World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
THU—SAT 12—6 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
info@worldfoodbooks.com
Art
Theory / Essay
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Eros
LGBTQ+
Fiction / Poetry
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Curatorial
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Signed Books
World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
Australian Photography
Japanese Photography
Conceptual Art
Minimal Art
Dada
'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
Concrete Poetry
Pop Art
Surrealism
Arte Povera
Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
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Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
Anarchism
Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1974, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket, poster and obi), 127 pages, 29 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rippu Shobo / Japan
$320.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of the best book on Japanese master graphic artist Keiichi Tanaami (1936—2024), one of the leading pop artists of postwar Japan. The first volume from the legendary Illustration NOW series published by Rippu Shobo between 1974—1975, this lavishly produced book collects the best of Tanaami's psychedelic "Aggressive Eroticism" from the 1960s—1970s, showcasing many of his most sexually provocative and anti-authoritarian/anti-war graphic works, printed beautifully with spot colour chapters and full-colour lavish reproductions. Most complete copy with fold-out poster and obi. Highly recommended volume on an artist seldom spoken of outside Japan.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket w. obi and poster included.
1990, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 512 pages, 29.5 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Biennale of Sydney / Sydney
$120.00 - In stock -
First edition of the incredible (huge) catalogue published to accompany the 8th Biennale of Sydney 1990 "The Readymade Boomerang: Certain Relations in 20th Century Art", held 11 April-3 June 1990 in Sydney across various venues. The eighth Biennale began from ‘a trio of Dada originators’: Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia. A large number of artists across generations joined these key figures in Artistic Director René Block’s exploration of the ‘readymade’ in twentieth-century art, which aimed to highlight ‘its invention and pure use by Duchamp, to its resurgence in Nouveau Realism, Pop Art, and Fluxus of the 60s, all the way to new versions by young contemporary artists’. Pop, fluxus and conceptual artists such as Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, Joseph Beuys, John Cage, Alison Knowles, César, George Brecht, Nam Jun Paik and Piero Manzoni were shown alongside Rosemarie Trockel, John Nixon, Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden, Janet Burchill, Peter Tyndall, Robert Rooney, Rosalie Gascoigne, Cindy Sherman, Bruce Nauman, Hans Haacke, Rebecca Horn, Sophie Calle, Jeff Koons, Allan Kaprow, Jenny Holzer, Robert Gober, Jill Scott, Bill Culbert, Stanley Brouwn, Peter Cripps, Terry Fox, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Fischli & Weiss, KP Brehmer, Sigmar Polke, Dieter Rot, Hanne Darboven, Robert MacPherson, Jackie Redgate, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Bloom, Oyvind Fahlstrom, amongst so many others. The industrial Bond Store at Millers Point featured site-specific works by artists such as Olaf Metzel and Simone Mangos, and several works were created on-site in Sydney, amplifying Block’s notion of the Biennale as a ‘workshop’. A comprehensive satellite program of music, performance, lectures, symposia, workshops and exhibitions at various Sydney venues complemented the exhibition, with Carles Santos’ piano recital on a barge in Sydney Harbour a highlight. Five satellite exhibitions included On Kawara, Joseph Beuys, Alain Fleischer, Fluxus and Broken Record, which featured artist’s experimentations with audio recordings, vinyl and album artwork – from John Cage’s 33 1/3 composition for 12 record players to Milan Knížák’s record-collages.
An incredible Sydney biennale, captured here across over 500 pages conceived and realised by René Block and Jennifer Cook - profusely illustrated with examples of all artists works and accompanying texts throughout by Lynne Cooke, Bernice Murphy, Anne Marie Freybourg, Dick Higgins, René Block and Jennifer Cook. Very Good copy with only general wear/ageing. Bright and clean, includes tanned original dust jacket now preserved under plastic wrap.
Having represented Beuys, Richter and Polke, German gallery owner, art publisher, art collector and curator René Block (born 1942) ranks among the central figures of the 1960s avant-garde.
Very Good copy with original dust jacket. Common tanning to dust jacket spine, now preserved under mylar wrap.
1972, English / Dutch
3 books, softcover, approx 360 photo cards, 13.5 x 17 cm
Ed of 700 copies,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sonsbeek / Arnhem
$280.00 - Out of stock
Very scarce, incredible Sonsbeek '72 complete 3 volume catalogue set, published in a limited edition of 700 copies by Sonsbeek, Arnhem, 1972. The tripartite catalogue arose from the notes and photos made of an important group exhibition where artists submitted installation or performance pieces, executed during the period November '71 - June '72. Each volume forms an alphabetical index of artist photographic cards (#1 A-H, #2 I-R, #3 S-Z), totalling approx. 360, each with the data of their artwork on the front and photographic documentation on the verso. Very beautifully executed.
Participating artists include Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Carl Andre, Richard Artschwager, Joseph Beuys, Marinus Boezem, Daniel Buren, Walter de Maria, Jan Dibbets, Ad Dekkers, Ger van Elk, Hans Eykelboom, Barry Flanagan, Hollis Frampton, Dan Graham, Douglas Huebler, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Panamarenko, Edward Ruscha, Wim T. Schippers, Lawrence Weiner, Tenjo Sajiki, Michael Snow, Kenneth Snelson, Eric Siegel, Paul Sharits, Wim Crouwel, Yokoyama, Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Nauman, Robert Morris, Jack Moore, Yutaka Mutsuzawa, Peter Kubelka, Hans Koetsier, Ken Jacobs, Walter de Maria, Dan Graham, Hanne Darboven, Marinus Boezem.
Very Good copies each, with light wear, spine tanning/creasing, otherwise tight and well preserved.
