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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19 Aug

Posted at 14:47h in Exhibition Catalogues

Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1985)
30 x 21cm, 160pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue for an Australian travelling exhibition of British art. Finlay has 4pp of text and works as well as one of his sundials as frontispiece. VG+.

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12 Aug

Posted at 21:24h in Proposals

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
25 x 29cm, black on green folder lithograph in folder content of two lithographs after drawings by Michael Harvey of the proposed stone gateway and a textual explanation thus: 'Implicit in the column is the natural tree, which was likewise inhabited by its nymph or dryad. Here, in place of the column, there is the pilaster, and the dryads are present in the 'distanced' form of the text derived from J.K.Lavater's 'Physiognomical Fragments' (1802). The design is based on that for a garden gateway by the Elizabethan architect Indigo Jones."

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25 Jul

Posted at 16:19h in James Lee Byars

Paris: Gallimard, 1925/1985
23.5 x 18.5cm, 84pp. Original wrappers. The first edition of this collection of texts by the poet issued in an edition of 850 copies by Byars’ favourite publisher. An uncut copy but pages are browned. One the first page Byars has appropriated the book by adding the text “I GIVE YOU GENIUS AGAIN!” in red ink in his starry hand. VG. Unique thus.
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07 May

Posted at 10:49h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
21 x 21cm (unfolded), 2pp red on white card. The text "EVERY GOAL NEGATES" comes from the German atheist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach in his book 'Thoughts on Death and Immortality' - in full it is 'Every goal negates; where there is no destruction, no negation and sacrifice of independent existence, there is no purpose." - emphasising the role of destruction and loss in the world.
Here Finlay has made this into a paper dart which is a weapon of sorts carrying Feuerbach's message to the person hit by the paper. VG+.

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13 Mar

Posted at 15:25h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, n.d.
7.4 x 10cm, 10pp accordion fold with a text:

The perfect sentence/primly holding its proper content/like a plain little jug. With a drawing of such a jug byKathleen Lindsley.

Finlay creates a metaphor for good writing - simplicity and function. VG+ ...

29 Jan

Posted at 18:18h in Letters + Documents

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1985
15 x 10.5cm, 4pp (made of a single folded sheet printed one-side only). A hand-written letter on printed Ulysses Was Here stationery (one of the few times we have seen the printed letterhead used in such a folded manner) from Sue Finlay to John Stathatos letting the latter know that the Wildflower Vases are available for £100 each. VG+.

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