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:
CLOSED FOR SUMMER.
RE-OPENING 01.02.24
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 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.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, 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.
1985, Japanese / English
Softcover, 166 pages, 20 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
National Museum of Modern Art / Kyoto
$150.00 - In stock -
Beautiful and extremely scarce Japanese catalogue for a major international exhibition on Postmodern design held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1985. Presents 200 pieces of work by 48 designers and architects from Europe, America and Japan. Features the work of Aldo Rossi, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi, Arata Isozaki, Ettore Sottsass, Frank Gehry, Fumihiko Maki, Mario Botta, Masanori Umeda, Matteo Thun, Michael Graves, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Peter Shire, Richard Meier, Robert Venturi, Ron Arad, Daniel Weil, Shiro Kuramata...This book profiles many of these important designers through photographs, biographies and texts. Foreword by Michiaki Kawakita and Kenji Adachi. Introduction by Shinji Kohmoto and an essay on Italian radical and neo-radical design by Alessandro Mendini.
One of the finest and lesser-known volumes produced on postmodern design.
Very Good copy with some tanning/light marking to cover, internally perfect, crisp copy.
1981, Italian
Softcover, 67 pages, 29.5 × 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Electa / Milan
$290.00 - Out of stock
Here it is - the very rare FIRST ever Memphis book, published by Electa in Italy in 1981!
First edition. Wrapped in a fold-out front and back cover design by Marco Zanini, this very early document of Memphis is almost entirely a visual folio of reproductions of the original drawings by Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi, Aldo Cibic, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Shiro Kuramata, Alessandro Mendini, Paola Navone, Peter Shire, Ettore Sottsass, George Sowden, Matteo Thun, Masanori Umeda and Marco Zanini. Along with an early essay by Barbara Radice (in both Italian and English), this catalogue tells the very beginning of the Memphis story through the original drawings of furniture, objects, lighting and patterns compiled from international architects, artists and designers. The story goes that Ettore Sottsass and his core group encouraged international architects and designers to send their concepts and drawings for new designs for domestic furnishings. In viewing their results through this selection of the drawings, it is clear there was a global design revolution happening and Memphis was about to produce prototypes of these designs that would shock and change the world forever.
A rare opportunity to own this important publication of design history.
Note: This book was briefly re-issued in 2009 in a limited edition - this is however the first printing from 1981.
Very Good copy.
1991, English
Hardcover, 60 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Sotheby's / Monaco
$400.00 - In stock -
The incredible and now very collectable hardcover catalogue for the important sale of Karl Lagerfeld's collection of Memphis furniture and objects in 1991. Lagerfeld had built one of the most extensive collections of this extraordinary design group during the early 1980s in order to furnish his new modern apartment in Monte Carlo. In his catalogue introduction where he declares his love at first sight for the Memphis group in 1981, he goes on to call Memphis the "Art Deco of the '80s". When he sold the apartment he decided to sell the collection that furnished it from floor to ceiling. Lavishly illustrated in full-colour with 133 lots, all the main Memphis designers are included - Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, Martine Bedin, Matteo Thun, Marco Zanini, Masanori Umeda, George James Sowden, Peter Shire, Aldo Cibic. The pieces include chairs, tables, cabinets, shelves, lights, teapots, clocks, televisions, etc. Includes texts and quotes from Lagerfeld, Barbara Radice, Ettore Sottsass and Frederique Huygen, and a bibliography. Still one of the most unique, impressive and informative books on Memphis ever published.
Fine, beautifully preserved copy complete with inserted invitation sheet to the Monaco auction with schedule and hotel booking information (in French). Texts in the book are in French, with some English.
1980, Italian
Softcover, 72 pages, 24 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Studio Forma / Turin
Studio Alchymia / Milan
$300.00 - In stock -
Very rare, very early volume published on the occasion of the exhibition "Elogio Del Banale" at the Venice Biennale, 1980, as part of the 1st International Architecture Exhibition. Conceived by Alessandro Mendini, Daniela Puppa, Paola Navone, this collection and book (directed by Andrea Branzi and designed by Michele de Lucchi) is heavily illustrated throughout with the work and studies of radical Italian design group Studio Alchimia, including many rarely seen early exhibition designs, interiors, furniture, objects, even catalogue decor for Fiorucci. Accompanying texts are by founding members Alessandro Mendini and Franco Raggi, and with an introduction by Barbara Radice. Includes patterns by Paola Navone and photographic studies by Ettore Sottsass throughout. An exceptional piece of printed radical design history, featuring many future Memphis members, published by Studio forma in Turin and Studio Alchymia in Milan.
Studio Alchimia was an iconoclastic, radical design group founded in Italy in 1976 by the Italian Architect Alessandro Guerriero. The Studio Alchimia was composed of designers, whose aim was to design and manufacture exhibition pieces, rather than consumer orientated products. Their products were to be regarded as prototypes / one-offs, leading the way from the principles of modernist design to a bold, new, experimental design style. This style would lead to the formation and popularity of Italian design groups in the 1980′s such as the Memphis Group and the new directions taken by the Alessi company.
Very Good copy.
2020, English / French / Italian / Dutch
Softcover (3 volumes in slipcase), 400 pages, 24 x 16.9 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$300.00 - Out of stock
At 400 pages, this is the definitive overview of the great and influential pioneers of Italian radical architecture, Superstudio. Immediately out-of-print and now collectible.