1989, English / German / French
Softcover (w. flexi-disc), 280 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Daadgalerie / Berlin
Gelbe Musik / Berlin
$280.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1989 edition of Broken Music, an essential compendium for records created by visual artists. Complete with original flexi-disc. The publication was edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier and published in 1989 by DAAD and Gelbe Musik, Berlin. Broken Music focuses on recordings, record-objects, artwork for records, and record installations made by thousands of artists between WWII and 1989.
It also includes essays by both editors as well as Theodor W. Adorno, René Block, Jean Dubuffet, Milan Knizak, László Moholy-Nagy, Christiane Seiffert, and Hans Rudolf Zeller, as well as a flexi disc of the Arditti Quartet performing Knizak’s “Broken Music.” The centerpiece of the publication is a nearly 200-page bibliography of artists’ records.
Works chosen for the publication revolved around four criteria: (1) record covers created as original work by visual artists; (2) record or sound-producing objects (multiples/editions/sculptures); (3) books and publications that contain a record or recorded-media object; and (4) records or recorded media that have sound by visual artists.
Artists documented in the volume include Vito Acconci, albrecht/d., Laurie Anderson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Karel Appel, Arman, Hans Arp, Antonin Artaud, John Baldessari, Hugo Ball, Claus van Bebber, John Bender, Harry Bertoia, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Claus Böhmler, Christian Boltanski, KP Brehmer, William Burroughs, John Cage, Henri Chopin, Henning Christiansen, Jean Cocteau, William Copley, Philip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Hanne Darboven, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Fischli and Weiss, R. Buckminster Fuller, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Jack Goldstein, Peter Gordon, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Bernard Heidsieck, Holger Hiller, Richard Huelsenbeck, Isidore Isou, Marcel Janco, Servie Janssen, Jasper Johns, Joe Jones, Thomas Kapielski, Allan Kaprow, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Cheri Knight, Milan Knizak, Richard Kriesche, Christina Kubisch, Laibach, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Annea Lockwood, Paul McCarthy, Meredith Monk, Josef Felix Müller, Piotr Nathan, Hermann Nitsch, Albert Oehlen, Frank O’Hara, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, A.R. Penck, Tom Phillips, Robert Rauschenberg, The Red Crayola, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Gerhard Richter, Jim Rosenquist, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Robert Rutman, Sarkis, Thomas Schmit, Conrad Schnitzler, Kurt Schwitters, Selten Gehörte Musik, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Strafe für Rebellion, Jean Tinguely, Moniek Toebosch, Tristan Tzara, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, Emmett Walsh, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, and Lawrence Weiner.
Ursula Block is a curator living in Berlin, Germany. From 1981 until 2014, she ran gelbe Musik, a gallery and record shop in Berlin that featured work by artists at the crossroads between music and art. She was married to curator René Block.
Michael Glasmeier is a professor, writer, and editor living in Berlin, Germany. Since the early 1980s, he has curated dozens of shows that explore the intersection between the visual arts, music, film, and language.
Very Good copy all-round, light cover/corner wear.
1976, Portuguese
Double-sided fold-out, 4 panels, 47 x 30 cm (unfolded)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo / São Paulo
$45.00 - In stock -
Very rare fold-out catalogue for the important international art exhibition surveying conceptual art, concrete poetry, experimental art, performance art, mail art ("activity with a critical view of society") in the 1970s organized by Argentine author, publisher, curator, professor, and conceptual artist, Jorge Glusberg, who was director of the Center for Art and Communication of Buenos Aires (CAYC). With text by Brazilian professor, historian, art critic and curator by Walter Zanini, director of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de Sao Paulo (MAC). With a number of the exhibited heliographic documents from the exhibition illustrated throughout, the brochure catalogues the exhibited works by participants including: Dan Graham, Lawrence Weiner, Genesis P-Orridge, Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden, Öyvind Fahlström, Július Koller, Tim Ullrichs, Luis Fernando Benedit, Jaime Davidovich, Jorge Glusberg, Víctor Grippo, Lea Lublin, Luis Pazos, Julio Plaza, Jonier Marin, Jiří Valoch, Guillermo Deisler, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Manuel Barbadillo, MH de Ossorno, Valcárcel Medina, Felipe Ehrenberg, César Bolaños, Pawel Petasz, José Urbach, Lydia Okumura, Haroldo González, Les Levine, and many others.
Very Good copy with light wear.
1969, Czech / French
Softcover, 44 pages + 1 page colour insert, 17.5 cm x 24.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
National Gallery / Prague
$55.00 - In stock -
Scarce 1969 Czech Martial Raysse catalogue, published on the occasion of a solo exhibition at the National Gallery in Prague in 1969. Illustrated throughout with examples of Raysse's sculptural assemblages, paintings, neons, and installations, alongside texts by Otto Hahn, Pierre Restany and Martial Raysse, biography, exhibition history, bibliography. All texts in French and Czech. Very lovely catalogue. Includes loose-leaf single colour plate, also.
Martial Raysse (b. 1936) is a French artist and actor born in Golfe-Juan to a ceramicist family in Vallauris. He began to paint and write poetry at age 12 and in 1958, he exhibited some of his paintings with Jean Cocteau at Galerie Longchamp. Fascinated by the beauty of plastic, he plundered low-cost shops with plastic items and developed what became his "vision hygiene" concept; a vision that showcases consumer society. This work received attention and critical praise in 1961, and at a commercial gallery in Milan, his exhibition sold out 15 minutes before the opening. Raysse then traveled to the United States and naturally became involved with the pop art scene in New York City. In October 1960, Raysse, together with Arman, Yves Klein, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé and the art critic and philosopher Pierre Restany founded the group Nouveaux Réalistes. The group was later joined by César, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle and Christo. This group of artists defined themselves as bearing in common a "new perspective approaches of reality". Their work was an attempt at reassessing the concept of art and the artist in the context of a 20th-century consumer society by reasserting the humanistic ideals in the face of industrial expansion.
