26 Aug

Posted at 20:58h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986 Original printed folder 64.5 × 42.5cm, content of nine poster prints, each of 64 x 42cm, 1pp. A colophon/title page is joined by eight textual sheets with quotations from the speeches of Louis-Antoine Saint-Just, interspersed with aphorisms by Finlay composed as "Imaginary Speeches for the revolutionary". The portfolio was published on the occasion of the exhibition "L'Art et le Sacre Aujourd hui" at the Cistercian Abbey in L'Epau, France, where the texts were intended to be installed on four columns inside the abbey building. During the heroic anti-clericalism of the French revolution the Abbey was transformed into something far more useful - an agricultural outbuilding surrounded by gardens.
This is both a print portfolio but also a proposal for an architectural installation - hence we have placed it in the the appropriate section here which in fairness to Murray he also places it as 6.20.

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19 Jun

Posted at 14:52h in Exhibition Catalogues

London:British Museum Publications, 1986
24 x 19cm, 64pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue displaying a range of contemporary British medals. Finlay produced 6 different medals all of which are reproduced in b/w with details. VG+.

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29 May

Posted at 19:58h in Invitation Cards

London: Victoria Miro Gallery, 1986
21 x 10.5cm, 42pp announcement card for a solo show. This card has two drawings - one each side - by Gary Hincks that is not reproduced anywhere else as far as we know. The plinth on one side shows a republican rosette with ribbons left with the words "A DAVID. MARAT". The second drawing is of the back of the same plinth but with gallery details over it. David, of course, painted the famous death of Marat painting, here Marat returns the favour with a simple tribute on the stone.
This is strictly an exhibition invite but it also could be regarded as an artist's card which was not released or categorised as such by Finlay. After some consideration we have left it as an announcement. VG+.

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21 Apr

Posted at 22:02h in Letters + Documents

Little Sparta: Finlay, n.d. (1986)
Standard hand addressed DL manilla postal envelope notable for many red and blue rubber stamp impression added by Finlay to the front and the back. Sent as a gift to the editor of Art Monthly, Peter Townsend (not the musician). JOINT: 15 x 21cm, black ink on paper - with a handwritten note to Townsend: "A little medley of "insulting" war stamps. Evidently authoritarians are people of very delicate sensibilities and very little capacity to read and think.". VG.
JOINT:
A standard mailing envelope hand addressed to The Editor Art Monthly by Finlay and rubber stamped with "The peopole has a right to rigorous bureaucracy.". Opened neatly.

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20 Apr

Posted at 20:22h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
11 x 9cm, 20pp plus overside printed card wrappers. Quotations from Hereclitus are used to illuminate the missile attack on HMS Sheffield on 4 May 1982. The classical words all regard the transformation of water and air into fire - which ends with the quote "Exocet steers all." which is the line about Zeus - "Lightning steers all" but with the name of the missile replacing the God's weapon of choice. Finally a polarised image of the horrific attack on the warship is reproduced in b/w. VG+.

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20 Mar

Posted at 17:51h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1986
7.6 x 8cm, printed outer folder content of six 7.6 x 8cm, 1pp cards. Each card has a drawing of a guillotine blade by Hincks with a quotation on it such as:
"The government of the Revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Terror is an emanation of virtue."
by Robespierre. Other quotes are from Denis Diderot, Nicolas Poussin and from Finlay himself who writes:
"Terror is the piety of the Revolution".
Finlay saw The Terror as in some sense pure - which was not an acceptance of the acts of the despots but a metaphysical impression of the firm beliefs of the Terrorists as being virtuous. The guillotine is often an image used in Finlay's works that stands for that purity as well as the fear and evil of man. VG+.
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17 Mar

Posted at 13:47h in Miscellany

London: Jonathan Cape, 1986
21.4 x 14.7cm, 5664pp plus original boards and pictorial dust jacket. First edition of this "guide" to "follies". This was the book that made Finlay so angry because of the short review of Stoneypath (later Little Sparta) and his ire is understandable. The paragraph reads:
Near the village of DUNSYRE about two miles west of the Peebles-Lanark border is Stoneypath, a bogland garden developed from 1967 onwards by the peet Ian Hamilton Finlay. it is a fine and justly famed new garden, but although there isd an Apollo Temple, a broken column or two, and an avalanche of poetic mottoes and inscriptions, the insistent namedropping of pastoral painters and writers and garden theorists tend to get on one's nerves. Everything in Stoneypath is on such a small and fragile scale that one starts hankering for something more manly, like a Wallace monument or a sturdy Gothick eye catcher."
Given Little Sparta has been voted by artists, critics and the general public to be the greatest Scottish artwork of modern times, it is fair to judge Gwyn Headley and Wim Meulenkamp harshly. Their comment " insistent namedropping" is crass and clearly shows that the works they saw were beyond their capabilities. VG+.

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15 Dec

Posted at 10:27h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
9.4 x 20.4cm, 4pp card with two poems - one by Luois Zukofsky which was printed in POTH 6:
The
desire
of
towing
Conjoined with Finlay's
The
attire
of
snowing

The first refers to a barge being pulled along and the forces creating a desire to be somewhere else, the latter is a description of snow covering everything after a fall.
This example has a hand written Christmas greeting from Finlay on the left side of the inner card. VG+.

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04 Oct

Posted at 16:01h in RECORDS

Paris: Association Francaise d'Action Artistique, 1985
26.5 x 16.5cm, 12 inch LP (33rpm) in gatefold sleeve. The auditory documentation of an exhibition curated by Michel Nuridsany which included work by Bertrand, Buren, Lavier and Sarkis as well as Boltanski. The record has "Reconstitution De Chansons Qui Ont Été Chantées A Christian Boltanski Entre 1944 Et 1946" (3 minutes 48 seconds). There is a b/w image of the artist from one of his performances.
There is also a 26 x 26cm, 12pp insert with two pages given over to each artist (the text on Boltanski is accompanied by a colour image from the Les Ombres. Both VG+. Very scarce.

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01 Oct

Posted at 08:32h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Paris: Maeght, 1985
37 x 27cm, 44 loose signatures in silkscreen outer folder on card. A single number of this artist's journal with original contributions by Kaminski, Mirsky, Réda, Barthelemy, Alberti, Holder, Léger, Gilbert and George, Macé, Mariscal and Cueff.
Boltanski also contributes a 4pp page work - a last day of school photograph of young children of which three faces are enlarged and placed within a drawn structure somewhat like a frame which infers each as a monument.
This is one of only 120 examples printed on velin which is signed and numbed by all of the artists (including Boltanski) on a colophon sheet. VG+. Scarce.

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20 Sep

Posted at 17:15h in Artist's Books

Firenze: Exempla/Exit Lugo 1985
8.9 x 31.7cm, 28pp (printed recto only) and printed white wrappers with printed dustjacket.
Artist's book with 8 colour typographic works by Finlay and Ron Costley. The texts are word combinations such as SEAPINK or STRAWBERRYCAMOUFLAGE- which have multiple meanings in part because of the lack of any spaces between the words. The works reproduced here were all released as much larger edition prints by the Wild Hawthorn Press but this book was an edition with Maurizio Nannuci in Italy himself a well known concrete and experimental poet (and artist). This is one of the deluxe copies - 150 signed and numbered by Finlay by hand in greem ink. VG+.

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