19 JUNE 2009 - 25 JULY 2009




A major exhibition of sculpture and wall paintings from the estate of Ian Hamilton Finlay, one of the leading conceptual artists of the twentieth century and one of Scotland’s most original artists of all time.

The exhibition coincides with the opening of Hortus Conclusus, Finlay’s last major work for Little Sparta, the garden at Stonypath in the Pentland Hills where he lived and worked for 40 years. Little Sparta is widely, and rightly, understood to be one of the key gardens to have been made in this country in the last 100 years and one of the greatest ever of all Scottish artworks. The Hortus Conclusus was conceived shortly before Finlay’s death in 2006 and will be unveiled for the first time at noon on 20th June. The exhibition also coincides with a celebration of concrete poetry at the ICA in London entitled: Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. (17 June – 23 August). This show has Finlay’s early work at its core, and takes its title from the poetry periodical he published between 1962 and 1968.

Poetry was at the heart of all of Finlay’s work and his ideas as an artist, gardener and fireside philosopher have had a profound influence, despite Finlay himself rarely leaving his isolated home at Stonypath. This show looks at several of the key themes that occupied Finlay’s thinking over 50 years. On the ground floor there is a group of works exploring boats and the sea (a subject to which Finlay often returned as an expression of man’s inability to impose order on natural chaos) including a classic wall text painted directly onto the wall, THE SEA’S WAVES, THE WAVES’ SHEAVES, THE SEA’S NAVES. There is also a group of small stone sculptures previously seen at the Foundacion Miro in Barcelona in 1999, and the Tate St Ives in 2002. In the “editions” area on the ground floor of the gallery, the vitrines have been dedicated to a display of archive works from the early days of the Wild Hawthorn Press, and Finlay’s endeavours as a publisher and poet. Upstairs, in the main gallery, the theme is Revolution, with a series of major works including some that haven’t been seen since exhibitions at the Cartier Foundation in Paris in 1987 and the ICA in London in 1992. The main gallery is dominated by a wall painting of Apollo and Daphne (recalling Ovid’s descripton of the mythical chase driven equally by love and fear, a metaphor in Finlay’s hand for Saint-Just’s pursuit of the republic) and three glass towering guillotines, each emblazoned with a single word, which together form a poetic and wistful twist on the revolutionary cry: LIBERTY EGALITY ETERNITY.

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INGLEBY GALLERY
15 Calton Road
Edinburgh
EH8 8DL
Scotland
+ 44 (0) 131 556 4441
info@inglebygallery.com
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