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.
2012, English / German
Softcover, 104 pages, 20.3 x 24.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Walther König / Köln
Collection de l'Art Brut / Lausanne
$120.00 - In stock -
Scarce out-of-print monograph on the work of Morton Bartlett, one of only a couple of books on the artist, published by Collection de l'Art Brut Lausanne and Walther Koenig in 2012 and quickly sold out.
When the freelance photographer and graphic designer Morton Bartlett (1909–1992) died at the age of 83, his relatives found 15 chests among his possessions. Each chest contained a half-life-size doll and its accessories: 12 girls and three boys, a wardrobe of hand-sewn clothes, black-and-white photographs of each doll as well as countless studies and archival materials. Bartlett began designing these dolls in the mid-1930s, studying anatomy books and histories of costume, and learning to sew and mold with clay to make them as true to life as possible. Each doll entailed a huge amount of labor, taking up to a year to complete; Bartlett created costumes and wigs for each one and then staged them in lifelike scenarios and photographed them, documenting a family he had never had and creating a body of work that would remain unexhibited during his lifetime. The third installment in the Bahnhof Museum’s series on outsider artists, this volume examines Bartlett’s extraordinary lifelong obsession.
Edited and with foreword by Udo Kittelmann, Claudia Dichter. Text by Lee Kogan.
As New copy.
1978, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket) in slipcase, unpaginated, 22 x 16 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Gentosha / Tokyo
$190.00 - Out of stock
1978 edition of Japanese illustrator Ken Katayama's masterpiece artbook, Beautiful Days, originally issued in this same hardcover, slipcased form in 1969 in a limited edition. Beautiful Days is the most crystallised embodiment of one of the most unique artistic visions of fantasy illustration one could ever find, and the first collection ever published by the artist, when, after discovering the erotic works on the fringe of Surrealism he gave up becoming a painter and gave himself over to the obscene impulses of drawing. "There, so to speak, masturbation became a picture. Until then, I never thought that masturbation could become a painting"—excerpt from Ken Katayama's postscript. Katayama's magnificently, obsessive graphite-rendered world-making is, like those of Lewis Carroll before him, made up almost entirely of children; children in states of blank-faced entrancement, possession and naked abandon; groping, lost and frozen in a psychosexual schoolhood theatre. Unlike anything else, aspects of Katayama's bewildering, often sadomasochistic, fairytale visions recall the tales of de Sade, Bataille, Klossowski, Carroll's Alice; the unconscious pictures of Balthus, Hans Bellmer, or Leonor Fini; the architectural dreamscapes of Delvaux or the Metaphysical painters; even the dark psychological renderings of fellow Japanese artist Yoshifumi Hayashi — a haunted landscape of eroticised adolescent memories with recurring motifs of free flowing urination and defecation, violently strewn newspapers, urinals, and apparitions of cat-people. Nothing like it! The work even inspired an experimental film of boyhood memories directed by the provocative film-maker Nakamura Masanobu in 1970.
"If you
keep your hands in your pockets
in your pocket
what are you hiding
that's how I got it
darkness in my pocket, days of dust
I opened the old album and showed
beautiful days other days"
Virtually unknown outside his native Japan, Katayama (b. 1940, Tokyo) studied at the Musahino Art University and in the 1960s and 1970s begin contributing illustrations to underground art and literary magazines such as Black Notebook, Featured Story and fetish magazines such as SM Select, amongst many others. He published art books such as Angel Hour, Lost Child's Top, Match Taker, The Cat in Boots, and many more, and went on to become a successful children's story book illustrator, publishing many works throughout the 1980s—90s.
Very Good copy, beautifully preserved in Very Good slipcase.
1997, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi), 154 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
$240.00 - In stock -
First 1997 edition collection of "The Early Works" by the Japanese master of Ero guro Toshio Saeki, published by Treville in 1997 and long out-of-print. An extensive collection of incredible works gathered from his first major book in 1970, his acclaimed 1971 Red Book, the panel-by-panel replication of an early Saeki manga story, and much more. Texts by Akira Uno, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Timothy Leary.
Toshio Saeki (1945—2019) was an illusive Japanese illustrator and painter, and icon of 1970s Tokyo counterculture, known for combining Japanese folklore, Yōkai spirits and elements of Western art with his own sophisticated aesthetics to create a unique, sensational world of eros, dark humour, and horror. Given the title “Erotic Engineer” by Timothy Leary, Saeki's provocative art broke all sexual taboos, questioned Japanese ideology and traditional views on love, desire and gender roles. Saeki’s surgically-precise graphic work is closely related to the Japanese cultural phenomenon ‘Erotic, Grotesque, Nonsense’ (ero, guro, nansensu).
“Toshio Saeki conjures death with a pen”—Shūji Terayama, 1969.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket and obi, light wear.
