19 Jan

Posted at 14:57h in Page Works & Contributions

Crown Point Press, 1982
26 x 21cm, two part folding portfolio box with tipped on label. Vision is a monographic journal of contemporary art edited and curated by Tom Marioni. This boxed catalog of artists' photo reproductions, each printed on glossy heavy weight paper. Artists include Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, John Cage, Joan Jonas, Sol LeWitt, Ricahrd Tuttle, Richard Long, Dorothea Rockburne as well as Ian Hamilton Finlay. who has an untitled view of a tree with a swastica band and an axe sculpture. Limited edition but edition size is not noted. VG+ in like box.

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26 Dec

Posted at 15:31h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1981)
12 x 12cm, 40pp plus card wrappers and printed photo-pictorial dust jacket.
Artist's book where Finlay has placed translations of the Anaximander Fragment (the earliest known extant philosophical thesis) opposite images of a broken classical column and its base found in the extended grounds of Little Sparta (then Stoneypath). The column was of course deliberately partly destroyed as the original artwork. The images, in b/w , were by Harvey Dwight.
The philosophers cited here are Diels, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jaeger, Weil, Kahn, Kirk, Hussey, Burnet, Lloyd-Jones and Jaspers.
The fragment from Anaximander (600 BC) is a statement about how life has to make way for death out of necessity and each translation has subtle different meanings. Of course, the fact that only a tiny amount of the thoughts of Anaximander has survived into the present day is a mirror of the ruined (by intent) column.
The consideration of man's death is a major theme running through much of Finlay's output - and this falls heavily in the middle of his fascination of momento mori and similar works. VG+ example of a very scarce book.

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23 Dec

Posted at 12:07h in Artist's Books

Dunsyre, : Wild Hawthorn Press, (1981)
17.8 x 13.9cm, light brown outer folder content of three 1pp sheets each with a concrete poem on them. The first two are on blue card and are presumably the two epicurian poems - the first has lines which represents a wafer surrounded by water (a wafer being a dry slice of something may be seen as land and the water as sea hence the whole an island), the second shows descending lines of water and one representing a bird swooping vertically down. These works remind one of a modern typographic equivalent of Apollinaire's calligrammes.
The final work is on orange paper (Finlay often used these colour combinations)and shows a triangle and a circle - the first is meant to be the scent of oranges, the second the scent of pears. The citrus of oranges is sharp like the corners of the triangle. This latter poem is meant to be a paradox and that is because of the shapes - the "Sharp" orange is not round while the pair is not a triangle which broadly is the shape of a pair..
Epicurean philosophy promoted simplicity, enjoyment and calmness as the way to a better life. In modern times the word is more associated with someone who enjoys food. Finlay seems to be happy with the simple life.
These works are usually placed in the artist's book section of Finlay's raisonne but there is a strong case for them to be small prints. But for now we have retained them in the former category. VG+ in like folder.

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01 Dec

Posted at 11:27h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981
9.7 x 5.7cm, 8pp plus printed red wrappers. Artist's book which lists two groups of names - the first Angelique, Tilleul, Pavot, Serpolet, Cheverefgeuille and Thym are listed as "a litany for Prairial". These are French names for herbs and Prairial is not only the Ninth revolutionary month (beginning in May) but also the time when the Law of 22 Prairial, also known as the loi de la Grande Terreur, was passed that gave power to the Committee of Public Safety that Robespierre turned into the dictatorship of the Terror. Herbs, of course, are picked and chopped up and consumed.
The second list "A requiem for Thermidor" has the names of the members of the Committee of Public Safety - Fleuriot, Hanriot, Couthon, Payan, Robespierre and Saint-Just. These were the victims of their own Terror when they were guillotined during the Thermidorian reaction (Robespierre went to his death in severe pain as he had tried to commit suicide only to partially blow off his own jaw in the attempt, Saint-Just was dignified and stoic).
The colours of the book papers are red, white and blue - the colours of the republic's tricolour.
The Litany is one of religious praise - here for the spring but with foreboding and foreshadowing of the destruction of the Terrorists. The requiem a cry of pain for the deposed leaders who killed so many by dictat.

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21 Nov

Posted at 09:06h in EXHIBITION CATALOGUES

Chalon-sur-Saone, Maison de la Culture de Chalon-sur-Saone, 1981
30 x 21cm, 56pp plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue for a photographic exhibition which alongside Boltanski included Bernd and Hilla Becher, Jamesd Collins, Jan DIbbets, Ger van Elk, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert & George, John Hilliard, Urs Luthi, Annette Messager, Peter Roehr and Ed Ruscha. Unusually each artist's work is displayed in colour but shot from a distance which shows how it is exhibited on a wall,
Boltanski's work are two photographs from the Composition Grotesques series. An extract from an artist's interview is reprinted at the back of the catalogue (from 1977). VG+.

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16 Oct

Posted at 14:44h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Köln: Galerie Holtmann, 1981 10.4 x 14.8cm, 2pp announcement card for the title edition released in only 24 examples after the Rhein-Aktion by Nicolas Uriburu and Beuys. An image of the multiple bottle of poisoned water is reproduced on the front in lime green and black and verso a subscription form. VG+. ...

09 Sep

Posted at 20:02h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Heidelberg: Edition Staeck, 1981
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp. Original postcard edition by Beuys issued as part of the "Originalgrafik - Series D" in 1981 but later overwritten by Klaus Staeck in 1997 (it is dated by hand as 9.9.97)with a note about copies of the Honeypumpe work being available for 20DM and with a blue rubber stamp impression with Edition Staecks' address. Signed by Staeck in black ink.

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21 Aug

Posted at 11:13h in Object + Paper Multiples

London: White Lies Publications, 1981
21 x 15 x 1cm, two part printed green box content of a bag of elastic bands, nine silkscreen prints of different Arcadian glider kits (each 21 x 15cm, 1pp) and an instruction booklet.
"Each airplane is embellished with a military decal and the name of an appropriate common garden feature has been printed on the rear wing. When the airplanes have been constructed, they may either be displayed together as a squadron or, if you have access to a garden, they should be carefully placed in the relevant spot to act as markers or name tags and a pleasing focus of interest for when the flowers are out of season." (I
An unusual garden multiple published by Steve Wheatley's small press. VG+ in like box.

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09 Aug

Posted at 09:28h in Joseph Beuys Postcards

Napoli: Lucio Amelio, 1980/1981
20.5 x 14.5cm, printed manilla envelope content of twelve artist designed postcards by Cragg, Longobardi, Paladino, Tatfiore and Salle alongside three postcards by Beuys. Beuys' contributions are two b/w images of the installation Terremoto in Palazzo (1981) and a drawing from the same work - the card of which is signed in red felt tipped pen by Beuys. All VG+ in a printed envelope which has been signed and stamped by Beuys. Scarce. Not in Schellmann.

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21 May

Posted at 13:49h in Artist's Books

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1981.
24.8 × 30.5cm, 32pp plus pictorial card covers. A somewhat rare artist's book which has eight full colour lithographs of water colour paintings of poppies by Ian Gardner on thick paper bound in with titles by Finlay. A rather lovely book the theme is similar to other books where German Panzer tanks are well camouflaged in nature. Here the camouflage is perfect - one cannot see the tanks at all. In a suppliment bound in at the back - Finlay has added numberous epigrams relating to tanks and camouflage.

"Total War prompts a Total War Art."

This is one of only 200 copies signed by both Finlay and Gardner on the last page.VG+.

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