Very Good copy.
1965, English / Dutch / French
Softcover (cloth-bind), 34 pages, 27.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Stedelijk Museum / Amsterdam
$70.00 - In stock -
Rare 1965 Wim Crouwel-designed Stedelijk Museum catalogue for French Pop artist and Nouveau réalisme co-founder Martial Raysse's solo exhibition in late 1965. Heavily illustrated lavish catalogue with wonderful fluro green spot colour printing over b/w imagery of Raysse's iconic sculptural assemblages, paintings, neons, and installations, plus colour reproductions and fold-out pages, wrapped in fluro printed card covers with cloth binding. Texts by Otto Hahn and Pierre Restany, biography, exhibition history, bibliography. Texts in Dutch, English and French. Designed and typeset in Univers by Wim Crouwel and Anneke Huig of Total Design.
Martial Raysse (b. 1936) is a French artist and actor born in Golfe-Juan to a ceramicist family in Vallauris. He began to paint and write poetry at age 12 and in 1958, he exhibited some of his paintings with Jean Cocteau at Galerie Longchamp. Fascinated by the beauty of plastic, he plundered low-cost shops with plastic items and developed what became his "vision hygiene" concept; a vision that showcases consumer society. This work received attention and critical praise in 1961, and at a commercial gallery in Milan, his exhibition sold out 15 minutes before the opening. Raysse then traveled to the United States and naturally became involved with the pop art scene in New York City. In October 1960, Raysse, together with Arman, Yves Klein, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé and the art critic and philosopher Pierre Restany founded the group Nouveaux Réalistes. The group was later joined by César, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle and Christo. This group of artists defined themselves as bearing in common a "new perspective approaches of reality". Their work was an attempt at reassessing the concept of art and the artist in the context of a 20th-century consumer society by reasserting the humanistic ideals in the face of industrial expansion.
Very Good copy, light wear.
1968, Dutch
Softcover (staple-bound), 12 pages, 27.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Stedelijk Museum / Amsterdam
$70.00 - In stock -
Wonderful 1968 Stedelijk Museum catalogue designed by Wim Crouwel on the occasion of the important 1968 solo exhibition of the amazing "Horti-sculptures" by Dutch artist Ferdi (Ferdina Jansen Tajiri). Heavily illustrated throughout with her works, rarely seen since. Ferdi sadly passed away a year later, at the creative peak of her career.
Born in 1927 in Arnhem, the Netherlands, Ferdina Jansen met and became life partners with Japanese-American artist Shinkichi Tajiri. At Tajiri’s studio, in 1952, Ferdi learned metal-working and welding techniques using an acetylene torch; it was the welding technique she further perfected to create her welded jewelry inspired by the world of insects. In 1965 Ferdi travelled with her childeren, Shinkichi and his two assistants through the United States and Mexico in a VW van. The trip abroad had enormous impact on her art practice. She was fascinated by the exotic vegetation around her in Mexico and transformed her impressions into what became known as the "Horti-sculptures" that she developed in a brief span of three years from 1966—1969. The modest scale of her jewellery made way for enormously long or towering sculptures that literally took over the gallery space. The work of Ferdi became more monumental and bold in shape and character, and more explicit in its erotic eloquence. It lustily challenged the visitor, the viewer, to experience the work up close and not from a distance. Ferdi used nature as a sexual metaphor. With the titles the sexual symbolism of the sculptures was underlined. The titles who were also derived from the titles of pop songs and mind expanding drugs, the artist expressed the era's yearning for change and renewal. Her work was an ode to the female body; to eroticism and sexuality. Ferdi spent three years working on the series of works that have occupied a unique place in Dutch art history. Ferdi lived for her art, with her art and in her art. In 1968, a time when the art world was very male dominant, she had a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, occupying a position alongside the work of female artists Yayoi Kusama, Carol Rama, and Eva Hesse. Ferdi sadly passed away a year later, at the creative peak of her career.
Very Good copy.
2024, English
Softcover, 152 pages, 18 x 12 cm
Published by
Mudam / Luxembourg
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$42.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Bettina Steinbrügge. Contributions By Cory Arcangel, Karen Archey, Motoko Ishibashi, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Clémentine Proby, Fabian Schöneich, Stephanie Seidel, Bettina Steinbrügge, Sarah Johanna Theurer
In the span of a short yet exceptionally prolific career, Luxembourgish artist Michel Majerus (1967–2002) transgressed the well-worn rules of painting to capture the influence of digital media and pop culture during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Majerus’s large-scale paintings and installations—characterized by the artist’s ‘sampling’ and collaging of an eclectic repertoire of imagery and text borrowed from art history, video games, commercials, and electronic music—resonate with the rapid expansion of globalized consumer culture and digital technology.
This book collects and preserves the talks and lecture-performances held during a symposium on Majerus at Mudam, the contemporary art museum in Luxembourg. The convening considered the relevance of Majerus’s reflections today and discussed the dimensions of his legacy—investigating his influence on the practices of the digitally native artists, curators, and researchers who came after him.