1994, Japanese
Softcover in die-cut, foiled slipcase, 162 pages
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
First edition of the rare, long out-of-print first major monograph on Japanese artist Yoshifumi Hayashi, published only in Japan in this slipcased edition in 1994. Profusely illustrated throughout, chronologically surveying self-taught Hayashi's work from his mid-1970s De Chirico-inspired sci-fi-scapes quickly evolving into his life's-work of grotesque, disembodied eroticism rendered masterfully in graphite. All the artist’s deepest and darkest paranoias, fetishes, and obsessions are laid bare here, tracing the development of various themes and subjects throughout in a delirium of convulsing legs, breasts, vulvas, intestines, brains and modernist architectural interiors. This book is a must for anyone interested in Hayashi's work. Accompanying texts by Roger Borderie, Gilbert Bellquet, Issei Sagana, Hiroshi Fujita. Also includes a rare portrait of the reclusive Hayashi.
Contemporary Japanese erotic artist Yoshifumi Hayashi (b. 1948, Fukuoka, Japan) dropped out of Chuo University Department of Philosophy in 1972, moving to Paris in 1974, where he began to produce pencil drawings through self study. At first his main influence was the metaphysical world of De Chirico, but soon his focus shifted to the lower half of the female anatomy. Exhibiting and publishing his drawings in France in the late 1970's, Hayashi gained a cult following for his dark explorations of fetishized female physiology and mutating genitalia, rendered masterfully in pencil. Often mentioned in relation to the likes of Hans Bellmer, H.R. Giger, and even David Cronenberg, Hayashi's drawings were featured in specialist fetish magazines, and director Walerian Borowczyk even made a film in 1980 of the artist at work, yet still little is known about Hayashi, who continues to work and exhibit internationally.
Very Good copy with Good slipcase with some general wear.
2014, Japanese / English
Hardcover, 96 pages, 15 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Atelier Third / Tokyo
$90.00 - In stock -
First hardcover edition of 'Le Principe de la Constitution' by Yoshifumi Hayashi, published in 2014 and now out-of-print. ‘Eroticism is to establish order, or in other words the principle of constitution, and not to destroy’ Yoshifumi Hayashi says. This latest collection of self-taught Hayashi's masterfully rendered obsessive visions of grotesque, disembodied eroticism continue his unique and highly original exploration of graphic art. Profusely illustrated throughout, this book follows-on from the comprehensive "La Jeune Marieè d'un Materialiste Enceinte de Cerveaux" monograph (mid 1970s-mid 1990s) illustrating Hayashi's pencil work throughout the 2000s. Includes a very rare essay by Hayashi, who first studied philosophy, discussing his theories about science and eros, tracing his childhood interest in astronomy through to his understanding of eroticism through dynamics.
Contemporary Japanese erotic artist Yoshifumi Hayashi (b. 1948, Fukuoka, Japan) dropped out of Chuo University Department of Philosophy in 1972, moving to Paris in 1974, where he began to produce pencil drawings through self study. At first his main influence was the metaphysical world of De Chirico, but soon his focus shifted to the lower half of the female anatomy. Exhibiting and publishing his drawings in France in the late 1970's, Hayashi gained a cult following for his dark explorations of fetishized female physiology and mutating genitalia, rendered masterfully in pencil. Often mentioned in relation to the likes of Hans Bellmer, H.R. Giger, and even David Cronenberg, Hayashi's drawings were featured in specialist fetish magazines, and director Walerian Borowczyk even made a film in 1980 of the artist at work, yet still little is known about Hayashi, who continues to work and exhibit internationally.
As New copy including Hayashi promotional postcard.
1993, Russian / English / German
Softcover, 192 pages, 29 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Artograph Verlag / Düsseldorf
$90.00 - Out of stock
1993 monograph published on the occasion of the first Russian exhibition of works by leading representative of the "Vienna School of Fantastic Realism", the artist, poet, and philosopher Ernst Fuchs (1930 – 2015). Fantasia is lavishly illustrated throughout with bold colour examples and details of Fuchs fantastic paintings, drawings, graphics, sculptural and architectural works, surveying his entire life and career chronologically, including many photographic portraits of the artist, studio and home documentation, biography, with texts in English, Russian and German by Igor Jassenjawsky and Joseph Kiblitzky.
Ernst Fuchs (1930 – 2015) was an Austrian artist and draughtsman of Jewish descent, engraver and sculptor, architect and stage designer, master of visionary painting and book illustration, as well as a composer and poet. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1945), he met Arik Brauer, Rudolf Hausner, Fritz Janschka, Wolfgang Hutter, and Anton Lehmden, together with whom he later founded what has become known as the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He was also a founding member of the Art-Club (1946), as well as the Hundsgruppe, together with Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Arnulf Rainer. Between 1950 and 1961, Fuchs lived mostly in Paris, and made a number of journeys to the United States and Israel, his work informed by the sermons of Meister Eckehart, the symbolism of the alchemists and Jung's Psychology of Alchemy, along with the paintings of the Symbolists and the Old Masters. In 1958 he founded the Galerie Fuchs-Fischoff in Vienna to promote and support the younger painters of the Fantastic Realism school. Fuchs was a important influence on younger generations of artists including his student in Paris, Australian artist Vali Myers. Painters Mati Klarwein and H.R. Giger were also devoted followers of his work, Giger once saying "If I had not seen his work when I was young, I would never have begun to paint myself."
