Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992 14.7 x 10.4cm, 14pp concertina artist's card with five different finials (the small sculpture on top of a pillar), the first four of which are traditional (Ball, Vanburgh Ball, Acorn, Pineapple) and the final one is denoted as a Pineapple Grenade Finial (based on the throwing weapon). Drawings by Andrew Townsend. VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991
10.5 x 7.2cm, 12pp plus wrappers and printed dust jacket. Four "proverbs" by Finlay are illustrated with drawings by Kathleen Lindsley.
"The poor fisherman counts his diamonds" for instance depends on the drawing to explain the diamonds is a metaphor for silver-backed fish.
Very good condition apart from some minor rust on staples. Murrsay has this as 1992 but the book has 1991.
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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+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1991
10.6 x 16cm, 48pp plus card covers with printed dust jacket. Artist's book with four folded over pages that have one text on the outside that reveals the second text when opened.
Neoclassical Thaumaturgy
opens to
The gods fly faster than sound.
A monostich is a one line poem. VG+.
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Houston: Contemporary Arts Museum, 1991
20.5 x 16 x 2.6cm, two part printed cardboard box content of a 17.7 x 12.5cm, 14pp (recto only) leporello booklet which has 14 images of the artist's cut out and cheaply made figures. One of only 500 copies released. Similar to the artist's grotesques where assemblage sculptures were made from household objects, these figures are mostly dancing skeletons in white against a flat black background.
There is a colophon card in black on brown also inserted into the box. VG+. Scarce.
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Pittsberg: Carnegie Museum of Art, 1991
21 x 14cm, 40pp. Original card covers. Artist's book listing in alphabetical order all of the participants of the Carnegie International from 1896 to 1991 (Boltanski took part in 1991 and his name is included), VG+
JOINT AS ISSUED:
17.5 x 13cm, original b/w silver gelatine print showing Boltanski's installation in the Carnegie International which is signed on the back.
One of only 100 such books and photographs as a deluxe edition. Both VG++.
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Paris, Jean Daviot et Bernard Marcadé, automne 1991,
35 x 30 cm (opens out to 70 x 60cm), 2pp. A single number of this artist's publications which is dedicated to a single artist - here, obviously, Boltanski who reproduces two pages from the Spanish "detective" magazine "El Caso Criminal".
This is one of 200 signed and numbered examples aside from the larger run of the magazine. Folded as issued else VG+.
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New York City: Marian Goodman Gallery 1991
20.3 × 22.8 × 5cm two part tin box and two photographs glued and mounted on the inside lid and bottom of the box. The bottom image is of a Jewish school from Hamberg in 1938 taken just before the war began. Obviously the crimes of the National Socialists led to the deliberate massacre of Jewish people throughout Germany. The photograph in the top of the box is an enlarged detail from the photograph of a girl. One does not know her fate - it could have been very tragic and more than likely so.The photograph on the lid is lined with lightly creased and glued paper - creating a frame that is somewhat like a shroud.BR>
There was a serial edition of 40 - with each box in the edition unique with a different face enlarged on the top. Signed and numbered on a label below the class photograph by Boltanski. The box is deliberately tarnished and the lid has a lot of oxidation which Boltanski deliberately encouraged by "watering" his stocks of the boxes which he kept for future use in such works.
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Imschoot: Uitgevers for Antichambres, Affinités Electives, 1991
22.3 x 16cm. 28pp plus card wrappers. Second edition of this artist's book which reprints the images of children from 1955 which had been sent to the Mickey Mouse Club and reprinted in their magazine. There were 62 members who were about the same age as Boltanski in that year and the images here consist of 148 duotone rephotographed portraits as if in an album.
This book was originally published in 1990 bin 400 copies ut was so popular a second edition (as here) of 500 numbered copies was reprinted in 1991. This example is not numbered. VG+.
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Koln: Walther Konig, 1991
35 x 25.5 x 5.5cm, black cardboard clamshell box with tipped on label. The ornate reprinting of most of Boltanski's earlier and very hard to find artist's books including:
Jennifer Flay ed. C.B.: Catalogue: Books, Printed Matter ephemera 1966-1991: the first major catalogue raisonne of the artist's work up to 1991
The 45rpm vinyl record Reconstitution de Chansons
Ten ephemeral items such as manuscript letters, photos in envelopes and exhibition announcements and posters
and
reprints of 16 Boltanski artist books namely:
Recherche et presentation de tout ce qui reste de mon enfance 1969,
Reconstitution d'un accident. 1969,
Reconstitution de Gestes Effectues 1948-54 1970,
Cataogue: Essais de reconstitution d'objects.1948-54 1971,
Six Souvenirs de Jeunesse 1971,
10 Portrait Photographies 1946-64 1972,
L'appartement de a rue de Vaugirard 1973,
Les Histories 1973, Inventaire des Objects .Une Femme de Bois Colombes 1974,
20 Reges et Techniques utilisees en 1972. 1975,
Saynetes Comiques 1975,
Monuments 1986,
Le Lycee Chases 1987,
Geo Harly danseur parodiste 1988,
El Caso 1989,
Sans Souci 1991.
The re-printings make sense as part of Boltanski's reconstitution of his past - there is no reason why he should not make the rare books easier to find given the rarity of some of them (and the high prices) but book dealers curse this publication as sometimes these reprints are offered as first editions and it is hard to tell the difference.
This is one of 50 signed and numbered deluxe copies (on the front label) which has additional to all of the above an original photograph of Boltanski as a comic from the Saynetes Comiques series which is signed and numbered in white on the front and is presented in a card folder with tissue guard. These deluxe copies are very hard to find.
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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+.
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Frankfurt am Main/Koln: Portikus/Walther König, Köln, 1991.
22 x 29cm, 16pp, plus printed typographic boards. Artist's book with 56 b/w illustrations of German family life just before or at the beginning of the second world war with many of the subjects in military uniform. Each page has a tissue guard which has a patter of a cobweb on it. The book looks like a family album and the subjects are happy in their life - one cannot tell anything about their personal guilt or actions or morality during the war from the photographs.
This is one of only 30 copies that has an additional original 18.7 x 22.4cm, b/w photograph on the first sheet in photo-corners of a wedding with two men in uniform with the bridge and her friend. The extra page is signed and numbed by Boltanski on the inside cover of the book. VG+. Very scarce.
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