The symposium was the first chapter of a program dedicated to Majerus’s work at the museum and was followed by the exhibition SINNMASCHINE, curated by Bettina Steinbrügge. Rather than a retrospective, the exhibition examined Majerus’s working methods by displaying never-before-exhibited archival material, including Majerus’s drawings and writings from his expansive collection of notebooks. This publication bridges the exhibition and the symposium’s reflections, featuring images of Majerus’s work and notebooks alongside contributions by Cory Arcangel, Karen Archey, Motoko Ishibashi, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Clémentine Proby, Fabian Schöneich, Stephanie Seidel, Bettina Steinbrügge, and Sarah Johanna Theurer.
what looks good today may not look good tomorrow: The Legacy of Michel Majerus is the first book in the Mudam Series. This series is an edited collection of interventions, symposiums, and lectures by artists, critics, writers, curators, art historians, and thinkers that have taken place at Mudam, the contemporary art museum in Luxembourg. Each volume is dedicated to a specific artist or theme, following the museum’s exhibition program. The series is meant as a collection of working documents that open up a dialogue beyond institutional walls—a gentle nod to books still being the greatest of meeting places. Mudam Series is conceived and edited by Bettina Steinbrügge and Mudam’s editorial team.
1968, Japanese
5 litho prints in letterpress envelope, 19 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Kodansha Int / Tokyo
$180.00 - In stock -
Complete 5 card set of litho prints by legendary Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo, issued in letterpress, marbled envelope in 1968 to commemorate the release of the complete 12 volume collected works of Japanese author and critic Edogawa Ranpo (1894—1965), who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery and thriller fiction. Yokoo contributed many illustrations to the book collection, alongside fellow artists Iwami Furusawa and others. This rare folio of prints (roughly the size of post cards) collects five of the finest examples of Yokoo's instantly recognisable 1960's psychedelic work — erotic, grotesque, and esoteric themes rendered in vivid graphic collage and pop colour.
Tadanori Yokoo (b. 1936) is one of Japan's most successful and internationally recognized graphic designers and artists, who began working with painting in 1966. In parallel, Yokoo’s early screenprints experimented with collage and illustration, combining found photographs with the influence of traditional Japanese ukiyo-e and pop art’s flat vibrant colours and overtly sexual and grotesque content, often reflecting on the rapid changes and Westernisation of Japan post-war society. His interests in mysticism and esotericism, deepened by travels to India, influenced his iconic posters with eclectic psychedelic imagery sharing the aesthetics of the underground counterculture he was associated with. In Tokyo Yokoo worked as a stage designer for avant-garde theatre, collaborating extensively with Shūji Terayama and his experimental theater group Tenjō Sajiki. By the late 60s he had already achieved international recognition and in the early 1970s MoMA mounted a solo exhibition of his graphic work. His famous designs for The Beatles, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana and collaborations with friend and iconic Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake are renowned the world over.
Very Good, perfectly preserved cards in aged envelope with some wear to edges and tanning.
1993, English
Softcover, 150 pages, 24 x 17 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sonsbeek / Arnhem
$550.00 - Out of stock
First 1993 edition of one of the great art books, by one of the great artists. This provocative, copiously illustrated catalogue by renowned American artist Mike Kelley is a meditation on Sigmund Freud's "Uncanny", and its relation to the grotesque in art and everyday life. Published to accompany the exhibition curated by Kelley as part of the "Sonsbeek 93" exhibition in Arnhem, The Netherlands, June 5 - September 26, 1993, Kelley presents (like a photo scrapbook) an arresting mix of modern and contemporary artists alongside bizarre figurative, prosthesis, animatronic, and mannequin-related imagery throughout history. Artists included : Hans Bellmer, Robert Gober, Tetsumi Kudo, Zoe Leonard, Paul McCarthy, Nayland Blake, John Miller, Bruce Nauman, Tony Oursler, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Duane Hanson, Man Ray, Guillaume Bijl, Dennis Oppenheim, Edgar Degas, Piero Manzoni, Marcel Broodthaers, Goya, Nam June Paik, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Dorothea Lange, Thom Puckey, Charles Ray, Edward Kienholz, Martin Kippenberger, Laurie Simmons, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, Paul Thek, Mike Kelley himself, and many more. Includes Kelley's accompanying essay, "Playing with Dead Things". The exhibition took on mythical status and was re-staged in Liverpool in 2004. The Uncanny has become one of the most desired of Kelley's books.
Very Good copy with only light cover wear.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 260 pages, 19 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Data House / Tokyo
$200.00 - Out of stock
Possibly the most fun you can cram into 260-odd pages! A now very collectible volume edited by none other than Japanese master of erotic superrealism, Hajime Sorayama, Pink Department Store is a wild book digest of visual sex — straight out of 1985! A compendium of remarkable erotic imagery packed into this one-stop look-book of kink compiled by Sorayama, all reproduced in full-colour on beautiful warm raw paper stock, designed by Hisao Iguchi. From the Tokyo sex clubs, phone-booths and toilet stalls, Shibari photography to pink film posters, x-rated manga to wildlife fornication, leather daddys to dominatrixes, Pink Department Store is a safari through graphic perversion and joyous visual innuendo. Alongside archival material and international works the book generously features an abundance of works by over 100 contemporary Japanese illustrators and photographers, including Aimei Ozaki, Harumi Yamaguchi, Takashi Nemoto, Yosuke Onishi, Suehiro Maruo, Hajime Sorayama, Mizumaru Anzai, Yokoyama Akira, Keiichi Ota, Akira Ishigaki, Kaoru Ueda, Teruhiko Yumura, Yoshiharu Ebisu, Arata Taga, to name but a few. There is also a directory list to contact them all!
Very Good—NF copy in VG original dust jacket and rarely preserved publisher's obi-strip.
