14 May

Posted at 17:36h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1984 23 x 18cm, 4pp card with 1pp 30 x 21cm insert. The announcement and artist's card for the re-opening of the Little Sparta Temple and Garden after Finlay closed it. The front of the card displays a painting by Gary Hincks of a watering can and a reference to the guillotining of the Robespierrists during the "month of Heat" (Arrosoir being the symbol of that month in the new revolutionary calendar).
The insert is A NOTE ON THE PRESENT SITUATION IN THE LITTLE SPARTAN WAR. An update by Finlay on the ongoing fight with the Strath=clyde region and that they had been granted a new summary warrant against the Garden Temple. Folded else VG+.

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12 May

Posted at 16:32h in EXHIBITION CATALOGUES

Baden-Baden: Staatliche Kunsthalle, 1984
27 x 22.5cm, 92pp plus pictorial card covers. Exhibition catalogue for a large scale exhibition of Boltanski's photographic Compositions - starkly lit scenes where found models or brightly coloured hand-made puppets are displayed like dioramas. Additionally the artist creates roughly made puppets out of card board or household waste which are painted and the somewhat grotesque figurative works placed in darkness and highlighted by carefully placed lights.
Coloured images throughout and essays in German as well as an illustrated biography (which is similar to that found in other exhibition catalogues). Slight creases on the corner of the front cover but else VG+. This copy is signed in black felt tipped pen on the first half title page by Boltanski.

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05 May

Posted at 09:50h in Uncategorised

London: Editions Schellmann & Kluser, 1984
21 x 15cm, 4pp announcement card with two works reproduced internally (Dead Stags from 1982 and Bath-Tub for a Heroine, 1984) internally, exhibition and gallery details on the front and back covers. VG+.

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16 Sep

Posted at 15:15h in Joseph Beuys Cards 1980 - 23rd January 1986, Joseph Beuys Cards 1980s, Joseph Beuys Postcards

Stuttgart: Galerie Brigitte March, 1983 11 x 15.5cm, printed card envelope doubling as exhibition invitation, content of two photos printed on glassine paper - both 13.4 x 18.4cm, Apocalisse nel deserto (by Agnetti) and Titus Andronicus / Iphigenie (by Beuys) Envelope stamped with oversized Hauptstrom rubber stamp impression (possibly offset printed). VG+....

05 Jul

Posted at 14:26h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
11.6 x 7.6cm , 10pp (single folded sheet printed on one side only) brown on white artist's card with two photographs by Andrew Griffiths of a tree that had recently been planted and another a fully grown - both have tree-column sculptures at their bases. The poem in the middle section reads:
A PLACEMENT
obeisance
and an excerpt from Finlay's "Detached Sentences on Gardening" which clarifies the idea that some items in a garden are like those of societies - some need to be fixed (in the sense of solidified) so that others can be placed (strategic decision-making).
The final section notes the Tree Column-Bases to be found in Little Sparta - one "Lycurge" and the other Saint-Just. The former was a Greek law-maker and the latter the stern deliverer of laws from the French Revolution. Finlay differentiates between the two by suggesting the Greek was more stable and civil while the latter more chaotic and dangerous. VG+.

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17 Jun

Posted at 20:14h in Letters + Documents, Object + Paper Multiples

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press (?), Friday 17 June 1983
21 x 30cm, 2pp black on off-white newsprint. A parody newspaper with humorous articles about the dispute between Strathclyde Region and Ian Hamilton Finlay over rates for the Garden temple at Little Sparta. Spurious claims of Little Sparta having a "secret weapon: the "Tucker Gun" based on a 19060s abstract sculpture by WIlliam Tucker. The act of postering the Scottish Arts Council building is also reported on with an image of one of the posters gummed onto the columns outside the building. US troops are also reported to have landed in the Pentland Hills and are "preparatory to advancing into Strathclyde Region" and "taking over key points such as...

20 May

Posted at 16:52h in Artist's Books

Edinburgh: Graeme Murray Gallery, 1983
20.2 x 12.7cm, 96pp and white wrappers and printed cream dust jacket
Artist's book with images of 20 small table top sculptures by Finlay along with quotations that explain the works. VG+.

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06 May

Posted at 10:29h in Artist's Postcards

Leeds: New Arcadians Press, 1983
11 x 16cm, printed purple envelope with title and publication information content of two cards.
The first card is:
2 PROSPECTS.
8.3 x 10.9cm 6pp (asymmetric folds). A folding card which has two drawings by Ian Gardner which reflect the shape of each other. The first is a slope on a battle ship's deck, the second a slope on a hill with a house and a tree. The "elevation" of the guns to the deck and the "elevation" of the house to the tree are mathematically compared to each other in the diagram.
Two quotes one by Horace Walpole and the other John James note the evolution of "Ha! Ha!s" in gardening - places where the ground drops away suddenly and allows unimpeded access to the grounds. On a battleship the slope in front of a gun allows the missile to be projected without opposition.
The card may be a typical Finlay work bringing attention to a comparison or metaphor between two things but given the on-going feeling of conflict and being under attack at Little Sparta at this time - the card is also a threat to those attacking the elevations of the grounds.

The second card is
THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO
10 x 13cm, 2pp and a duotone photograph of the the Temple of Apollo (aka Garden Temple) - the building that Finlay disputed the rating value of and the heart of the dispute between him and the Regional Council.
Both cards are VG+.
Murray's flawed catalogue raisonne only notes the first card and does not note it was part of a pair or that it was published by someone other that the Wild Hawthorn Press. it appears these cards were published at the same time as an exhibition at Southhampton Art Gallery.

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01 May

Posted at 10:49h in Artist's Postcards

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1983
19.7 x 12.7cm (closed size), 4pp gatefold. A mail art work by Finlay which opens up to read "SHOCK TROPES FOR LITTLE SPARTA" - the literary equivalent of the blitzkrieg, "Tropes" replacing "Troops".
This example was mailed by Finlay to Graeme Murray his then gallerist, Franked and stamped but VG+.

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