Very Good copy with light wear.
1973, German
Softcover, 68 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Baukunst / Köln
$45.00 - Out of stock
1973 Ernst Fuchs catalogue published on the occasion of the major exhibition at Baukunst-Galerie in Köln, February-March 1973. Illustrated throughout with examples of Fuchs fantastic paintings, graphics, sculptures and rarely seen furniture pieces, all reproduced in vivid colour and black and white, including fold-out spreads. Portrait, biography, list of exhibited works and introductory text by Gustav René Hocke.
Ernst Fuchs (1930 – 2015) was an Austrian artist and draughtsman of Jewish descent, engraver and sculptor, architect and stage designer, master of visionary painting and book illustration, as well as a composer and poet. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1945), he met Arik Brauer, Rudolf Hausner, Fritz Janschka, Wolfgang Hutter, and Anton Lehmden, together with whom he later founded what has become known as the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He was also a founding member of the Art-Club (1946), as well as the Hundsgruppe, together with Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Arnulf Rainer. Between 1950 and 1961, Fuchs lived mostly in Paris, and made a number of journeys to the United States and Israel, his work informed by the sermons of Meister Eckehart, the symbolism of the alchemists and Jung's Psychology of Alchemy, along with the paintings of the Symbolists and the Old Masters. In 1958 he founded the Galerie Fuchs-Fischoff in Vienna to promote and support the younger painters of the Fantastic Realism school. Fuchs was a important influence on younger generations of artists including his student in Paris, Australian artist Vali Myers. Painters Mati Klarwein and H.R. Giger were also devoted followers of his work, Giger once saying "If I had not seen his work when I was young, I would never have begun to paint myself."
Very Good copy with light handling/corner wear.
2024, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 456 pages, 24 x 33.5 cm
Published by
Les Presses Du Reel / Paris
Sprint / Milan
$90.00 - Out of stock
Out of the Grid presents a critical selection of 100 Italian zines from 1978 to 2006 that display a broad spectrum of social, political, aesthetic, and technological changes in the use of language and communication strategies across the territory of self publishing.
Widely mapping Italian society, particularly youth culture—over an extended period that can be symbolically defined as the "post-movement" and "pre-internet3.0"—, this outpouring of creativity gave visibility to small, imaginative and technical shifts on paper that made mimeographs, photocopiers and offset machines tremble, and often erupted into the need to communicate through other mediums. The titles selected originated from different scenes—musical, social, artistic, literary...—within which the distances between authors and readers is eliminated. To help navigate this multitude of subcultures, each zine is introduced by a profile that provides further analysis and information. No specific structure has been imposed, leaving room for the specific characteristics of each project to emerge. 100 titles ∞ paths.
Edited by Dafne Boggeri with Sara Serighelli.
Contribution by Marta Zanoni; interviews with Dafne Boggeri, Gino Gianuizzi, Stefano Gilardino, Glezös, Fabiola Naldi, Lorenza Pignatti, Pietro Rivasi, Giulia Vallicelli [Compulsive Archive].
Graphic design: Dafne Boggeri.
Published with Sprint (sprintmilano.org) and O' (www.on-o.org), Milan.
1983, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 380 pages (approx), 36 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Abbeville Press / New York
$980.00 - In stock -
Very rare, most handsome copy of the first 1983 Abbeville English hardcover edition of the ever mysterious Codex Seraphinianus by Italian artist and designer Luigi Serafini (1949—), a book like no-other. Ever since the Codex Seraphinianus was first published in Italy in limited edition by Franco Maria Ricci in 1981, the book has been recognized as one of the strangest and most beautiful art books ever made. This phantasmagorical visual encyclopedia of an unknown world written in an unknown language has fueled much debate over its meaning. Written for the information age and addressing the import of coding and decoding in genetics, literary criticism, and computer science, the Codex confused, fascinated, and enchanted a generation, including Roland Barthes and Italo Calvino. While its message may be unclear, its appeal is obvious: it is a most exquisite artifact. Blurring the distinction between art book and art object.
Beautifully preserved Near Fine—F copy of the first 1983 English printing in NF dust jacket, preserved in mylar wrap.
1982, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 23 x 14 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
University of Chicago Press / Chicago
$45.00 - In stock -
Ambroise Paré, born in France around 1510, was chief surgeon to both Charles IX and Henri III. In one of the first attempts to explain birth defects, Paré produced On Monsters and Marvels, an illustrated encyclopedia of curiosities, of monstrous human and animal births, bizarre beasts, and natural phenomena. Janis L. Pallister’s acclaimed English translation offers a glimpse of the natural world as seen by an extraordinary Renaissance natural philosopher.
