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At 80 years, IAN HAMILT
FINLAY is a man with a long history of revolution.
Jack Mottram discusses his three forthcoming exhibitions to celebrate the landmark.
sculptor, painter, publisher, gardener and more besides. It is little wonder then, that to mark Finlay‘s 80th birthday, a single retrospective would not do. Instead, three shows are in the offing. L'Idylle ties
I an Hamilton Finlay is a poet. playwright. author,
Cerises, at the lngleby Gallery, combines new ; sculptural work with extant work on the French
Revolution, alongside garden proposals on a revolutionary theme. At the Scottish Poetry Library. an exhibition will focus on the early stages of Finlay‘s long career. mounting a selection of text based works released by his own imprint, the Wild Hawthorn Press. lnverleith House will host poetry and painting.
For Finlay himself. splitting his work, new or old. is arbitrary. ‘Working in different mediums has never been a problem, that is to say a question for me. so I have no answer to your question.’
Sentences, the lnverleith House leg of the tripartite birthday celebration, is as good an example of this as any past work. Finlay is set to share sentences composed at Little Sparta, the garden at his Lanark home. painted on
, the gallery walls by collaborator Les Edge. These
concise musings share something with Finlay‘s poetry. but also, as visitors pass through the rooms of the gallery, match his landscape work, which by its nature depends on movement through space. Sentences is, too.
a furthering of his tendency to pair verbal communication with physical forms, as seen at Little
Sparta, and in his sculpture. ‘lnverleith House seemed a
90 THE LIST 21 Jul 4 Aug 2005
perfect setting for an exhibition of sentences.‘ Finlay
says. ‘Such an exhibition is perhaps unusual but just 5
because a thing is unusual doesn‘t mean it is wrong.‘
If Finlay‘s work can be characterised as a tying together of different disciplines. the themes that occupy him are equally intertwined. In his use of classical allusion. or nods to past revolutions and utopian ideals. Finlay displays a profound dissatisfaction with
contemporary society. but this is expressed in terms of
possible perfection, rather than dismal nostalgia. There is something about Finlay‘s work. then. that suggests a moral. philosophical and political quest. one that uses novel means. but rests on communicating. and communicating with. old ideas. 01‘. as Finlay puts it when discussing his garden: ‘It is perhaps not like other modern gardens, but I think that other times would have had no difficulty with it. My aim was always to make a garden but I was not influenced by the example of other gardens round about (as it were) but of gardens as traditionally understood.‘
That. perhaps. is Ian Hamilton Finlay in a nutshell — an artist at once ahead of his time and out of his time.
Ian Hamilton Finlay - L’Idylle des Cerises, lngleby Gallery, 29 Jul-17 Sep; Sentences, lnverleith House, 30 July-23 Oct; Ian Hamilton Finlay: Early Works from the Wild Hawthorn Press 1964-1971, Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Aug-7 Oct, free. See feature in the Edinburgh Festival Guide, page 10.
'1‘ Cal Gun-Giana Remember, remember. the 29th of July. OK, so it doesn’t have the same ring, but there‘s going to be a big explosion kicking off the Edinburgh Art Festival on this date. The accompanying exhibition at the Fruitmarket features banana trees, gunpowder portraits and ghost stories. See feature, page 18. Black Rainbow, above the castle, Sat 29 Jul, 7pm; The Fmitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 30 Jul-Sun 25 Sep.
‘3 Sentences One strand of the Ian Hamilton Finlay 80th birthday celebrations reveals scrawlings on the walls of lnverieith House culled from lHF’s work, including his garden at Little Sparta. See preview, opposite, and Artbeat. lnverleith House, Edinburgh, Fri 29 Jul—Sun 23 Oct.
* L’ldylle des Cerise Complementing the texts at lnverleith House, work inspired by the French Revolution adorns these walls. See preview, opposite, and Artbeat. lngleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Fri 29 Jul-Sat 77 Sep.
* Francis Bacon - Portraits and Heads Still screaming, the heads of popes and portraits of friends and lovers reveal the tenderness in Bacon’s paintbrush. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until Sun 4 Sep.
* Stefan leolaev Pop art meets the Eastern Bloc in this first major show by the Paris- based Bulgarian artist. See preview, page 91. CCA, Glasgow, Sat 23 Jul—Sat 3 Sep. 3* Anthony Schrag Time for some window shopping. Vacant Shop Front begins a new series of shows, kicking off with a performance piece by local boy. Schrag. Vacant Shop Front, Glasgow. Sat 23 Jul, 9pm.