The avant-garde Italian architecture collective Superstudio was founded in 1966 by Adolfo Natalini (1941–2020) and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia (1941–2019), and quickly leaped to the forefront of the 1960s radical architecture movement alongside the likes of Archigram and Haus-Rucker-Co. Through their architectural projects (housing, industrial buildings, banks, interiors), design objects, photocollages, drawings, texts, installations, models, films and exhibitions, Superstudio found brilliant and highly inventive ways in which to inhabit a world transformed by capitalist forces and technological evolutions. This beautifully produced, slipcased, 400-page volume explores their oeuvre through the lens of “migrations” (migrazioni). Borrowed from Superstudio’s vocabulary, this term serves as a conceptual and poetic key to the group’s architecture and their works in all mediums.
Presented in 3 books, the first is a collection of critical essays and interviews with three prominent figures in architecture who have been in close contact with Superstudio over the past 50 years; By examining their personal and theoretical careers, these different voices show the great influence of the small group, bringing to life this “journey to the higher realms of reason.” The second book proposes a thematic journey through the work: it shows the rich iconography through a series of concepts from Superstudio’s vocabulary. They reveal the richness of the projects and images produced over the active years of the group that go beyond the narrative contained in some of the quasi-iconic photo collages. The last book presents previously unpublished letters from the archive of Adolfo Natalini. The exchanges between the members of Superstudio and the letters to prominent architects from the second half of the twentieth century form a collective autobiography in which architecture and life increasingly converge. In addition to the group’s oeuvre, the publication also presents work by 9999, Archizoom, Hiromi Fujii, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Ugo La Pietra, Leonardo Ricci, Aldo Rossi, Leonardo Savioli, Ettore Sottsass Jr. and Bernard Tschumi.
Edited with text by Emmanuelle Chiappone-Piriou. Text by Beatrice Lampariello, Gabriele Mastrigli, Frédéric Migayrou. Interviews with Veronique Patteeuw, Rem Koolhaas, Aurelien Vernant, Bernard Tschumi, Yûki Yosikawa, Hiromi Fujii.
As New sealed copy.
1978, English / Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 26 x 12 cm
Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
The National Museum of Art / Osaka
$160.00 - 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 indispensible index of important modern chair designs from the early 1930s—late 1970s.
Near Fine copy.
1985, English
Hardcover (w. dustjacket), 224 pages, 30 x 22.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$200.00 - Out of stock
First edition, published by Rizzoli in 1985, of this classic interior design book, "Styles of Living: The Best of Casa Vogue"
Making appearances in these rooms: Gae Aulenti, Man Ray, Enzo Mari, Carlo Scarpa, Pablo Picasso, Josef Hoffman, Cinzia Ruggeri, Max Ernst, Wols, Matteo Thun, Ettore Sottsass, Le Corbusier, Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Lucio Fontana, Eileen Grey, Daniel Buren, Gaetano Pesce, Charles Eames, Verner Panton, Massimo Vignelli, Andy Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright, Antoni Tàpies, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alver Aalto.....
"Ever since the end of the Second World War, Italian style, design and decoration have maintained an unprecedented predominance in the Western World. It was in the early 1950s that a great surge of decorative talent welled up in Italy, and this resulted in the 'Italian look' in clothes and in homes - a new standard of chic inventiveness.
The Italian view of interior design has been most enterprisingly expressed in the magazine Casa Vogue, which was founded in 1968 and has consistently been one of the most admired publications of Condé Nast International.
This book, garnered from the many issues of Casa Vogue, has been written and produced under the guidance of Isa Vercellonim who has been its editor ever since its inception. The choice of picture-stories is intended to reflect the unusual and distinctive diversity of the magazine - ranging from traditional decoration to the more advance examples of minimal design, most the most significant of contemporary buildings to the spectacular reconstructions and reconversions of old palazzi and coachhouses, from the 'post modern' to the 'anti-modern' and any other 'moderns' that may have been advocated recently. Italian trends naturally provide the main focus, but Casa Vogue also includes developments in the United States, France, Switzerland - indeed, wherever unusual and meaningful designs are being created."
Very good copy in Good dust-jacket, protected under mylar wrap.
1974, Italian
Softcover, 198 pages, 27.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Casabella / Milan
$450.00 - Out of stock
The extremely collectable book of the movement, Architettura "Radicale" was published by Casabella Milan in 1974 and collects Navone's thesis with Orlandoni, forming an unsurpassed critical essay on the new avant-garde architecture and radical design of Italy (and further afield) that rose out of the 1960s. With an introduction by the great designer and editor Andrea Branzi, this volume contains over 150 black and white illustrations of projects and works by Archizoom, Superstudio, Alessandro Mendini, Gianni Pettena, UFO Group, Raimund Abraham, Lapo Binazzi, Andrea Branzi, James Gowan, Rem Koolhaas, Ugo La Pietra, Eduardo Paolozzi, Gaetano Pesce, Walter Pichler, Ettore Sottsass and many others. Includes a very important bibliography and profiles on the designers. A stunning piece of printed design history, now very rarely seen.
Good-Very Good copy with light general cover and corner wear, tanning to edges.
