Warszawa: Galeria Foksal, 1989
21 x 15cm, 4pp. Exhibition catalogue with two colour images of the installation - second hand clothes left on the floor in the gallery spaces - a format used by the artist in a number of different venues. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
13 x 9.1cm, 4pp light brown outer folder. Internally a 13 x 9.1cm, 4pp sheet with a poem
Sundial
The motto is silent.
The shadow speaks.
The poem emphasises that the true importance on a sundial is the shadow of the gnomon and not the carvings added to it as decoration. The drawing on the cover was by Kathleen Lindsley.
This was one of a series of "poems in folders". VG+.
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Denville: Artforum (Volume XXVII No. 8), April 1989
26.8 x 26.8cm, unpaginated (c. 300pp) plus wrappers. A single number of the long running art journal which has an original page work by Boltanski (joint with Annnette Messager) on pages 126 - 129. Two b/w images of children with stuffed toys (chosen by Boltanski) are reflected in two colour images by Messager which use later examples of the toys to create new photographs. This is a very unusual joint work by the lovers. VG+.
Reference: Flay Catalogue Page 182.
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Rivoli: Castello di Rivoli, 1989 10.5 x 15cm, closed printed envelope - black on gold paper. The announcement for a solo show by Byars - the envelope has inside three small plastic balls that can only be found by felling through the paper. An invite in the form of an object multiple. Slight wear to the outside of the envelope due to the plastic balls creating a stress on the paper else VG+ (and unopened). Scarce. ...
London: Coracle, 1989
12 x 17.5cm, 60pp plus pictorial boards. A festschrift for Jonathan Williams's 60th birthday. More than three dozen contributors include: Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gael Turnbull, Glen Baxter, R.B. Kitaj, Thomas A. Clark, Richard Caddel, Roy Fisher, Charles Tomlinson, Basil Bunting, Eric Mottram, and Sandra Fisher.
Finlay's contribution is a single page:
Aram Saroyan pays Homage
to Jonathan Williams
on his 60th Birthday.
undoubtedly
avant-
garde
Aram Saroyan was known for his minimalist works and Finlay here parodies the style in honour of his friend Williams. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1989
13.5 x 13cm, 16pp plus printed brown card covers. Four drawings of proposed texts" for a paved area adjacent to a barn." each drawn by Stephen Raw. Included are the works:
Swallows
Little Matelots
Brown barns
Slower than old beige barges
VG+.
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Basel. Museum für Gegenwartskunst, 1989
23 x 16cm. 62pp plus card covers. Artist's book released on the occasion of an exhibition in Switzerland. Twenty-three enlargements of faces from a group photograph of children celebrating the Fete de Pourim in 1939 in a Parisian Jewish School - looking at the faces (which take on the characteristics of spectres because of the fuzziness from the enlargement) one cannot tell the fates of any particular child although one might suspect many to have died in the killing camps of the Nazis. There is an interview in German between Boltanski and Jorg Zutter at the back of the book. VG+.
Reference: Flay Catalogue Page 180.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988
31.4 x 22cm, 52pp plus card covers and dustjacket. A series of "definitions", one of Finlay's innovations in experimental poetry where a word is given an alternative meaning by the addition of a classical or modern quotation. For example:
PATCH, n.
1. A whole part.
The trousers and jumpers of men vary in hue from the brightest orange vermilion to the palest rose pink, and are decorated with every imaginable sort of PATCH.
Peter Anson, The Breton Sardine Fisheries.
As we have noted elsewhere Finlay regards a patch as a symbol of warm, caring as well as poverty.
Slight bumping to corners of the book - else VG+. One of 250 copies published at Christmas 1988....
La Rochelle: Maison de la culture La Rochelle., 1978
15 x 10.5cm, 40pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue consisting only of reproductions (four in colour) of mostly performance related works by the artist including his dalliance with dance as a set designer - Le Saut de l'ange from 1987 (with two images in b/w from the work and one painting/sketch), other works include his performance of the 70s and shadow plays. The sections are: Saynete Comiques, La Punition Injuste, La Baiser Cache, L'Anniversaire, Les Compositions, Les Ombres and the dance work.
The dance work can be seen here: https://www.numeridanse.tv/en/dance-videotheque/le-saut-de-lange-0
Rusted stitches else VG+. Very scarce.
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Rotterdam: Galerie Bebert, 19888
21 x 15cm, 4pp outer card content of two 21 x 15cm, 1pp red on white semi-opaque paper with details of opening and a potted biography of Boltanski in Dutch. VG+.
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Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1988
15.4 x 24.4cm, black and light brown on white card - original linocut reproduced in offset lithograph. The print is folded with a text "Every effect remains in its cause, proceeds from it, and reverts upon it." a quote form Proclus, Elements of Theology. The image is of a group of boats close together in a harbour.
When boats are berthed in such a manner there is a tendency for them to move in synchronicity due to the waves. The classical quotation about cause and effect reflects that movement in some poetic manner. VG although there are sadly two ink lines on the outside of the card (where there is no image) and someone stupidly has not realised what the card was.
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Madrid, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 1988
23.8 x 33.5cm, 68pp. Original thick boards. Artist's book (although also exhibition catalogue as it was published at the same time as the exhibition of the same name) with 22 b/w photographic illustrations of crime scenes (as usual without comment or legend) taken from the El Caso Detective magazine (plus tissue guards). Biography and essay in French and Spain by Daniel Soutif "Et in Boltanskia Ego". VG+.
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