Scarce 1982 edition. Good—VG copy, light wear and spotting to block edges.
1972, Japanese
Softcover (w. illustrated slipcase), 34 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Haga Bookstore / Japan
$450.00 - Out of stock
Very rare, complete first edition of this cult work by ero-guro master Toshio Saeki (1945—2019), an absolute favourite, published in 1972 in this over-sized slipcased edition by the legendary Haga Shoten. The most famous work by Toshio Saeki, Red box (Akai Hako) brings together over fifty illustrations drawn by Toshio Saeki in 1972, sublimely reproduced as large-format double-page spread artworks, captivating in their mania and gorgeous, vivid colour printing on matte stock. A stunning book to behold. A masterpiece! A must!
Toshio Saeki (1945—2019) was an illusive Japanese illustrator and painter, and icon of 1970s Tokyo counterculture, known for combining Japanese folklore, Yōkai spirits and elements of Western art with his own sophisticated aesthetics to create a unique, sensational world of eros, dark humour, and horror. Given the title “Erotic Engineer” by Timothy Leary, Saeki's provocative art broke all sexual taboos, questioned Japanese ideology and traditional views on love, desire and gender roles. Saeki’s surgically-precise graphic work is closely related to the Japanese cultural phenomenon ‘Erotic, Grotesque, Nonsense’ (ero, guro, nansensu).
“Toshio Saeki conjures death with a pen”—Shūji Terayama, 1969.
Very Good copy with light wear/age, usual print buckling, VG—G slipcase with some light wear/age/marking.
1972, French
Harcover (w. dust jacket), 88 pages, 28 x 21.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Eric Losfeld / Paris
$140.00 - In stock -
First hardcover edition of Jean-Marie Poumeyrol's Dessins Érotiques, published by Eric Losfeld in 1972. Beautifully illustrated throughout with Poumeyrol's incredible erotic drawings, "the techniques and ideas behind each of the finely drawn, lewd and Surrealist paintings of cult erotic French artist Jean-Marie Poumeyrol (b.1946) are explained by French Surrealist author and filmmaker Raymond Borde." In these, his early works, Jean-Marie Poumeyrol was recognized as a master of erotica, and often associated with the fantastic realism movement, combining hallucinogenic and macabre imagery in an unparalleled manner. Upon graduation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bordeaux he already had a four year old son to support, and so began his illustrious career as a teacher of mechanical draftsmanship, before his educational career was cut short by the system. Art teachers had to pass tests given by the board to determine if they were skilled enough to teach drawing. At the same time that Poumeyrol’s erotic works were first seeing print and sought out avidly by collectors, he failed his art teacher’s exam—being given an ‘F’ for nude drawing. Encouraged by this failure, he dedicated himself to painting and drawing full time, eventually creating a large body of erotica which have marked him ever since (along with Sibylle Ruppert) as one of France’s greatest artists in this domain.
Raymond Borde (1920-2004) is a French film critic, film maker and essayist, co-founder and curator of the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. Associated with the surrealist movement and André Breton, he contributed to Positif and Premier Plan and published around twenty books.
Éric Losfeld (1922 - 1979) was a Belgian-born French publisher who had a reputation for publishing controversial material and was as often sued as Jean-Jacques Pauvert. A publisher who despised profit, he boasted that he had been, throughout his life, "in debt like a mule". When the creditors and the prosecutors gave him a little respite, he who defined himself as a "free editor" had only one principle: to be faithful to his tastes and unfaithful to his disgusts. "The only literature that touches me," he proclaimed, " is literature written with passion, or rather passionate literature." Thus, for thirty years, Losfeld created, at Arcane Editions, Le Terrain Vague, and under his own name, an invaluable and often clandestine catalog of Babouvist and hallucinated principality, and where he gathered all his preferences. For surrealism, eroticism, anarchism, romanticism, fantasy, black humor, jazz and comics. The world according to Losfeld, was that of Artaud, Mandiargues, Druillet, Sade, Vian, Peret, Allais, Jarry, Gbe, Sternberg, Forneret, Bealu, Topor, Arrabal, Peellaert or Klossowski. He was the publisher of Emmanuelle (1967), surrealist magazines ("Bief") and cinematographic magazines ("Midi Minuit Fantastique" and "Positif"), and the Barbarella science fiction comic book created by Jean-Claude Forest, amongst many other titles. Losfeld's tombstone inscription reads, "Tout ce qu'il éditait avait le souffle de la liberté." ("Everything he edited had the breath of freedom.").
Very Good copy in Good dust jacket.
