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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Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1990
24.5 x 24.5cm, 56pp plus card covers and printed dust jacket with tipped on illustration. A series of drawings by Ron Costley after instructions from Finlay which reinterpret modern weaponry as classical memes. A camouflaged tank is denoted as "GROVE:.
The second part of the book has various relief sculptures which are the same as the drawings in a different medium - a warplane has the word ECHO beside it - the radar being equated to the nymph who was cursed only to speak in echos. The sculptures are by John Andrew. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (1990)
19.5 x 11.8cm, blue outer folder with a drawing of a swallow on power lines with a 4pp insert with a one line poem by Finlay:
The Sound of a Single Swallow
gathering
The amusing one word naming of the sound made by a single bird being usually associated with a group also indicates the loudness of the sound.
VG+. ...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d. (c. 1990?)
16.5 x 12.2cm, 4pp folder content of a 4pp insert with a poem by Finlay:
FORECAST
'Rain - some
of it
heavy
more particularly
in the glens
of Scotland
where it may
fall as
sleet'
the sound
of calligrammes
The poem about the awful weather in Scotland is rounded off with a reference to Apolloniare's calligrammes and, in particular, his famous version of rain where the poem's words are in the shape of falling rain.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
11.6 x 7cm, 20pp plus card wrappers and printed dust jacket. Five drawings by Kathleen Lindsley are conjoined with Finlay's pithy proverbs.
"Temper harshness with tolerance, tolerance with justice"
when applied to the Jacobins (the most severe of the French revolutionary political clubs named after the religious order where they initially met) this can be seen as a plea for moderation. Another proverb reads:
"If you want to avoid the worst of the mud, walk in the ruts."
which also alludes to the moral state of the revolutionary club.
This is one of 250 signed copies which is dedicated to "Ian , with love from Ian" in red ink. VG+.
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Edinburgh: Morningstar Press, 1989
12.4 x 18.6cm, 4pp. Printed letterpress. Christmas card black on handmade paper with the text:
Somewhere in the wood was shining the
little red lantern of Christmas...
Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
14 x 9.5cm, 4pp. Artist's folding card with the text "a line of thin pale red" inside which is a translation from Chenier - the French poet of revolutionary times who was guillotined. The red here being blood and the line that left momentarily from the clean cut of the blade. I do not know if Cutts and Finlay were friends at this point - as the card seems to hint at threat - but both published jointly a similar work together under the aegis of Cutts' Coracle Press a few years earlier. VG+.
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Berlin: Galerie Jule Kewenig, 1989.
49 x 34.5cm, 8pp. Exhibition catalogue in the form of a large broadside with a text in German and English. by Remo Guidieri. Five large b/w images of works - Boltanski has an image from his comic performances on the back. VG+ although folded as issued by the gallery.
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Moscow: Maison Centrale de L'Artiste, 1989
11 x 15.5cm, printed envelope in red and black on cream content of four different postcards with images of the exhibition and two 21 x 15cm, 2pp leaflets with texts in French and a reproduction of two press articles in Russian.
The exhibition catalogue in unusual format for a group show of French artists which included Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Sophie Calle, Robert Filliou,, Paul-Armand Gette, Jean le Gac, Annette Messager, Philippe Parreno, and Sarkis amongst others. The images on the cards do not seem to include any obvious Boltanski work. All VG+ in slightly word and minorly torn envelope.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
22 x 17.5cm, 20pp plus card wrappers and printed dust jacket. texts by Finlay are reproduced in English and French in a typographic only design. Later these works were reprinted as large posters and exhibited at the 369 Gallery in Edinburgh.
THE BLADE STAINED WITH BLOOD IS NO MORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION THAND THE ALTAR STAINED WITH BLOOD IS GREECE AND ROME.
and
WE WILL VIEW THE FRENCH REVOLUTION MORE SYMPATHETICALLY IF WE SEE THAT THE FACTIONS REGARDS THEMSELVES AS SOVEREIGN NATIONALS IN A STATE OF WAR.
Finlay both admires the unerring purpose of the Terrorists / revolutionary and sees both the purity and the rot within at the same time. The French translations were by Yves Abrioux. VG+.
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Dunsyre: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
10.5 x 8.2cm, 4pp purple outer folder. Internally a 10.5 x 8.2cm, 4pp sheet with a poem
A Memory of the 90's
exquisite bloater
The decade is being compared to a cured herring. Given the date of publication Finaly presumably is referring to the 1890s - a decade that sometimes referred to as the "Mauve Decade" because of William Henry Perkin's aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion (and the folder here is indeed purple) and also as the "Gay Nineties" because of a perceived happiness despite the economic depression in the USA and elsewhere hence "exquisite". An "bloater" perhaps refers to the way such memories are dry and distant.
This was one of a series of "poems in folders". VG+.
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Edinburgh: Morning Star Publications, n.d. (1989)
A selection of seven different "bookmarks" by Lorine Niedecker, Thomas A. Clark, Basho (translated by Cid Corman), Cid Corman and four by Ian Hamilton Finlay. Two of the bookmars are reprints of earlier cards - Tree (Arbre) and Leaf bark - which are described elsewhere in this catalogue to which two additional cards are added both lists of "definitions" for words beginning with A: Affluence, Allotment, Angel, Apollo, Arcadia, Arrow and a relevant quote.
The edition size is not known. Morning Star Publications was the press set up by Finlay's son Eck (later Alex Finlay). While individually we have catalogued the earlier items as artist's postcards - here as a group we are identifying this as a paper multiple. All VG+.
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