1974, Japanese / English
Softcover, 96 pages, 32.5 × 25.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Interior Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Japan's finest magazine for interior design, architecture and home furnishings, edited by Moriyama Kazuhiko. JAPAN INTERIOR DESIGN presented "a monthly comprehensive view of traditional, contemporary, and contemplated environmental designs and pure art forms both Japanese and foreign, through pictures and critical reviews. English captions and summaries of major articles are provided each issue." The in-depth analysis in which JAPAN INTERIOR DESIGN committed to covering new international furniture, textile, product, environmental, and interior design developments and major events from the period (1950s-1980s), places it soundly alongside its Italian comrade Domus. Lavishly illustrated throughout with beautiful photography in colour and b/w, with comprehensive plans, drawings and elevations bringing many innovative and long lost architectural and industrial designs into sharp focus. A wealth of archival reference material in each issue for any enthusiast of modern and space age design.
no. 183 June 1974
CONTENTS :
FEATURE OF THE MONTH : CANVAS IN FURNITURE & ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
1982, Japanese / English
Softcover, 96 pages, 32.5 x 25.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Interior Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo
$100.00 - Out of stock
Japan's finest magazine for interior design, architecture and home furnishings, edited by Moriyama Kazuhiko. JAPAN INTERIOR DESIGN presented "a monthly comprehensive view of traditional, contemporary, and contemplated environmental designs and pure art forms both Japanese and foreign, through pictures and critical reviews. English captions and summaries of major articles are provided each issue." The in-depth analysis in which JAPAN INTERIOR DESIGN committed to covering new international furniture, textile, product, environmental, and interior design developments and major events from the period (1950s-1980s), places it soundly alongside its Italian comrade Domus. Lavishly illustrated throughout with beautiful photography in colour and b/w, with comprehensive plans, drawings and elevations bringing many innovative and long lost architectural and industrial designs into sharp focus. A wealth of archival reference material in each issue for any enthusiast of modern and space age design.
Very rare, this issue includes a special feature on the furniture of Italy's Memphis design group. Fantastic full-colour spreads of photo documentation highlighting some of Memphis' most iconic and wild pieces by Ettore Sottsass, Matteo Thun, Michele de Lucchi, Andrea Branzi, Shiro Kuramata, etc. together with texts by Katsuhiro Yamaguchi and Barbara Radice.
Also includes the design work of Takashi Sakaizawa, Lacquer furniture of Kawakami Motomi, furniture of Abe Hiroshisan, New lighting fixtures by Asahara Shigeaki, Awatsuji Expo: Indigo textile statement by Hiroyuki Shindo, Residential Design of Helsinki: Timo Pentira, Ikedayama housing design: Edward Suzuki Architects, and much more.
Good copy, general light magazine wear. A mark to cover.
2019, English
Softcover, 264 pages, 27 x 19.5 cm
Published by
Nero / Rome
$65.00 - Out of stock
Global Tools 1973–1975 documents and narrates the story of the eponymous experience of Radical Design and its multidisciplinary school program “without students or teachers.” The Global Tools journey began with its foundation in 1973 by groups and figures drawn from Italian Radical Architecture, Arte Povera, and Conceptual Art, and ended in 1975 after three years of intense experimentation. This book is both a commentary and an impressive visual archive that brings together essays by international authors and reproductions of many original documents—including the Global Tools bulletins, entirely republished here for the first time. This unique and definitive book marks a fundamental stage in the rediscovery of one of the most fascinating European cultural experiences of the late twentieth century.
Edited by Valerio Borgonuovo and Silvia Franceschini.
With texts by Manola Antonioli and Alessandro Vicari, Valerio Borgonuovo and Silvia Franceschini, Alison J. Clarke, Beatriz Colomina, Maurizio Lazzarato, Franco Raggi, Simon Sadler.
Published by Nero in collaboration with SALT, Istanbul.
1994 / 1998, French
Softcover, 158 pages, 28.7 × 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fondation pour l'Architecture / Brussels
$260.00 - In stock -
The great "L'Utopie du Tout Plastique 1960-1973", first published in Brussels and France in 1994 by Fondation pour l'Architecture and Norma Editions. Long out of print, this comprehensive volume quickly became an invaluable bible of sorts for plastic collectors of the 1960s, 1970s period. In 1994, on the occasion of a major exhibition in Brussels, editors Philippe Decelle, Diane Hennebert, and Pierre Loze compiled the most detailed printed survey of plastic products to date, from Art, Functional Furniture, Fiberglass, Inflatable PVC, Transparent PMMA, Pop and Radical Design, Cookware, Electronics, Mod Fashions, Utopian Architecture. Heavily researched and lavishly illustrated throughout with close to 200 of the finest examples, L’ Utopie has become the standard reference on 1960s plastic design - an essential aid in identifying the designers, companies and manufacture details of many classic plastic objects from this era.
Includes detailed biographies of the artists, designers, architects, manufacturers, plus a chronology and bibliography.
Translated blurb:
"The sixties are marked by unprecedented prosperity and technological progress. To this optimism corresponds an extraordinary freedom of creation until the oil crisis of 1973 which tempers this enthusiasm. The vogue of plastic is linked to this society of abundance. Yellow, red, orange, soft, hard, inflatable, it identifies with cheap, serial and disposable productions. Starting from a private collection unique in the world, the book offers a selection of plastic objects created between 1960 and 1973. Tupperware box, Kelton watch, Courrèges dress, Ettore Sottsass portable typewriter Valentine for Olivetti, first chair of Verner Panton, Joe Colombo ABS plastic chair, Niki de Saint Phalle's Nana, Caesar's Compression, cupola of the United States Pavilion by Richard Buckminster Fuller at the Montreal World's Fair or Frei Otto and Günter Behnisch overhead roof for the stadium of the Olympic Games in Munich, all show their diversity, their spirit and sometimes their beauty of the inventiveness of the time."
