
BF46

which creates an appeal for peace. Finlay notes a Shakespeare quotation "and peace proclaims olives of endless age".

VG+. ...

15 Oct A PROPOSAL FOR TOUT QUARRY PORTLAND, DORSET. 1992.

Posted at 16:56h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992
20.9 x 14.8cm, 12pp, card covers and printed dust jacket. A proposal for a public work at Tout Quarry, in Portland, Dorset in the form of an artist's book - the intent is to use the giant blocks of stone that are abandoned in the quarry and have them carved on the upper face and along the sides with an inscription 'Gods of the Earth / Gods of the Sea' from Virgil's Aeneid Book III. The full original text is "Gods of the Earth / Gods of the Sea, Gods who rule over storms, give us a wind to help our voyage and may your breath bring us aid."
The block will have an image of a net (where there are knots will be mechanically drilled holes and the lines by light chisling) and deeper letter forms. There are two drawings by Gary Hincks and Nicholas Sloan is also credited....

15 Jun A PROPOSAL FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM AT THE BOTANIC GARDENS. 1992.

Posted at 17:15h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
23.2 x 12.5cm, 8pp. A proposal for a public work at the Botanic Gardens, University of Durham where a post of green oak is carved with a combination of numbers that are rearranged in each row (as a "method " used by bellringers) - Finlay notes this references the nearby Cathedral with its bells and the foxglove plants that also have bells. Three watercolour paintings by Ron Costley are reproduced. VG+....

15 Jun PROPOSAL FOR A KUNSTHALLE. 1993.

Posted at 17:08h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1993
23.4 x 18cm, 4pp. A proposal for a permanent installation in a new art museum planned for Germany. The work consists of a sentence from Saint-Just in four different languages:

THE NATIVE LAND IS NOT THE LAND IT IS THE COMMUNITY OF FEELINGS

on the ground of a 60 x 60m terrace. VG+. ...

15 May A PROJECT FOR THE PORTLAND. 1992.

Posted at 17:23h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992
16.4 x 14.9cm, outer folder content of a concertina 8pp insert printed one side only. A proposal for an "abbreviated doric temple" built on a hillside with four doric pillars but only completing part of a semi-circle. Finlay offers that the structure:

"embodies the original meaning of templum as a space marked out for divination. The stylobate is complete; the part-entabulature and supporting columns delineate "sacred" areas of the sky and, with the autere Latin inscription, frame the "everlasting" - also ephermeral - "temples: of the clouds."

The temple has the phrase "Aetema templa caeli" which translates to "the everlasting temples of the sky" which was cited by Varro in his De Lingua Latina.

There are three drawings by Mark Stewart - plans, sections and side elevations as well as an in situ drawing.
Sadly the printing of the inner pages has been poorly finished and there is sett off between the pages - else VG+. ...

18 Dec A PROPOSAL FOR A GARDEN BUILT ON A SLOPE. 1991. SIGNED & NUMBERED EDITION OF 250.

Posted at 13:14h in Proposals

Edinburgh, Scotland: Morning Star Publications, 1991
18 x 25.5cm printed publisher's envelope content of a 24 x 16.5cm, 4pp (top folding) folded card with a silkscreen image in green and black on beige with the poem:

pool
fall

pool
fall

pool
fall

rill

over an image of green ferns. A concrete poem which is denoted as a "proposal" by the Press and we have placed it in that category.
This is one of 250 signed and numbered copies from the collaborating artist Solveig Hill. VG+.

...

04 Aug FOR KLAUS WERNER. PROPOSAL FOR A POSTSCRIPT TO “THE PRESENT ORDER”. 1991.

Posted at 16:15h in Proposals

Little SpartaL: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991 18.2 x 11cm, 4pp printed outer folder content of 4pp sheeet with the text:

The present order.

Order the present.

Present the order.

This is a "postscript" to one of Finlay's best known works "The Present Order" (with Nicholas Stone) which takes the original's text and reworks it. The proposal is also to be cut on an unworked block of stone selected at the quarry face.
VG+.
...

12 Jul SIX MILESTONES. 1991.

Posted at 20:45h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991
26 x 18cm, 20pp plus card wrappers and printed dust jacket. A proposal for Floriade, The Hague, Holland where 6 different inscribed milestones were to be situated. The first reminds one of a gravestone and its text a reminder of death as well as of a journey:

MAN
A passerby

The drawings were by Michael Harvey who also drew the proposed plan for the site where the milestones would be placed between two trees in a row.

ix Milestones A Proposal for £65.00 1991 with Michael Harvey 20 pp booklet with dustjacket .0 cm...

25 Jul PROPOSAL FOR A PAIR OF GATE PIERS AND FINIALS. 1990.

Posted at 16:48h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1990
42.2 x 14.7cm (folded size) offset lithograph which when open displays the elevations of the finials - drawn by Andrew Townsend- a note on the outside of the card points to the "pineapple" finials visually being like fragmentation grenades and that the use of brick and stone being a poetic metaphor of the philosophies of Terror and Virtue during the French Revolution. One of 250 copies made. VG+.

...

13 May THE SACRAMENTO PROPOSAL. SCULPTURE FOR THE 1201K STREET OFFICE TOWER. 1990.

Posted at 19:18h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1987 29.6 x 21cm, 4pp folded sheet with a proposal for a walled pool with "granite, water and white neon". Finlay notes "the proposed sculpture treats the building's entrance hall as an atrium: it brings the 'clouds' (in five languages, including Spanish) down through the distinctive tower and dome, to be reflected in the pool. There is a reproduced colour drawing of the pool in plan and in side by Andrew Townsend. VG+. ...

13 Mar A PROJECT FOR A PROMONTORY. 1990.

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+. ...

13 Sep INTO THE FOREST. 1989.

Posted at 18:58h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989 10.0 x 12.4cm, 8pp folded card with a proposal for a stone pathway 16'8" x 12" x 3" where the top of the stone becomes gradually more pitted from a smooth start. The inside of the card has a drawing of the proposed stonework by Andrew Townsend. VG+. ...