1978, English / Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 26 x 12 cm
Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
The National Museum of Art / Osaka
$180.00 - In stock -
Incredibly rare Japanese publication from 1978, printed on the occasion of a major exhibition entitled "Design and Art of Modern Chairs", August 19—October 15, at the National Museum of Art, Osaka. This wonderful landscape-formatted book is profusely illustrated throughout (in colour and black and white) with the chairs of designers and artists including Gerrit Rietveld, Isamu Kenmochi, Olivier Mourgue, Pierre Paulin, Sadamasa Motonaga, Mario Ceroli, Marcel Breuer, Studio 65, Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand, Jan Dranger, Johan Huldt, Robert Haussman, Kwok Hoi Chan, Steen Østergaard, George Nakashima, Mies van der Rohe, Poul Kjaerholm, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Charles Pollock, Aarne Jacobsen, Warren Platner, Roger Tallon, Verner Panton, Earo Aarnio, Bruno Mathsson, Motomi Kawakami, Marco Zanuso, Richard Sapper, Gerd Lange, Vico Magistretti, Alver Aalto, Jonathan de Pas, Paolo Lomazzi, Donato d'Urbino, Giorgio Decursu, Sori Yanagi, Reiko Tanabe-Murai, Wolfgang Mueller-Deisig, Stacy Dukes, Ettore Sottsass, Charles Eames, Hans J. Wegner, Franco Albini, Gio Ponti, Kaare Klint, Enzo Mari, Takeshi Nii, Achille Castiglioni, Achille and Piergiacomo Castiglioni, Tadashi Minohara, Gaetano Pesce, Yrjo Kukkapuro, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Mario Bellini, Cini Boeri, Mario Marenco, Joe Colombo, Piero Gatti, Jonathan de Pas, Paolo Lomazzi, Donato d'Urbino, Ubald Klug, Gerrit Rietveld, Salvador Dali, Poltronova, Cassina, Taro Okamoto. Jiro Takamatsu, Susumu Koshimizu, Shiro Kuramata, Minoru Takeyama, Lucas Samaras, Kozo Mio, Arata Isozaki, Shigeo Fukuda, Takashi Sakaizawa, Constantin Brâncuși, Yoji Kuri, Yayoi Kusama, Vitra, Knoll, Kartell, Herman Miller, Arflex, BBB, Flexform, C&B Italia, Cassina, and many more. Each chair included is detailed with a blurb in Japanese, data/specs of year, designer/artist, manufacture and dimensions. Also includes an illustrated timeline tracing a chronological history of the chairs exhibited, along with a production index and forward texts in English and Japanese. Forms an indispensable index of important modern chair designs from the early 1930s—late 1970s.
Near Fine copy.
1977, French
Softcover (staple-bound), 24 pages, 29.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
$120.00 - In stock -
Wonderful, very scarcely seen Tetsumi Kudo catalogue published on the occasion of parallel solo exhibitions held in early 1977 at Galerie Beaubourg ("cages, peintures à l'ordinateur") and Galerie Vallois ("cages, multiples") in Paris. Illustrated throughout in b/w, this catalogue gives a rare insight into the work of Kudo through various discussions and correspondence with Kudo, texts by Kudo, an interview with ... himself, all accompanied by the essay "The Resistance of Kudo and The Resistance to Kudo" by French art critic Alain Jouffroy. Texts in French.
"By his work, Kudo is part of the most clandestine current of the avant-garde of the XXth century, that which starts from Les Machines Célibataires of Marcel Duchamp and the Tableaux écaniques
of Picabia, ie. to a system of pistons and cogs, which today leads to Jean Tinguely and his anti-functional machines."
(badly translated from Alain Jouffroy's French.
Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1935 Kudo first gained notoriety in the Tokyo art scene of the late 50s. He began exhibiting his work at the Salon of Independents, Yomiuri and had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Blanche, Tokyo. He was awarded the Grand Prize and a travel grant to Paris through his painting participation in the 1962 Second International Young Artists Exhibition in Tokyo. Immigrating to Paris, he immediately started working in a range of media--objects, sculpture, installation, drawing and painting--and presenting numerous Happenings and performances. His first exhibition there was banned. Kudo's work and activities intersected with many important postwar artistic trends--including French Nouveau Realisme, Fluxus, Pop art, 60s anti-art tendencies and 80s Postmodernism. Throughout his life and career, Kudo remained particularly Japanese while his art and vision were consistently and uniquely transcultural, internationalist and cosmopolitan. His work made international appearances at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1972), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany, (1970), Venice Biennial (1976), and the Biennial São Paulo (1977, awarded a special mention) while also appearing frequently in museums and galleries throughout Japan and France, with a growing recognition in the Netherlands.
Very Good copy.
1989, English / German
Softcover, 200 pages, 25.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Parkett / Zürich
$100.00 - In stock -
1989 issue of Parkett (Vol. 19), deluxe issue created in collaboration with artists Martin Kippenberger and Jeff Koons, lavishly illustrated with both artist's works alongside texts by with texts by Klaus Kertess, Burke & Hare, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Glenn O’Brien, Diedrich Diederichsen, Patrick Frey, Martin Prinzhorn, Bice Curiger. Anselm Stalder designed the insert. Also in this issue: exclusive Gerhard Richter interview, Annemarie Hürlimann “In Between,” Hanna Humeltenberg “The Magic of Reality,” on Thomas Ruff, Felix Philipp Ingold “The Speaking Image in Rémy Zaugg’s work.” Iwona Blazwick and Robert Gober are the authors of the Cumulus from Europe and America, in the Balkon Parkett celebrates its fifth anniversary.
