Carl Heideken - Unoriginal Sins

15 Nov IMPROVISATION NO. 1. 1977.

Posted at 16:04h in Artist's Postcards

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
6.6 x 21cm, 2pp. A photographic card with a b/w image of a lily pond and the surface pond scum which has been disturbed by the passage of a swimming bird to leave lines in the algae. Amusingly Finlay credits this painterly image to himself, Carl Heideken (the photographer) and an "unidentified waterhen". The image is meant to appear like an improvised painting or even an avant garde music score (if one squints a bit and uses one's imagination) hence the title. VG+.

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27 Jan LYRES (2). 1977.

Posted at 17:21h in Artist's Postcards

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1977
10.5 x 15.6cm, 2pp. A photograph by Carl Heideken of a Oerlikon cannon below which the word LYRE has been added by Finlay. On the reverse of the card there is a quotation from Jean Cocteau "With us, there is a house, a lamp, a plate of soup, a fire, wine and pipes art the back of every important work of art."
Visually the cannon's ammunition looks like the strings of a harp (lyre) so Finlay sees a visual correspondence between the gun and the musical instrument (both also make noise) and by adding the quote he is also suggesting that art may well be violent as well as based on the homely values of Cocteau. VG+>

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15 Oct MOTORING CHOCOLATE SOLDIER (PANZER GRENADIER). 1976.

Posted at 17:52h in Artist's Postcards

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1976
11.3 x 16.6cm, 1pp. A photograph by Carl Heideken shows an actual chocolate soldier marching while carrying a heavy gun. Finlay equates this to the German Panzergrenadier who were the basic troops of the Panzergrenadiertruppe, their uniforms were often brown, famously the enlisted men were given chocolate bars (Scho-Ka-Kola) as part of their "Front Fighting Packages" when supplies arrived.

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15 Sep LYRES (1). 1976.

Posted at 18:08h in Artist's Postcards

Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1976.
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp. A photograph by Carl Heideken of a Oerlikon cannon below which the word LYRE has been added by Finlay. On the reverse of the card there is a Hereclitian quotation from Edward Hussey's book on the PreSocratics: "Applied to a lyre, harmone might refer to the structure of the unstrung lyre, or to that of the strung lyre whether tuned or not, or to that of the lyre tuned in a particular mode."
Visually an Oerlikon cannon's ammunition looks somewhat like the strings of a harp (lyre) so Finlay sees a visual correspondence between the gun and the musical instrument (both also make noise) and the classical quote notes the synthesis of the visual beauty of the weapon/instrument with its function. VG+.

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