Ian Hamilton Finlay
ICI on Danse, 1996
neon
with Jullie Farthing
courtesy of Victoria Miro Gallery, London and the Estate of the artist
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Ian Hamilton Finlay
(1925 – 2006, Bahamas)

The Scottish poet and sculptor Ian Hamilton Finlay approached words as a visual medium, carving them on stone, placing them alongside images or using them to create neon sculptures. He was fascinated by the slogans and rhetoric of the French Revolution. Ici on Danse (1996) can be translated as ‘here we dance’ or ‘here people dance’. These words were displayed at the entrance to a festival that was held on the site of the Bastille in July 1790 to celebrate the anniversary of the storming of the infamous prison. It can therefore be seen as a defiant statement of the revolutionary spirit. The accompanying text was by Camille Desmoulins, a journalist and politician who became one of the leaders of the revolution before he himself was arrested and executed in 1794.