Founded in the early 1980s in Zurich, with an office also in New York City, , Parkett was international art magazine that aimed to foster an open dialogue between the artistic communities of Europe and America, with the goal to actively and directly collaborate with important international artists whose oeuvre was explored in several essays by leading writers and critics in both German and English. By 2017, Parkett had published 100 volumes with some 180 monographs and over 1500 in-depth texts making it one of the most comprehensive libraries on contemporary art worldwide. Critics, curators, art historians, and other commentators join in the conversation contained within its pages. Many write on the collaborating artists; some write opinions under a variety of topic headings that recur issue to issue; others write on additional artists and ideas. The result is more of a curated event-between-covers than a typical art magazine with reviews and news items.
Average—Good copy with some marking and wear.
2024, English
Hardcover, 180 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 cm
Published by
No Place Press / US
$48.00 - In stock -
Two of the most important voices in art history discuss their intellectual foundations, the changing role of criticism, and the possibilities for artistic practice today.
In Exit Interview, the prominent art critics and historians Hal Foster and Benjamin Buchloh discuss their intellectual foundations and the projects they've worked on together, from October magazine to Art Since 1900. Through three engaging conversations, Foster engages Buchloh on his early influences and aspirations, his formative years in Berlin, London, and Dusseldorf, and his career in North America, while exploring the impact of other art historians and critics. Buchloh candidly addresses his successes, critical significance, and unexplored avenues in art history, providing a unique window into his motivations and experiences. With a powerful postface by Buchloh, Exit Interview builds from biography and anecdote to important reflection on one's critical life as a whole.
1996, English
Softcover, 274 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Yale University Press / New Haven
$25.00 - Out of stock
First 1996 edition, second print. In this illuminating book, a prominent art historian explores the links between avant-garde art and modern mass culture, showing that the connections between the two have always been strong, and even necessary to both. The author recounts vivid episodes involving Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Christopher Williams, and many others, arriving at fresh and original insights into modern art and its place in late twentieth-century culture.
Thomas E. Crow is an American art historian and art critic who is best known for his influential writing on the role of art in modern society and culture. Since 2007, Crow has served as the Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.
Very Good copy, light wear.
2001, English
Softcover, 368 pages, 27 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
MACBA / Barcelona
$100.00 $65.00 - In stock -
The most comprehensive, long out-of-print, English-language publication on the Brazilian-born Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976) known for his esoteric approach to exploring semiotics through visual systems. Published by Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona in 2001 on the occasion of the largest retrospective of Fahlström's work, this heavy catalogue is profusely illustrated throughout with 400 illustrations in colour and b/w. Include texts by Manuel J. Borja-Villel, Jean-François Chevrier, Immanuel Wallerstein, Octavi Rofes, Suely Rolnik, plus biography; exhibition history; bibliography.
Often employing mysterious symbols and text, popular culture, comic books, politics, and cartography, Fahlström created works meant to suggest epic narratives, seeking to “create a world of situations and actions in a contradictory and discontinuing time-space.” As a young man he began writing for Swedish publications, and produced poetry, plays, translations, and art. In 1961, the artist moved to New York, which was his primary place of residence for the rest of his life. Living in the same building as Jasper Johns, Fahlström’s artistic production increased with his associating with American avant-garde artists, participating in Happenings, becoming associated with the Fluxus movement, exhibiting his work at the 1964 and 1966 Venice Biennales, and continuing to write plays. He was featured in the celebrated 1962 New Realists exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery and had numerous solo exhibitions with Janis throughout his life. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.
Good copy.
Spine tanning some bumping to corners.
1972, German / English / French
Vinyl ring-binder (screen printed w. design by E. Ruscha), 650 pages +, 32 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
documenta / Kassel
$500.00 - Out of stock
Scarce copy of the only edition of the most elaborately designed, and lowest circulated Documenta catalogue, conceived by curator Harald Szeemann to accompany the fifth edition of Documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition held in Kassel, Germany.
Subtitled "100 Days of Inquiry into Reality -- Today's Imagery," curated by the team of Harald Szeemann, Jean-Christophe Ammann and Arnold Bode, Documenta 5 followed a lineage of comprehensive shows documenting conceptually and minimally charged artworks curated by Szeemann including Live in Your Head (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969), and Happenings and Fluxus (Kunstverein, Köln), 1970. The largest, most expensive and most diverse of any exhibition anywhere, Documenta 5 was criticized in 1972 as being “bizarre…vulgar…sadistic” by art critic and essayist Hilton Kramer and “monstrous… overtly deranged” by art historian and art critic Barbara Rose, yet it still resonates today as one of the most important exhibitions in history. Featuring the works of over 170 artists and an equally expansive variety of materials and subjects drawn from popular cultural materials, architecture, science fiction, kitsch objects, film, advertising, children's art, etc. in addition to the more anticipated international survey of new painting and sculpture - Documenta 5 valiantly attempted to bridge the gap between art, culture, science and the broader society. This massive tome is housed in the iconic orange vinyl-covered, two-ring binder screen printed with the famous ant design by Edward Ruscha. The binder holds a tabbed index of illustrated artist's pages and associated texts and material, largely in German, but also many in English. All registers are present apart from the usual missing 19-25 which were not directly integrated into the catalogue and had to be ordered by the visitor separately to become their own contribution. This very complete copy also includes the additional 80 page, hole-punched Documenta 5 guide book, with floor plans, complete listing of exhibited artworks, list of exhibitions, bibliography, and many gallery, museum and other related advertisements. More than a catalogue, this publication is a piece of art history in itself.
