London
“Ian Hamilton Finlay: Fragments,” a collection of eight concurrent international exhibitions, accompanied by a major new publication, marks the centenary of the artist’s birth. The intellectual weight behind the project is considerable but made infinitely pleasurable by the substance and depth of Finlay’s endeavor as a sculptor of gardens, poems, and fragments and by his use of wit and play. His dynamic transformations of ideas through language and typography, through the visual and the pictorial, give ontological insights into his work and his strategy as a poet. For he thought of himself first and foremost as a poet; his visual work, supported through collaborations with artists and craftspeople such as Ron Costley and Julie Farthing, served as a means of growth (a subject thoroughly explored by the scholar Stephen Bann).
At Victoria Miro, a display mostly devoted to sculptures in stone, wood, and neon (on view through May 24, 2025) focuses on maritime themes and revolution, two important strands of interest for Finlay (1925–2006). His preoccupation with the maritime likely stemmed from a childhood in the Bahamas, where he was born, and a period living in Rousay, the largest of the Orkney islands, in the 1950s. This lifelong fascination with boats, fishing, and seafaring appears throughout his work, and the lower gallery at Victoria Miro is awash with the nautical. Flattop/ Tombstone/ Altar A Place/ For Light/ To Land (1987), one of the larger spatial works, evokes an aircraft-carrier with flat-top flight deck. Its upward-facing surface, exposed to the sky, serves as a place for light to land, as well as an altar; turning downward to the earth, it becomes a tomb. The synthesis is just one example of the dialectics often at the heart of Finlay’s work. Located nearby, three two-meter-heigh columns—Ship/ Nymph, Blue Waters Bark, and XΕΛIΛΩN/ Shrill Twitter/ Sharp Little Wings (all 1999)—illustrate the artist’s engagement with the classical and what has been called his “neopresocratism.”
The upper gallery space is given over to Finlay’s exploration of the French Revolution, which provided a rich vein of inquiry. He approached the bloodshed and unrest within this period of political, aesthetic, and moral rupture by referencing its symbols, slogans, colors, and protagonists. The guillotine, a common device in his work, features here in two wall-based sculptures. Other carved stone wall sculptures allude to Jacques Louis David’s 1793 portraits of martyrs Michel Lepeletier and Jean-Paul Marat.
Two freestanding sculptures stand out in this gallery—Republic (1995) and 12 / 1794 (1994). The five painted metal watering cans and five wooden drums of Republic are striking. Arrosoir (watering can) is the republican name for the day of the month on which Robespierre was guillotined; the drums recall the dying drummer boy painted by David in 1794. In 12 / 1794, which consists of 12 ceramic candlesticks, each on a wooden stool, Finlay evokes the doomed members of the Committee of Public Safety whose Reign of Terror ran from September 1793 to July 1794. Each candlestick is named. Critics have questioned Finlay’s exact politics and motives in these works, but when it comes to poetry, resonance, and aesthetics, there is no question that he was and remains one of the most intelligent, interesting, and provocative artists of our time. This much-deserved centenary celebration demonstrates the continued relevance of his questioning work.
“Ian Hamilton Finlay: Fragments” takes place in May 2025 at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; Kewenig Gallery, Palma de Mallorca; Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia; Victoria Miro, London; David Nolan Gallery, New York; Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg; Stampa Galerie, Basel; Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna. A new book of the same title, published by ACC Art Books, is out now.
