Stuttgart: Oktagon Verlag, 1995
17 x 13.5cm, 32pp which include 23 full colour 8.7 x 12.5cm "Kodak" photographs loosely tipped onto blank pages plus title page and colophon. Padded orange boards with foil stamped title. First edition of this artist's book which was designed to look like a family photographic album.
The photographs purport to be souvenirs of a family holiday at Berck-Plage in August 1975 and have the over bright colours found in the colour stock of the time - and an over saturated colour pallet that Boltanski has used in some of his mid-career photographic studies.
As with all of Boltanski's work one is left unsure if the images are genuinely from the artist's family records or found from some other vintage source?
This is one of 500 signed and numbered copies in pencil on the colophon by the artist. The series of Oktagon artist's books was edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist who has since worked several times with Boltanski including the series of "Take Me I'm yours" exhibitions from the late 90s. VG+ condition.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
10.3 x 10.3cm, 12pp plus typographic card covers. A b/w photograph by Robin Gillanders of wild flowers in the Picpus Cemetary where many of the guillotined dead during the last months of the Terror were buried in mass graves and a text by Finlay:

THREE WILD FLOWERS
Julie Boissard
Adelaide Lienard
Agathe Greaude

These are names of three of the women who were murdered during the Terror and buried in the cemetery. Finlay's suggestion that they be seen as wild flowers re-emerging from the ground is a beautiful memorial. VG+.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
13.5 x 9cm, 60pp plus black unprinted boards with red ribbon. A list of all the people murdered during the Terror and buried in the Picpus Cemetery in Paris. The cemetery was only five minutes from the Place de la Nation where the guillotine was set up so was used for the creation of mass graves where where the decapitated bodies were thrown in together without regard for social class.
Finlay has listed here the names of all those killed during 7 - 9 Messidor (the tenth month in the French Republican calendar) in the second year of the Terror (a period which is known as The Grand Terror as the numbers of those condemned rose very greatly before the downfall of Robespierre). These dates in the common calendar are Thursday 25 June 1795 to Saturday 27 June 1795.
By our count this consisted of 116 people of differing station and most noticeable is the number of young lives under 30. Of course the popular view of the Terror is that it was the nobility that were guillotined but that is not true - the majority were working and middle class people accused of anti-revolutionary views and actions.
The red ribbon is a nod to the line of red blood on a guillotined body (obviously it was not a line) and the use of such ribbons tied around a wrist as a memorial to those killed. The black unprinted board an obvious allusion to death.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
252 x 14.8cm, 28pp plus card covers and typographic dust jacket. A proposal in book form for the cladding and internal walls and glass of a German bank. The external works are all "definitions" such as:

AFFLUENCE n.
A SHORTAGE OF SACKCLOTH & ASHES.

which is ironic for a bank.
Internally wall paintings of "Evening will come they will sew the blue sail" and also "Wave/Rock" are found. The glass entrance doors have Star/Steer etched upon them.Text in English and German and all works photographed in b/w. The central seven images of the outer claddings open out as an accordion fold-out. VG+.

...

N.p. (Little Sparta): s.p. (Wild Hawthorn Press), n.d. (1995?) 16.5 x 15 x 24cm, glazed ceramic teapot with a text "TEAPOTS ARE THE NAVALS OF HAPPY HOUSEHOLDS". A limited edition object multiple - Finlay produced at least two teapots with text of which this is one. Slight internal damage to the pot but not visible from outside when the lid is on. Limited edition - the actual number produced was not many....

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995
16 x 11cm, 4pp orange outer folder with printed title. Internally a 16 x 11cm, 4pp sheet with two concrete poems both entitled THE INSCRIPTIONS but the first being for Carl Rakosi and the second for Harry Gilonis.
The former is an objectivist poet, the latter a friend of Finlay's and also a poet. The first form of the poem is duplicated in both but in the second Finlay has crossed out the original words, kept the physical structure but the classical names replaced by names of meaning to Gilonis. The echo here being the similarities in the two poems.
This is one of a series of works which the Wild Hawthorn Press denoted as "Poems in folders". VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1995)
8 x 7.7cm, 8pp plus card covers and printed typographic dustjacket. Artist's book with two poems by Finlay.
The texts read:

TWO BOATS
two half-moons


and

TWO BOATS
two snowdrifts


Two visual poems. VG+.
...

Leeds: The Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, 1995
31 x 21.5 white folder with printed label content of a 30 x 21cm, 1pp press release announcing Boltanski's new works at the Henry Moore Studio incluiding THE LOST WORKERS where local residents with relatives who formerly worked in the Dean Clough Carpet Factory were invited to bring personal belongings and memories to be stored in tin boxes as part of a permanent archive of the past employees. This work eventually became The Lost Workers of Halifax.
Additional to the press release is a photocopy - a 30 x 21cm, 16pp (recto only) interview with Boltanski found in the LOST PORTFOLIO (1994) for use by journalists. Slight wear to folder and xerox interview pages else VG.

...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995 11 x 10.7cm, 12pp plus card covers. Artist's book with a b/w photograph of the grave of Andre de Chenier from the Picpus cemetary (by Robin Gillanders) and a concrete poem by Finlay in the shape of a guillotine blade (the text reads Andre Chenier Des Illes Grecques HORIZON d'acier quie separa noting the fact that the poet was killed by the revolution by the blade.) VG+. ...

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1994) 8.4 x 6cm, 4pp artist's card with two poems internally:


the camouflaged
magpie

whose white
parts are
sky


and


the camouflaged
Messerschmitt

whose blue
parts are
Humbrol
.

The living bird is compared with a toy war airplane - the former however has natural colouring whereas the latter uses the paint brand Humbrol. VG+. ...

Venice: S.N.E., Sans Lieu, 1995
27.5 x 24cm, 154pp plus typographic wrappers. Published during the artist's intervention in the Venice Biennale this artist's book lists all of the names of others officially participating in the Biennale since 1895 to 1995. Afterword (really just thanking people) by Jean Clair and a small b/w image of the main Pavilion building at the Gardini. VG+.

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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1995 10.6 x 11.3cm, 4pp outer folder in grey with tipped on 9.5 x 44cm opened out, 8pp concertina folded, white paper with the text: "a line of foam along an empty shore" which is printed with a font that is not solid to reflect the form of the foam. VG+. ...

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