1981, French
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 96 pages, 33 x 25.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Galerie Bijan Aalam / Paris
Editions Natiris / Paris
$150.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover edition of Jean-Marie Poumeyrol — Peintures et Dessins, published by Éditions Baal-Natiris in association with the great Galerie Bijan Aalam, Paris, in 1981. Beautifully illustrated throughout with the visionary drawings and paintings of Jean-Marie Poumeyrol (b. 1941), this over-sized limited edition volume includes text by author Jean-François Reverzy and a conversation between the artist and author. Reverzy's text is fittingly entitled "The Haunting", introducing a remarkable period of Poumeyrol's work from 1973—1980 that matures from his early, complex, fantasy erotic work into his unique, finely-rendered depictions of scarred and haunted liminal spaces, ensnaring the viewer in his forensic scenes of obsession. Poumeyrol's dark architectural Wunderkammers are heavy with disturbance. What has happened, what is to come, what is desired, what is feared. Located out of time, yet littered with curios and trompe-l'œil portholes to many different time-places, Poumeyrol masters the familiar and gentle sensibility of mid-century European still-life/landscape painting with one-hand, whilst luring the viewer into an alien and unsettling pyscho-sexual dread with the other. Often associated with the fantastic realism movement, Poumeyrol combines hallucinogenic and macabre imagery in an unparalleled manner. Upon graduation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bordeaux he already had a four year old son to support, and so began his illustrious career as a teacher of mechanical draftsmanship, before his educational career was cut short by the system. Art teachers had to pass tests given by the board to determine if they were skilled enough to teach drawing. At the same time that Poumeyrol’s erotic works were first seeing print and sought out avidly by collectors, he failed his art teacher’s exam—being given an ‘F’ for nude drawing. Encouraged by this failure, he dedicated himself to painting and drawing full time, eventually creating a large body of erotica which have marked him ever since (along with German born Sibylle Ruppert) as one of France’s greatest artists in this domain.
Fine copy in Fine dust jacket.
1971, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 325 pages, 23 x 29.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Andre De Rache / Brussels
$300.00 - In stock -
First edition of the best, most comprehensive reference book on the work of French—Belgian Surrealist artist Felix Labisse, and one of the only publications on the artist in the English language. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and b/w, including many photographs of Labisse's life and artistic circles, with extensive accompanying essays by the great Surrealist biographer and author Patrick Walberg, including chapters: Gayant's child; The Ostend clan; The Wizard of Families; Behind the Scenes of the Party; Devil's Transvestites. Highly recommended.
Félix Labisse (1905—1982) was a self-taught French Surrealist painter, illustrator, and designer. He was born in Marchiennes. He divided his time between Paris and the Belgian coast from 1927. In Ostend he met James Ensor, with whom he became friends for life. In 1927 he set up his own studio there, influenced by his contact with the Ostend artists Ensor, Constant Permeke and Léon Spilliaert. Labisse mainly worked with oil on canvas. Beginning in 1931 he designed extensively literature and for the theater. In 1951 he staged the play Le Diable et le Bon Dieu by Jean-Paul Sartre at the Théâtre Antoine in Paris and in 1954 he staged the play Les Mystères de Paris by Albert Vidalie under the direction of Georges Vitaly at the Theater La Bruyere in Paris. Labisse's work was also influenced by Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. Describing his own work as 'libidoscaphes', his paintings depict fantastical hybrid creatures, heavy with motifs of eroticism and Freudian themes. He painted the first of a series of his iconic blue women in 1960; among them is the Bain Turquoise. He was the subject of a film by Alain Resnais, Visite à Félix Labisse (1947). In 1966 he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1973 his paintings were shown in a retrospective exhibition at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1982.
Patrick Waldberg (1913—1985) was a Franco-American art critic known for his profiles of Surrealist artists. Born in Santa Monica, California, Waldberg moved to Paris as a child with his family. In 1932, and while still a student (age 19), he joined Boris Souvarine's Democratic Communist Circle. There he met Georges Bataille and his friends Michel Leiris and André Masson, and was initiated by them into a wild night life. 1937 saw him back in California to take care of "family matters", however, a letter from Georges Bataille reached him there, urging him to return to Paris in order to take part in a Nietzschean secret society Bataille was then forming, called Acéphale ("headless"). Waldberg heeded the call in September 1938, and he says this permanently changed his life. From 1938 to 1940 Waldberg would serve as the secretary of Bataille's "official" group, the College of Sacred Sociology. In 1959 he left Paris to move to the French village of Seillans, where his second wife Line Jubelin was from. Max Ernst and his own second wife Dorothea Tanning joined him there. Their houses are now a Max Ernst museum and a Maison Waldberg museum.
Very Good in VG dust jacket — copy, light wear/age only.
1967, French
Softcover (staple-bound), 8 pages, 18 x 21cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Galerie Rive Gauche / Rome
$45.00 - Out of stock
Lovely 1967 Fèlix Labisse catalogue published on the occasion of a solo exhibition at Galerie Rive Gauche, Roma. Illustrated in black and white with a work list and text by Patrick Waldberg.
