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15/11/2012

Ian Hamilton Finlay

Galerie Judin, Berlin

The title of the exhi­bi­tion Inter artes et nat­u­ram refers to a well-known mural by Pierre Puvis de Cha­vannes dat­ing from 1888-91. Finlay’s artis­tic explo­ration of the interre­la­tion­ship between nature and cul­ture is a theme runn­ing through­out his work. From the Pre-Socrat­ics to Rousseau’s nat­u­ral ide­al­ism, the French Rev­o­lu­tion, and neoclas­sicism, his inves­tiga­tion extends to the Third Reich and to the pre­sent.

Ian Hamilton Finlay first became known in the 1960s as an author of con­crete poetry. The typo­graph­ical order of letters and words were just as important to the poet as the tra­di­tional ele­ments of con­tent, rhythm, and rhyme—which pre­fig­ured his devel­op­ment as a visual artist. In addi­tion to exper­i­ments with the expres­sive pos­si­bil­i­ties of lan­guage, an inter­est in nature, the sec­ond major theme in Finlay’s work, emerged early on. In the late 1960s he began to ded­icate him­self to his cen­tral work, Lit­tle Sparta, a “poet’s gar­den” in the Pent­land Hills out­side of Edinburgh. This unusual Gesamtkunst­w­erk is a mix­ture of tra­di­tional English landscape archi­tec­ture, avant-garde art and poetry (full of puns and irony), and an irrev­er­ence for the conven­tions of moder­nity. (Full press release)

At the center of this exhi­bi­tion are a number of works painted directly on the wall. The large work SF (1978/2005) shows the muta­tion of two “s” letters over the course of eight steps—ini­tially appear­ing in the old Ger­man script, in which they look like two “f” shapes, and finally taking the form of the well-known dou­ble thun­derbolt of the SS emblem. The progres­sion of the type­face is revealed here as the devel­op­ment, or dec­line, of the cul­ti­va­tion and enlight­en­ment of the 18th century, when the old Ger­man script was in use, into the barbariza­tion of the Third Reich. In 1941 Hitler passed a decree that banned the so-called Gothic scripts (for exam­ple the pop­u­lar Sütterlin script). The exhi­bi­tion Inter artes et nat­u­ram pre­sents four wall paint­ings (carried out by sign painter Les Edge, one of Finlay’ long­stand­ing collab­o­rators), a sculp­ture, and nine prints.

[...] Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925 - 2006) was born in Nassau on the Bahama Islands. In 1985 he was nominated for the Turner Prize. He was invited to take part on documenta 8, 1987 in Kassel with an outside-installation. A comprehen­sive group of works by Finlay that have been included in this year’s Sao Paulo Biennale were met with great crit­ical acclaim. The artist died in 2006 in Edinburgh, Scottland.

Until 17 Februar 2013, the Tate Britain will honor the artist, poet and thinker with an Artist Room showcasing 24 works by the artist of the Tate Collection.

Press office:
I David Ulrichs I david@david-ulrichs.com I +49 (0)176 5033 0135 I www.david-ulrichs.com I

Opening Friday, 16 November 6 - 9pm

Nolan Judin
Potsdamer Straße 83 (Hof) Berlin
Tue - Sat: 11am-6pm
Admission free

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