Includes artists: Vito Acconci, Vincenzo Agnetti, Peter Alexander, John de Andrea, Giovanni Anselmo, Arbeitszeit, Archigram, Chuck Arnoldi, Art & Language, Richard Artschwager, Michael Ashkin, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Georg Baselitz, Lothar Baumgarten, Robert Bechtle, Gottfried Bechtold, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Karl Oskar Blase, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Christian Boltanski, Claudio Bravo, George Brecht, K.P. Brehmer, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Günter Brus, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Michael Buthe, James Lee Byars, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Castelli, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Chuck Close, Tony Conrad, Ron Cooper, Bill Copley, Joseph Cornell, Robert Cottingham, Paul Cotton, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, David Deutsch, Jan Dibbets, Herbert Distel, Gino de Dominicis, Marcel Duchamp, John Dugger, Don Eddy, Franz Eggenschwiler, Ger van Elk, Richard Estes, Luciano Fabro, John C. Fernie, Robert Filliou, Jud Fine, Joel Fisher, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Hamish Fulton, Franz Gertsch, Gilbert & George, Ralph Goings, Hubert Gojowczyk, Dan Graham, Walter Grasskamp, Nancy Graves, Hans Haacke, Duane Hanson, Guy Harloff, Michael Harvey, Haus-Rucker-Co, Auguste Herbin, Eva Hesse, Rebecca Horn, Jean Olivier Hucleux, Douglas Huebler, Jörg Immendorff, Will Insley, Rolf Iseli, Ken Jacobs, Neil Jenney, Alfred Jensen, Jasper Johns, Joan Jonas, Max G. Kaminski, Howard Kanovitz, Edward Kienholz, Imi Knoebel, Christof Kohlhofer, Jannis Kounellis, Tom Kovachevich, Piotr Kowalski, David Lamelas, Barry Le Va, Jean LeGac, Alfred Leslie, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Ingeborg Luscher, Inge Mahn, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Etienne Martin, Richard McLean, David Medalla, Fernando Melani, Jim Melchert, Mario Merz, Gustav Metzger, Bernd Minnich, Malcolm Morley, Ed Moses, Bruce Nauman, Hermann Nitsch, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Blinky Palermo, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, A.R. Penck, Giuseppe Penone, Vettor Pisani, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Posen, Markus Raetz, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Klaus Rinke, Dorothea Rockburne, Peter Roehr, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Ulrich Ruckriem, Robert Ryman, John Salt, Salvo, Lucas Samaras, Paul Sarkisian, Jean-Frederic Schnyder, Ben Schonzeit, Werner Schroeter, HA Schult, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Fritz Schwegler, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Allan Shields, Katharina Sieverding, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Klaus Staeck, Paul Staiger, Jorge Stever, Robert Strubin, Paul Thek, Wayne Thiebaud, Andre Thomkins, David Tremlett, Richard Tuttle, Ben Vautier, W + B Hein, Franz Erhard Walther, Robert Watts, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, John Wesley, H.C. Westermann, William Wiley, Rolf Winnewisser, Tom Wudl, Klaus Wyborny, La Monte Young, Peter Young, Gilberto Zorio.
Catalogue also includes Bob Projansky and Seth Siegelaub's "The Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement." This "Agreement form has been drafted by Bob Projansky, a New York lawyer, after my [Siegelaub] extensive discussions and correspondence with over 500 artists, dealers, lawyers, collectors, museum people, critics and other concerned people involved in the day-to-day workings of the international art world. The Agreement has been designed to remedy some generally acknowledged inequities in the art world, particularly artists' lack of control over the use of their work and participation in its economics after they no longer own it. The Agreement for has been written with special awareness of the current ordinary practices and economic realitites of the art world, particularly its private, cash and informal nature, with careful regard for the interests and motives of all concerned. It is expected to be the standard form for the transfer and sale of all contemporary art, and has been made as fair, simple and useful as possible. It can be used either as presented here or slightly altered to fit your specific situation. If the following information does not answer all your questions consult your attorney." -- from Agreement's cover. Copies of the contract are individually included in English, Germany, and French editions.
Very Good, complete (as issued) copy. Very minor wear.
1974, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 21 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$30.00 - Out of stock
Environments and Happenings by painter and poet Adrian Henri, published by Thames & Hudson in 1974, forms one of the first mainstream book surveys to trace the phenomenon of environmental/performative/total living artworks that became prevalent in the 1960s/70s. This historical study is profusely illustrated in colour and b/w with many international works from Fluxus to Zero to Dolle Mina to Nouveau Réalisme to Provo to Gutai to The Situationists and much more. Includes the works of Joseph Beuys, Clarence Schmidt, Ray Johnson, Öyvind Fahlström, Paul Thek, Yves Klein, Allan Kaprow, Hans Haacke, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Guerllia Art Action Group, Daniel Spoerri, Wolf Vostell, Gustav Metzger, Peter Kuttner, Jackson Pollock, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Robert Morris, Situationist International, Ferdinand Kriwet, Klaus Rinke, Duane Hanson, A-Yo, Meret Oppenheim, Space Structure Workshop, Ferdinand Cheval, Dolle Mina (Mad Mina), Robert Smithson, Jeff Nuttall, Stefan Wewerka, Christo, Dennis Oppenheim, Vladimir Tatlin, Provo, Barry Flanagan, Andy Warhol, Meredith Monk, Atsuko Tanaka, Kazuo Shiraga, Ed Keinholz, Yayoi Kusama, Piero Gilardi, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Claes Oldenburg, Les Levine, James Rosenquist, Red Grooms, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Eduardo Paolozzi, and many many more. Includes reproductions of performance scripts, partial chronology, etc.
Very Good copy, previous owner name to front endpaper.
2004, English
Softcover (staple bound), 16 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
The Tate Gallery / London
$18.00 - Out of stock
Exhibition guide published on the occasion of Sigmar Polke, History of Everything, at the Tate London in 2004. Introduces the German artist Sigmar Polke (1941—2010) and surveys the major themes/developments in his work, illustrated throughout with examples in b/w and colour. Includes full schedule of exhibition events, etc.