Félix Labisse (1905 – 1982) was a French Surrealist painter, illustrator, and designer. He was born in Marchiennes. He divided his time between Paris and the Belgian coast from 1927. In Ostend he met James Ensor, who influenced his work. Beginning in 1931 he designed for the theatre and illustrated many books, including those by Robert Desnos and Marcel Schwob. His paintings often depict fantastical hybrid creatures, often erotic in nature. He painted the first of a series of his famed blue women in 1960; among them is the Bain Turquoise. He was the subject of a film by Alain Resnais, Visite à Félix Labisse (1947). In 1966 he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1973 his paintings were shown in a retrospective exhibition at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1982.
Very Good copy.
2024, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 176 pages, 31 x 24.1 cm
Published by
Skira / Milan
$95.00 - In stock -
Published on occasion of the exhibition Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy: Ring of Iron, Ring of Wool curated by Dr Victoria-Noel-Johnson, Marzina Marzetti (Director of the Helly Nahmad Gallery) in collaboration with Derek Des Islets and Matthew Foster, Helly Nahmad Gallery, New York, this hardcover catalogue explores the work of Kay Sage (American, 1898—1963) and Yves Tanguy (French-American, 1900—1955), two eminent Surrealist artists who married in 1940. Particular attention will be given to Sage's fascinating life and extraordinary work, which has long been obscured by her relationship with the better-known Tanguy, a key figure of French Surrealism. As such, the publication will analyse the various stages of Sage's life and career in Italy and Paris before returning to New York in 1939, parallel to Tanguy's own exceptional work of the late 1920s—early 1950s, with the aim of highlighting how their personal and professional trajectories affected their respective work and careers thereafter. Sage's dedication to promoting and safeguarding Tanguy's legacy following his premature death in 1955 will also be explored.
2000, English
Softcover, 458 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$80.00 - Out of stock
First 2000 edition of the second coming of America’s darkest shadow side, Apocalypse Culture II, the completely cult classic sequel edition to what was called by J.G. Ballard “the terminal documents of the twentieth century.” The original Apocalypse Culture, an underground bestseller since its emergence in 1987, has remained a huge influence on popular culture. The sequel delineates further regions of the Forbidden Zone, the psychic maelstrom that everyone knows exists but fearfully avoids.
Subject matter includes:
The biological resurrection of Jesus Christ via modern cloning technology
Interviews with a convicted murderer and cannibal turned celebrity
Recipes for cooking babies
Homunculi
Pedophilia
A re-enactment of the 914 deaths that occurred at Jonestown in 1978
A report on Bobby Beausoleil, his art, and his prison sex life
The farthest-out conspiracy of all with reasons to take it absolutely seriously
Letters sent to Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan
A sample necrocard for those who wish to donate their body to necrophilia
Steps to overcome masturbation
The replacement of human mates with expensive masturbatory devices
Fecal black magic
Mind control via advertising
And dozens of other compelling examples of our own Apocalypse Culture. Observing that society has been infantilized by being told at every opportunity how to think and what to believe, editor Adam Parfrey refuses to provide easy moral lessons in Apocalypse Culture II, though he supplies pertinent information before and after many articles to assist the interpretation of thoughtful readers. Some will find the contents quite shocking, but that, according to Parfrey, is not his primary purpose. This is an examination of sociological truths that speak of the culture that both created and ignore them.
Contributors include Colin Wilson, Ted Kaczynski, Pentti Linkola, Jim Goad, Peter Sotos, Michael Moynihan, Sondra London, Jonathan Vankin, Irv Rubin, George Petros, Chris Campion, Robert Sterling, David Woodard, Dan Kelly, Wes Thomas, Crispin Hellion Glover, Boyd Rice, Kadmon, Chad Hensley, James Shelby Downard, Rod Dickinson, Steve Speer, Sarita Vendetta, Ghazi Barakat, Kristan Lawson, Issei Sagawa, Rosemary Malign, Danny Rolling, Larry Wayne Harris, Nicolas Claux, Stu Mead, Trevor Brown, George LaMort, and Beth Love.