Features the work of Pierre Paulin, Sergio Mazza, Vico Magistretti, César, Studio 65, Nicola L, Piero Gilardi, Verner Panton, Arman, Gianfranco Frattini, Jonathan De Pas, Donato d'Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, Gae Aulenti, Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Joe Colombo, Enzo Mari, Iseo Hosoe, Mario Bellini, Dorothée Maurer-Becker, Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi, Günter Beltzig, Maurice Calka, Eero Aarnio, Wendell Castle, Alberto Rosselli, Quasar Khanh, Rossi Molinary, Ennio Lucini, Ugo la Pietra, Ettore Sottsass, Superstudio, Archizoom, Roy Adzak, Studio Gruppo 14, Dieter Rams, Reinhold Weiss, Marco Zanuso, Rodolfo Bonetto, Roger Tallon, Pierre Cardin, Courreges, Frei Otto, Buckminster Fuller, Jean Maneval, Paolo Soleri, Archigram, and many more.
Second edition, published in 1998 on the occasion of Plastiques: Matieres e créér at l'lnstitut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux a la Saline Royale de Arc et Senans-France, October 1997—March 1998. Rare and immediately out-of-print. Very good copy with some light tanning, ageing.
1973, English / Japanese
Softcover, 184 pages, 22.5 cm x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
A.D.A Edita / Tokyo
$120.00 - Out of stock
Rare fifth issue from 1973 (complete with original issue printed slip-case) of this now classic 1970’s architectural series, the great GI (Global Interior) from Tokyo, Japan.
One of the finest interior architecture journal series ever published, GI “The Series of Global Interior” came from the producers of the highly esteemed GA (Global Architecture), GA Document, GA Houses, etc. architectural publications.
GI was produced throughout the 1970’s in a total of ten volumes. Each large volume highlighted a selection of architectural projects by renowned international architects, some volumes focusing on a specific architect entirely, and highlighted their work for houses and domestic spaces.
Beautiful architectural photography of house interiors, exteriors and room details of living spaces, along with texts (mostly in Japanese) and floor-plans/elevation drawings make up the profiles on each featured building or environment. The visual generosity of these handsomely designed and printed journals (each more a book than a magazine) make them a treasure for any architecture or interior design enthusiast or collector.
Edited and Presented by Yukio Futagawa
GI Global Interior #5
Apartment Interiors
1973
Contents include:
Apartment interior profiles by Nanda Vigo, Cini Boeri, Carla Venosta, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Joe Colombo, Gae Aulenti, Baldassini, Bicocchi and Monsani, Vico Magistretti, Piero Sartogo, Salvati and Tresoldi, Mario Bellini, Carlo Moretti, Francois Catroux, Taller de Arquitectura, Paul Rudolph ...
Very Good copy preserved in worn slipcase (spine tanning and general wear).
2021, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 312 pages, 23.2 x 15.9 cm
Published by
Zone Books / New York
$59.00 - Out of stock
Flashback, Eclipse is a groundbreaking study of 1960s Italian art and its troubled but also resourceful relation to the history and politics of the first part of the twentieth century and the aftermath of World War II. Most analyses have treated the 1960s in Italy as the decade of “presentism” par excellence, a political decade but one liberated from history. Romy Golan, however, makes the counterargument that 1960s Italian artists did not forget Italian and European history but rather reimagined it in oblique form. Her book identifies and explores this imaginary through two forms of nonlinear and decidedly nonpresentist forms of temporality—the flashback and the eclipse. In view of the photographic and filmic nature of these two concepts, the book’s analysis is largely mediated by black-and-white images culled from art, design, and architecture magazines, photo books, film stills, and exhibition documentation.
The book begins in Turin with Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Mirror Paintings; moves on to Campo urbano, a one-day event in the city of Como; and ends with the Vitalità del Negativo exhibition in Rome. What is being recalled and at other moments occluded are not only episodes of Italian nationalism and Fascism but also various liberatory moments of political and cultural resistance. The book’s main protagonists are, in order of appearance, artists Michelangelo Pistoletto and Giosetta Fioroni, photographer Ugo Mulas, Ettore Sottsass (as critic rather than designer), graphic designer Bruno Munari, curators Luciano Caramel and Achille Bonito Oliva, architect Piero Sartogo, Carla Lonzi (as artist as much as critic), filmmakers Michelangelo Antonioni and Bernardo Bertolucci, and, in flashback among the departed, painter Felice Casorati, writer Massimo Bontempelli, art historian Aby Warburg, architect Giuseppe Terragni, and Renaissance friar-philosopher-mathematician Giordano Bruno (as patron saint of the sixty-eighters).