Good copy with wear and spine pinching, rubbing to cover from another small book.
1971, Japanese / English
Softcover (in slipcase w. obi strip), 22 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Kodansha Int / Tokyo
$500.00 - Out of stock
The very first printing of the legendary Complete Tadanori Yokoo book, designed by Yokoo and published in Japan in 1971. Still the quintessential Yokoo book, anyone who sees it knows immediately — boldly designed and beautifully produced with gorgeous colour, thick paper stock, fold-outs, and absolutely comprehensive in capturing the early masterpieces of one of Japan's leading artists of the 1960s. All housed in the original iconic illustrated slipcase with publisher's obi-strip present. 360 total works recorded, alongside 230 photographs — all the posters and other works showcasing his psychedelic, erotic, esoteric and politically charged photo-montage and vivid pop print-making, with documentation of the exhibitions, events, and underground scene Yokoo was central to in the 1960s, captioned throughout with texts by Akiyuki Nosaka and Yokoo himself. A treasure for any fan. A most complete copy.
Tadanori Yokoo (b. 1936) is one of Japan's most successful and internationally recognized graphic designers and artists, who began working with painting in 1966. In parallel, Yokoo’s early screenprints experimented with collage and illustration, combining found photographs with the influence of traditional Japanese ukiyo-e and pop art’s flat vibrant colours and overtly sexual and grotesque content, often reflecting on the rapid changes and Westernisation of Japan post-war society. His interests in mysticism and esotericism, deepened by travels to India, influenced his iconic posters with eclectic psychedelic imagery sharing the aesthetics of the underground counterculture he was associated with. In Tokyo, Yokoo worked as a stage designer for avant-garde theatre, collaborating extensively with Shūji Terayama and his experimental theater group Tenjō Sajiki. By the late 60s he had already achieved international recognition and in the early 1970s MoMA mounted a solo exhibition of his graphic work. His famous designs for The Beatles, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana and collaborations with friend and iconic Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake are renowned the world over. He also starred as a protagonist in Nagisa Oshima's film Diary of a Shinjuku Thief in 1968.
Very Good—Near Fine copy preserved with very minimal wear, light tanning to obi/spine, VG slipcase.
1967, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 310 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Haga Bookstore / Japan
$250.00 - Out of stock
Rare and iconic book, Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1967) is a collaboration between legendary Japanese underground theater and film director Shuji Terayama, graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo and photographer/cinematographer Yasuhiro Yoshioka. As a precursor to Terayama's first audacious feature-length film of the same title, from 1971, this beautiful softcover book is filled with collages, photographs, graphics, drawings and texts (in Japanese), housed in an elaborate dust-jacket (with amazing Beatles homage lipstick collage on verso) typical of the bold and vibrant pop design style of Yokoo, establishes Terayama as a multi-talented avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, editor and photographer, and one of the central figures of the runaway movement in 1960s Japan. In the same year as this book was published, Terayama (in collaboration with Tadanori Yokoo and others) formed the Tenjo Sajiki, a major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the prolific group was known for their stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. An amazing and rare early example of their published collaborative work, wrapped in one of Yokoo's most iconic graphic works.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
Good copy with Good dust jacket. General tanning and foxing, with edge wear and surface wear to jacket.
1969 / 2006, English / French / German / Italian
Softcover binder (w. spring-loaded plate), 170 pages, 31.5 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Kunsthalle Bern / Bern
$290.00 - Out of stock
One of the great art documents of the 20th century, "Live in Your Head : When Attitudes Become Form", curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, March 22 - April 27, 1969. This is the impeccably re-produced facsimile edition of the exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with an exhibition honouring the legacy of Szeemann in 2006, published by the Kunsthalle Bern, the producers of the original. Strictly limited edition and immediately out-of-print, this most faithful reprint, with the unique die-cut alphabetically tabbed index bound with hardware-fittings, has become as collectible as the 1969 edition.
Sponsored by the Philip Morris tobacco company, this was an important, extensive and primary exhibition dedicated to the amalgam of Pop, Minimal and Conceptual Art in Europe and the United States. The catalogue itself is designed and produced by Szeemann, and printed in Switzerland by Stämpfli & Cie in Bern. Alongside those of Seth Siegelaub, Szeemann's now historical catalogues changed the way exhibition publishing performed. Presented as a indexical binder (spring-bound with a metal plate) forming an index of alphabetical artist pages and accompanying texts. Includes a biography, bibliography, illustrations and portrait for each artist.
Texts by Harald Szeemann, Scott Burton, Grégoire Müller and Tommaso Trini.
Artists include Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Richard Artschwager, Thomas Bang, Jared Bark, Robert Barry, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Marinus Boezem, Bill Bollinger, Michael Buthe, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Paul Cotton, Alighiero Boetti, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Ger Van Elk, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Hans Haacke, Michael Heizer, Douglas Huebler, Paolo Icaro, Alain Jacquet, Neil Jenney, Jo Ann Kaplan, Eva Hesse, Edward Kienholz, Yves Klein, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Gary B. Kuehn, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Roelof Louw, Bruce McLean, Walter De Maria, David Medalla, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Paul Pechter, Panamarenko, Michelangelo Pisteletto, Emilio Prini, Markus Raetz, Allen Ruppersberg, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Robert Ryman, Alan Saret, Sarkis, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle, Frank Viner, Erhard Walther, Lawrence Weiner, William Wegman, William Wiley and Gilberto Zorio.
Texts in English, French, German and Italian.
As New with only light creasing to the overhanging edges of the cover edges, otherwise a Fine copy.