“This is a black box of a book, spuming to the brim with the overly articulate paranoias of our age. It is impossible to either put it down or keep yourself from throwing it against the wall. There is no denying its dense psychic substance, though. The dark angels sit crowded on every page.”—Andrei Codrescu, National Public Radio
“I write books, I read books, and Apocalypse Culture II is the best book I have ever read. Pardon me now if I go out on a limb, but if there is no Pulitzer for this man, this work, I will eat my own Nobel. Adam Parfrey is equal parts H.L. Mencken and P.T. Barnum.”—Richard Meltzer
“Apocalypse Culture II is an instant classic, blasting through the last frontiers of taboo.”—Rachel Resnick, author of Go West Young Fucked-Up Chick
“Salacious. Visceral. Great. With Apocalypse Culture II, Adam Parfrey immerses the reader in the deep dark sanguinary sanctums of the subconscious.”—Robert Williams
“Apocalypse Culture II is the New Testament, redefining and satirically exposing the mutations of consensus hypocrisy. Psychoses duel in the hilarious, absurd, provocative and incestuously urban litanies of deformed martyrs. An unexpectedly sacred alchemical tincture.”—Genesis P-Orridge
“Adam Parfrey’s astonishing, un-put-downable and absolutely brilliant compilation, Apocalypse Culture II, will blow a hole through your mind the size of JonBenet’s fist. This book should be in hotel rooms.”—Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight
“Adam Parfrey shows himself to be unique among investigative journalists: one unafraid to go where barkers fear to tread.”—Nick Tosches
“Apocalypse Culture II is a chaos bible of delightful forbidden information that falls somewhere between The Cat in the Hat and Mein Kampf. It’s also thick enough to leave a good-sized bruise on someone’s face after you get pissed-off by reading it.”—Marilyn Manson
Good copy with general wear/laminate wripples/"kinkiness".
1990, English
Softcover, 362 pages, 21.6 x 24 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$40.00 - Out of stock
"Apocalypse Culture is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our times. An extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the twentieth century."—J.G. Ballard
Two thousand years have passed since the death of Christ and the world is going mad. Nihilist prophets, born-again pornographers, transcendental schizophrenics and just plain folks are united in their belief in an imminent global catastrophe. What are the forces lurking behind this mass delirium?
APOCALYPSE CULTURE is a startling, absorbing and exhaustive tour through the nether regions of today’s psychotic brainscape.
First published in 1987, APOCALYPSE CULTURE immediately touched a nerve. Alternately excoriated and lauded as “epochal”, “the most important book of the decade,” APOCALYPSE CULTURE had begun to articulate what many inwardly sensed — the-fear inspired irrationalism and faith, the clash of irreconcilable forces, and the ever-looming specter of fin de race. In its present incarnation for Feral House, APOCALYPSE CULTURE has significantly increased in size, taking on new perspectives on our current crisis, with pertinent revisions of many articles from the original edition.—burb from this expanded and revised 1990 edition.
Good copy with general wear/"kinkiness".
1977, German
Softcover, 128 pages, 33 x 24 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Belser Verlag / Stuttgart
$68.00 - Out of stock
Softcover edition of this wonderful over-sized publication on the unique collaboration between German artist Paul Wunderlich and photographer Karin Székessy, one of Germany's most important female photographers, who were married to each other. Published in Switzerland in 1977, this volumes collects an abundance of these iconic 'transpositions,' evocative, experimental nude photographs by Szekessy juxtaposed with Wunderlich's versions, or replies, in the form of paintings and prints. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and b/w, the result is a fascinating dialogue of unconventional nude form. German literary critic Fritz J. Raddatz's illustrated introduction gives contextual and art historical references and background, accompanied by a full listing of works and exhibition history.
Good—VG copy with only light cover/edge wear.
1967, German
Offset poster (double-sided), 83.5 x 59 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
$600.00 - Out of stock
Where it all started.... H.R. Giger's first ever poster! Rare vintage original and never reprinted.
Published in a limited edition to accompany the The-Telllife-No-mads-presents: Poëtenz happening/exhibition, organized by young Giger's friend and collaborator, Swiss writer, artist and publisher Urban Gwerders. Gwerders was the publisher of Swiss underground counterculture magazine Hotcha (1968—1971), to which Giger was also a contributor. The poster folds-down into a catalogue/program for the event with original cover artwork by Giger and collage contents, poems, photographs (including pics of Giger, Li, et al) and Poëtenz information, all designed in the montage style of Hotcha, and the "poster" side entirely reproducing Giger's incredible early "Astreunuchen" masterpiece, pre-dating ALIEN by over ten years.
A stunning collector's item and piece of Giger history, ready to frame.
Dimensions : 83.5 x 59 cm
Very Good condition, never mounted/pinned, well preserved in folded state as issued.
1998, English / Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 100 pages, 37 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Sakuhinsha / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
Scarce first Japanese hardcover edition of Japanese master of erotic fantasy illustration Hajime Sorayama's absolute classic Torquere (Torture), published in 1998. Following the success of best-seller NAGA, Sorayama's Torquere delves deeper into the darker realm of fantasy fetishism and, as the title suggests, into the world of Sadomasochism. This lavish over-sized volume is illustrated cover-to-cover with Sorayama's most explicit works presented in dramatic, glossy full-colour throughout. Rare in this original hardcover edition.