“Adapting the cinematic and temporal processes of flashback and eclipse recruited by Italian artists and film directors in the 1960s, Golan creates her own montage, in which art and politics, history and criticism, as well as the memory and actuality of Fascism become enmeshed through techniques of ‘mimetic subversion.’ The result is a dazzling mosaic that stages contemporary auteurs, like Pistoletto and Antonioni, in conversation with the historical figures of Aby Warburg and Giordano Bruno. Based on this subtle historiographic strategy, Flashback, Eclipse not only challenges prewar and postwar periodizations in Italian art, but also reevaluates the performance of anachrony in the writing of art history.” —Spyros Papapetros, Associate Professor of History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton University
“Romy Golan explores the historical unconscious of 1960s Italian art as she opts for a new kind of temporality that is nonlinear and fractured. With a great command of film history, graphic design, and exhibition history, she presents us with an unprecedented study of Italian artworks experienced through their mediation, suggesting that we ought to look at the filters — the mirror images, hues, and experimental mise-en-page — that obliterate and reveal these works.” —Maria Antonella Pelizzari, Professor of Art History, Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York
“This masterful book reveals the richness and complexity of a poly- centric, dispersed, even anarchic art scene — the Italy of the 1960s — that no institution was powerful enough to unify, label, and export. It was known that Italy had been the laboratory of some of the most radical political experiments of the twentieth century, for better or for worse. Here we discover that, around 1968, it delivered the unexpected elements of a new political economy of the arts.” —Patricia Falguières, Professor of Renaissance Studies, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
1986, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 239 pages, 25 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$80.00 - In stock -
Edited by Robert A.M. Stern, one of the world's leading exponents of the Post-Modern movement, "The International Design Yearbook 1985/86" was "the first volume of an important annual review of domestic design in an international context. It shows the best, the most characteristic and the most exciting recent designs in furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles, glass and metalware. It illustrates the work not only of such leading figures as Rossi, Hollein, Venturi, Sottsass and Castiglioni, but of hundreds of other contemporary designers around the world, whose work is notable for its topicality and promise, or for its aesthetic or functional excellence."
As well as contemporary design of the mid 1980's, the annual "deals with the reproduction of classic designs by such masters as Eileen Gray, Hoffman, Mackintosh, Rietveld and Le Corbusier." The annual also functioned as a guidebook to the featured designers and the respective companies, manufacturers and retailers of their designs. Biographies for all those designers featured are included, plus texts throughout.
This large book is richly illustrated with wonderful examples of the featured designers in their many forms via 520 illustrations, 382 in colour. Many works rarely (some possibly never) seen documented in any other book.
Includes the work of: Verner Panton, Nathalie du Pasquier, Charlotte Perriand, Paolo Piva, Andrée Putman, Dieter Rams, Gerrit Rietveld, Aldo Rossi, Stanley Tigerman, Brian Faucheux, Jay Stanger, Yrjo Kukkapuro, Hans Gunnarsson, Studio Alchimia, Gabrielle Regondi, John Smith, Alberto Salvati and Ambrogio Tresoldi, Paolo Deganello, Alessio Sarri, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Matteo Thun, Pierre Jeanneret, Memphis, Giuseppe Terragni, Robert George Sowden, SITE, Afra Scarpa, Tobia Scarpa, Robert Venturi, Ugo La Pietra, Le Corbusier, Ettore Sottsass, Adolf Loos, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Richard Meier, Alessando Mendini, Fujiwo Ishimoto, Hans Hollein, Josef Hoffmann, William Morris, Frank Gehry, Robert A.M. Stern, Eileen Gray, Michael Graves, Michele De Lucchi, Joe Colombo, Achille Castiglioni, Mario Bellini, Gae Aulenti, Hans Ansems, Ron Arad, Emilio Ambasz, Alver Aalto, Daniel Weil, Marco Zanini, to name but a few!
Very Good copy with VG dust jacket, light tanning to page edge.
1984, Italian
Softcover (loop stitched), 60 pages, 30 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Memphis Milano / Milan
$340.00 - Out of stock
Very rare, early original Memphis Milano trade catalogue from 1984. Beautifully preserved copy of this lavishly illustrated and iconically designed (by Christoph Radl and Sottsass Associati) catalogue presenting furniture pieces, lamps, ceramics, glassware, metalware, and textiles produced between 1981 and 1984 by Ettore Sottsass, Peter Shire, Andrea Branzi, George James Sowden, Hans Hollein, Aldo Cibic, Martine Bedin, Gerard Taylor, Michele De Lucchi, Mattheo Thun, Marco Zanini, Masanori Umeda, Nathalie du Pasquier, Michael Graves.
A wonderful collector's item.
Very Good copy, bright and clean throughout.
1972, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket and complete 5 cut-outs), 432 pages, 20 x 25cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
MoMA / New York
Centro Di / Florence
$180.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the stunning "Italy: The New Domestic Landscape (Achievements and Problems of Italian Design)", published by Museum of Modern Art, New York, in association with Centro Di Florence, in 1972. Includes the famous glassine dust jacket with all five (rarely present) cardboard cutout inserts. A most complete copy of this very important reference book on Italian design of the 1960s-1970s.
Edited by Emilio Ambasz while he was the curator of design at Museum of Modern Art, this is the first book to comprehensively survey the important design developments of 1960s Italy, published to coincide with the landmark exhibition at MoMA, May 26 - September 11, 1972. The museum commissioned 12 environments especially for the exhibition, covering two modes of contemporary living; Permanent Home and the Mobile Home, using 180 objects produced in Italy during the decade by more than 100 designers, including the finest examples of product design, furniture, lighting, appliances, flatware, glass, ceramic, putting new (radical) Italian design on the international map. Profusely illustrated throughout with over 500 illustrations across over 400 pages, alongside essays by Paolo Portoghesi, Maurizio Fagiolo Dell'Arco, Leonardo Benevolo, Vittorio Gregotti, Germano Celant, Manfredo Tafuri, Filiberto Menna and others. Includes the work of Archizoom, Joe Colombo, Gae Aulenti, Sergio Asti, Tobia and Afra Scarpa, Mario Bellini, Jonathan De Pas, Andrea Branzi, Cesare Casati, Rodolfo Bonetto, Cini Boeri, Achille Castiglioni, Piergiacomo Castiglioni, Piero Gilardi, Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Gruppo Strum, Ugo La Pietra, Paolo Lomazzi, Vico Magistretti, Superstudio, Angelo Mangiarotti, Enzo Mari, Bruno Munari, Adolfo Natalini, Gaetano Pesce, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Massimo Vignelli, Nanda Vigo, Marco Zanuso, Arflex, Arredoluce, Arteluce, Artemide, Brionvega, Cassina, C & B Italia, Danese, Driade, Flexform, Flos, Gufram, Kartell, Olivetti, Poltronova, Stilnovo, Zanotta, and so many more...
Very Good copy with tanning to edges and the usual yellowing to glassine dust jacket. Otherwise well-preserved with the rarely preserved 5 cut-out inserts present.
1978, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 120 pages, 22 x 29 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
Studio Vista / London
The Whitney Library of Design / New York
$140.00 $60.00 - Out of stock
First English hardcover edition of Living Spaces, originally published in 1977 by Milan's Gorlich Editore as “L'Arredamento Oggi”, the translated edition of this lavish interior design book was published in 1978 by the great Studio Vista and the Whitney Library of Design, New York.
"Living Spaces" walks you through a collection of modern international furnished interiors, capturing 150 of the finest examples of interior architecture and decoration of the late 1970's. Showcased across saturated full-colour pages are the designs and productions of Alvar Aalto, Ugo La Pietra, Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Gaetano Pesce, Ettore Sottsass, Duggie Fields, Charles and Ray Eames, Joe Colombo, Gufram, Studio 65, Piero Gilardi, Eero Aarnio, Knoll, Verner Panton, Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe, Robert Stern, Mario Ceroli, plus so many more.
First English edition in dust jacket.
Good copy in Good dust jacket preserved under mylar wrap. Discounted due to one missing page (pg 11/12), otherwise a beautifully preserved copy throughout.
2002, English
Hardcover (dust jacket), 140 pages, 31 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Umberto Allemandi / Milan
$280.00 - In stock -
Rare first English hardcover edition of this outstanding survey, exhibition catalogue and invaluable reference to the fascinating light objects produced in Italy between 1967 and 1972 — a period generally known as "gli anni d´oro" (The Golden Years). Published in 2002 by Milan's legendary Allemandi publishing house and compiled by light designer and writer Fulvio Ferrari and author behind all the best books on Carlo Mollino, Napoleone Ferrari. Lavishly illustrated in colour and b/w on gloss stock, this large volume offers and outstanding survey of Italian light-design with more than 150 objects illustrated and detailed entries on each and every one, including materials and exhibition histories. Includes the work of designers, artists and manufacturers Livio Castiglioni & Gianfranco Frattini, Archizoom, Cini Boeri, Ettore Sottsass, Nanda Vigo, Ugo La Pietra, Achille Castiglioni, Lapo Binazzi, UFO, Angelo Lelli, Ingrid Hsalmarson, Gino Sarfatti, Rinaldo Cutini, Gae Aulenti, Superstudio, Gaetano Pesce, Angelo Mangiarotti, Joe Colombo, Gianfranco Fini, Mario Bellini, Memphis, Fabrizio Cocchia, Alchimia, Sergio Asti, Tomoko Tsuboi Ponzio, Gianni Gamberini & Studio ARDITI, Fulvio Ferrari, Gino Marotta, Studio Uno, Cesare Casati, Theodore Waddell, George Sowden, Arteluce, Zanotta, Stilnovo, Valenti, Kartell, Poltronova, Arredoluce, Flos, Lumenform, Zanotta, and many more. Also includes introductory essays and a full index of designers and manufacturers.
Very Good-Fine copy in VG-Fine dust jacket.
1957, Italian
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 184 pages, 25 x 20 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Conchiglia / Milan
$390.00 - Out of stock
Very rare comprehensive study on Spatialism ("Origins and Developments of an Artistic Trend"), the art movement founded by Lucio Fontana in Milan in 1947. Published by Conchiglia, Milan, Italy, in 1957, and edited by Giani Giampiero, this lavish volume republishes all the original manifesto documents of the movement, beginning in Buenos Aires with the Manifiesto Blanco of 1946 through Fontana's subsequent Spazialismo declarations, alongside theoretical texts and drawings by Fontana and associates; extensive photographic documentation of social gatherings and landmark exhibitions of the movement; beautiful and generous surveys of the work by all representative exponents of the movement, with multiple works reproduced through vivid colour plates, texts and photographic portraits; plus more. An indispensable historical reference on one of the most important post-war modern art movements of 20th century Italy. Features the work of Lucio Fontana, Ettore Sottsass, Emilio Scanavino, Cesare Peverelli, Gino Morandis, Enrico Donati, Bruno De Toffoli, Mario Deluigi, Roberto Crippa, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Aldo Bergolli, Edmondo Bacci. This is the expanded second edition in blue jacket and produced with various paper stocks throughout (first, in yellow jacket, published 1956).