Hajime Sorayama is revered for his erotic airbrushed illustrations of humanoid robots that explore ideals of femininity and beauty. Drawing on pinup pictures, Sorayama published the first book of his signature “Sexy Robot” series of chromium-plated figures in 1983. Decades later, these striking works have sold for more than $500,000. Sorayama started his career in advertising before freelancing in Hollywood, where he helped to produce visuals for sci-fi films. His illustrations gained widespread attention in 1995, when Penthouse began featuring them in a monthly column. While Sorayama has enjoyed a particular cult status for his sensual cyborgs —who appear empowered rather than objectified —he has also received mainstream commercial attention. Sony enlisted him to produce the first designs for its robotic dog AIBO, which won the grand prize for Japan’s Good Design Award in 1999. Sorayama has also worked with fashion titans such as Thierry Mugler and Dior on projects that have extended his illustrations into the realm of wearables, sculpture, and performance.
Near Fine copy.
2018, English
Hardcover, 480 pages, 17.4 x 23.2 cm
Published by
Atlas Press / London
$65.00 - In stock -
Georges Bataille's secret society, long the stuff of legend, is now revealed in its texts, meditations, rules and prohibitions.
This book recounts what must be one of the most unusual intellectual journeys of modern times, in which the influential philosopher, cultural theorist and occasional pornographer Georges Bataille (1897-1962), having spent the early 1930s in far-left groups opposing the rise of fascism, abandoned that approach in order to transfer the struggle onto "the mythological plane."
In 1937, Bataille founded two groups in order to explore the combinations of power and the "sacred" at work in society. The first group, the College of Sociology, gave lectures that were intended to reveal the hidden undercurrents within a society on the verge of catastrophe. The second group was Acéphale, a genuine secret society and anti-religion whose emblem was a headless figure that, in part, represented the death of God. Until the discovery a few years ago of the group's internal papers (which include theoretical texts, meditations, minutes of meetings, rules and prohibitions and even a membership list), almost nothing was known of its activities.
This book is the first to collect a representative selection of the writings of Bataille, and of those close to him, in the years leading up to World War II. The texts published here comprise lectures given to the College of Sociology by Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris, essays from the Acéphale journal and a large cache of the internal papers from the secret society. A desperate narrative unfolds, wherein Bataille risked all in a wholly unreasonable quest--with a few fellow travelers, he undertook what he later described as a "journey out of this world."
Additional texts by Roger Caillois, Pierre Klossowski, Michel Leiris, and by Georges Ambrosino, Pierre Andler, Michel Carrouges, Jacques Chavy, Jean Dautry, Henri Dobier, Henri Dussat, Imre Kelemen, Jean Rollin, Patrick Waldberg.
And with drawings by André Masson
Highest recommendation!
1998, German
Hardcover, 224 pages, 23 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Brinkmann & Bose / Berlin
Neue Gesellschaft fur Bildende Kunst / Berlin
$280.00 - Out of stock
First limited edition hardcover edition of this wonderful Unica Zürn monograph. Published to accompany a major survey exhibition in Berlin in 1998, this beautifully produced catalogue, now long out-of-print, is still one of the most cherished and comprehensive collections of Zürn's artwork ever published.
The German artist and writer Unica Zürn (1916-1970) joined the ranks of Surrealism in the 1950s, after moving to Paris and taking up residence with fellow German-born Surrealist Hans Bellmer. Already an accomplished author, Zürn was drawn to the Surrealist movement's espousal of automatic drawing and writing, Zürn pursued Henri Michaux's declaration that "the hand dreams," making a vocation of these techniques with her dense, otherworldly drawings and paintings that are labyrinthine in detail, as one form sprouts out of another. Also with her experimental anagrams, natural extensions of her established interest in hidden meanings and coincidences. Zürn produced most of her oeuvre during this intensive period in the 1950s and 60s, though one marked by her deteriorating mental health. Many of her works were made during periods of hospitalisation. In 1970, Zürn leapt to her death from the balcony of the Paris apartment she had shared with Bellmer. Upon his death in 1975, Bellmer was buried, at his request, next to Zürn in Paris’s Père-Lachaise Cemetery. Their grave is marked with the words Bellmer wrote for Zürn’s funeral wreath nearly five years before: “My love will follow you into Eternity.”
Zürn has left us an account of the sensation of automatic drawing: "After an initial moment when the pen 'swims' hesitantly on the paper, she discovers the place assigned to the first eye. It is only when she is being watched from the depths of the paper that she begins to get her bearings and, effortlessly, one motif is added to another."
Very Good copy, light wear.
2023, Czech / English / German
Softcover, 256 pages, 24 x 33 cm
Published by
Edizioni Periferia / Lucerne
$175.00 - In stock -
Despite his art education, Czech painter and photographer Miroslav Tichý (1926–2011) was considered an outsider due to his unconventional approach to photography that revealed a voyeuristic fascination for the female body. His analogue photography shows traces and errors he deliberately sought out by building his own cameras and telephoto lenses. In the 1970s and ’80s, Tichý regularly took pictures of his television screen. Because he lived close to the Austrian border, he was able to circumvent the censorship of Eastern Bloc media and watch the more permissive films and late night shows from the West. Many of his seemingly surreptitious screenshots appear in this book.