Spatialism (Italian: Spazialismo) is an art movement founded by Italian artist Lucio Fontana in Milan in 1947 in which he grandiosely intended to synthesize colour, sound, space, movement, and time into a new type of art. The main ideas of the movement were anticipated in his Manifiesto blanco (White Manifesto) published in Buenos Aires in 1946. In it he spoke of a new "spatial" art in keeping with the spirit of the post-war age. It repudiated the illusory or "virtual" space of traditional easel painting and sought to unite art and science to project colour and form into real space by the use of up-to-date techniques such as neon lighting and television. Five more manifestos followed; they were more specific in their negative than their positive aspects, and carried the concept of Spatialism little further than the statement that its essence consisted in "plastic emotions and emotions of colour projected upon space". In 1947 Fontana created a "Black Spatial Environment", a room painted black, which was considered to have foreshadowed Environment art. His stabbed and slashed canvases (beginning in 1949 and 1959 respectively) are also considered to embody Spatialism. Although Fontana's ideas were vague, his outlook was influential, for he was one of the first, certainly the first European artist to truly promote the idea of art as gesture or performance, rather than as the creation of an enduring physical work.
Good copy. Some damage to dust jacket with some chipping. As common with this fragile volume a page has disconnected from binding, but all present and in clean order. Overall a very nicely kept copy with standard age wear. A rare and precious work.
1968, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 208 pages, 23.2 x 16.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Architectural Press / London
$90.00 - Out of stock
First edition of "Exhibitions, Exhibits, Industrial and Trade Fairs", published in 1968 by the Architectural Press in London.
Deeply researched and profusely illustrated with exceptional black and white photography, architectural plans and diagrams, with text by author Wolfgang Clasen, this unique and inspiring book makes the point that "Architectural documentation is particularly important when dealing with a category of works of architecture which are not built to last."
This book perfectly captures a special and most innovative period in modern design and architecture. As the jacket announces: "We are living in an Exhibition Age: Expo 67 in Montreal is scarcely over and we are already looking ahead to the next World Exhibition in Osaka in 1970. In addition to their primary function of communication, exhibitions have a secondary function of almost equal importance: for because of the temporary nature of most exhibition buildings they provide architects and designers with a testing ground where new ideas, new structures and techniques can be tried out.
This book illustrates and describes eighty examples of exhibitions of all kinds taken from thirteen countries and all five continents; the period covered is from 1960 to the present day. Particular emphasis is laid on the newest trends and on such things as nature of most exhibition buildings they provide architects and designers with a testing ground where new ideas, new structures and techniques can be tried out."
Amongst the many fine examples of cultural exhibitions, commercial and trade expos and temporary pavilions are examples of works by Gio Ponti, Buckminster Fuller, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Le Corbusier, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Wim Crouwel, Total Design, Vittorio Gregotti, Eero Saarinen, Angelo Mangiarotti, Will Burtin, Charles and Ray Eames, Paolo Nestler, Henri Kay Henrion, Rolf Gutbrod, Xenakis, Frei Otto, Ulf Linde, Per-Olof Ultvedt, Will Burtin, Walter Kuhn, and many more.
Separate chapters on fair stands, display units and exhibit systems round off this exhaustive treatise on exhibition architecture with a full index of architects and designers.
Text in English and German.
Very good copy, with original Gio Ponti dust-jacket protected under mylar wrap. Light wear/tan/dust to edges.
1968, Italian / English
Softcover, 98 pages, 32.5 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Editoriale Domus / Milan
$65.00 - Out of stock
Founded in 1928 as a “living diary” by the great Milanese architect and designer Gio Ponti, domus has been hailed as the world’s most influential architecture and design journal, distributed in 89 countries. With exuberant style and rigor, it offered energetic up-to-date coverage and analysis of major themes, developments and stylistic movements in product, structure, interior, and industrial design. Called the "Mediterranean Megaphone," domus has always been considered the most concrete published expression of Italian style, documenting generations of radical, practical, and beautiful production, both local and across the world. Amongst a seemingly endless archive of contributions and features, domus frequently covered the works of the protagonists of the Anti and Radical Design movements, modern architecture, new experiments in environmental/spatial/commercial design, international product design, the activities of the Arte Povera, Pop art, Minimal Art and Nouveau Réalisme movements, and much more.
No. 466 Settembre 1968
Editor : Gio Ponti
Editorial committee and contributors include : Cesare Casati, Pierre Restany, Agnoldomenico Pica, Pierre Restany, Carmela Haerdtl, Joseph Rykwert, Ettore Sottsass jr., Charles and Ray Eames,
Kho Liang je, Bernard Rudofsky, George Nelson, Fausto Melotti, Tommaso Trini, Tapio Wirkkalaand, Rut Bryk, Hans Hollein, and more.
features :
Archizoom; Lucio Fontana; "Tatlin" by Agnoldomenico Pica; "Apartment Building in Ramat Gan Tel Aviv" by architects Alfred Neumann, Zvi Hecker, Eldar Sharon, "The 18th Aspen Design Conference" by Hans Hollein; Olivetti store in Buenos Aires by architect Gae Aulenti; XIV Triennial of Milan "Il Grande Numero" (Arata Isozaki); "Venice Biennale 1968: A Failure in Attempted Suicide" by Pierre Restany; "For a New Biennale" by Tommaso Trini; Book reviews; and much more.
Beautifully printed in Italy and heavily illustrated throughout with vivid colour and black and white photography across multiple paper stocks, page crops and fold-out spreads.
1968, Italian / English
Softcover, 84 pages, 32.5 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Editoriale Domus / Milan
$65.00 - Out of stock
Founded in 1928 as a “living diary” by the great Milanese architect and designer Gio Ponti, domus has been hailed as the world’s most influential architecture and design journal, distributed in 89 countries. With exuberant style and rigor, it offered energetic up-to-date coverage and analysis of major themes, developments and stylistic movements in product, structure, interior, and industrial design. Called the "Mediterranean Megaphone," domus has always been considered the most concrete published expression of Italian style, documenting generations of radical, practical, and beautiful production, both local and across the world. Amongst a seemingly endless archive of contributions and features, domus frequently covered the works of the protagonists of the Anti and Radical Design movements, modern architecture, new experiments in environmental/spatial/commercial design, international product design, the activities of the Arte Povera, Pop art, Minimal Art and Nouveau Réalisme movements, and much more.
domus No. 462 Maggio 1968
Editor : Gio Ponti
Editorial committee and contributors include : Cesare Casati, Pierre Restany, Agnoldomenico Pica, Pierre Restany, Carmela Haerdtl, Joseph Rykwert, Ettore Sottsass jr., Charles and Ray Eames,
Kho Liang je, Bernard Rudofsky, George Nelson, Fausto Melotti, Tommaso Trini, Tapio Wirkkalaand, Rut Bryk, and more.
features :
Archizoom; The Living Theatre; "The New Headquarters for the Ford Foundation in New York" by architects Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates; "National Aquarium in Washington" by architects Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates, with Office of Charles Eames; "Pneu: Inflatable Structures and Forms"; "A Mini Space" by Joe Colombo; new lamp edition from Didier Bernardin; Multiples by Franco Angeli, Lucio Fontana, Gino Marotta, Gianni Colombo, David Morris, Fabrizio Cocchia, etc. by Tommaso Trini; "Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1868-1968; "Magistretti in Paris : the Cerruti 1881 styling centre"; Art exhibitions all over the world; Book reviews; Lourdes Castro / Cesar / Jean-Pierre Raynaud by Pierre Restany; "The House of Roger Tallon"; Pino Pascali; Giulio Paolini; and much more.
Beautifully printed in Italy and heavily illustrated throughout with vivid colour and black and white photography across multiple paper stocks, page crops and fold-out spreads.
2019, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 20.3 x 25.4 cm
Published by
MoMA / New York
$55.00 - Out of stock
The 50th anniversary edition of MoMA's landmark book on conceptual art.
In the summer of 1970, the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted the now legendary exhibition Information, one of the first surveys of conceptual art. Conceived by MoMA’s celebrated curator Kynaston McShine as an “international report” on contemporary trends, the show and attendant catalog together assembled the work of more than 150 artists from 15 countries to explore the parameters and possibilities of the emerging art practices of the era. Noting the participating artists’ attunement to the “mobility and change that pervades their time,” McShine underscored their interest in “ways of rapidly exchanging ideas, rather than embalming the idea in an ‘object.’” Indeed, much of the work in the exhibition engaged mass-communications systems, such as broadcast television and the postal service, and addressed viewers directly, often encouraging their participation in return.
The catalog, rather than merely document the show, functioned autonomously: it included a list of recommended reading, a chance-based index by critic Lucy Lippard, and individual artist contributions in the form of photographic documentation, textual description, drawings and diagrams—some relating to work in the exhibition and others to artworks as yet unrealized. This facsimile edition of the original Information catalog, which has long been out of print, invites reengagement with MoMA’s landmark exhibition while illuminating the early history of conceptual art.
Kynaston McShine was formerly Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Artists include Vito Acconci, Carl Andre, Siah Armajani, Keith Arnatt, Art & Language Press, Art & Project, Richard Artschwager, David Askevold, Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge, John Baldessari, Michael Baldwin, Barrio, Robert Barry, Frederick Barthelme, Bernhard & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Bill Bollinger, George Brecht, Stig Broegger, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Donald Burgy, Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden, James Lee Byars, Jorge Luis Carballa, Christopher Cook, Roger Cutforth, Carlos D'Alessio, Hanne Darboven, Walter de Maria, Jan Dibbets, Gerald Ferguson, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Group Frontera, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert & George, Giorno Poetry Systems, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Ira Joel Haber, Randy Hardy, Michael Heizer, Hans Hollein, Douglas Huebler, Robert Huot, Peter Hutchinson, Richards Jarden, Stephen Kaltenbach, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Christine Kozlov, John Latham, Barry Le Va, Sol Lewitt, Lucy Lippard, Richard Long, Bruce McLean, Cildo Campos Meirelles, Marta Minujin, Robert Morris, N.E. Thing Co., Bruce Nauman, New York Graphic Workshop, Newspaper, Group Oho, Helio Oiticica, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, Paul Pechter, Giuseppe Penone, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, Alejandro Puente, Markus Raetz, Yvonne Rainer, Klaus Rinke, Edward Ruscha, J.M. Sanejouand, Richard Sladden, Robert Smithson, Keith Sonnier, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Erik Thygesen, John Van Saun, Guilherme Magalhaes Vaz, Bernar Venet, Jeff Wall, Lawrence Weiner, Ian Wilson.