World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
THU—FRI 12—6 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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World Food Books Gift Voucher
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1998, English
Softcover, 464 pages, 15.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Purple Institute / Paris
$190.00 - Out of stock
PURPLE magazine ("Fashion, Prose, Special, Fiction, Interior") Number 2, Winter 1998-1999. A rare copy of this early edition of Purple, edited by Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm, this wonderful early issue features work by: Mark Borthwick, Alex Bag, Tobjorn Rodland, Antek Walzcak, Andrea Zittel, Martin Margiela, Bernadette Corporation, Laetitia Benat, Susan Cianciolo, Doug Aitken, Maurizio Cattelan, Karl Holmqvist, Arto Lindsay, Dora Garcia, Phillipe Parreno, Takashi Noguchi, Viktor & Rolf, Bernadette Van-Huy, Richard Prince, Banu Cennetoglu, Comme des Garcons, Rita Ackermann, Katja Rahlwes, Terry Richardson, Nathaniel Goldberg, Annette Messager, Helmut Lang, Colin De Land, Dan Graham, Marcelo Krasilcic, Takashi Homma, and many many more.
In 1992, Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm started the magazine Purple Prose as a reaction against the superficial glamour of the 1980s; much as a part of the global counterculture at the time, inspired by magazines like Interview, Ray Gun, Nova, and Helmut Newton's Illustrated, but with the aesthetics of what usually is referred to as anti-fashion. Based on their personal interests and views; Purple was, and in a sense still is, made much in the same spirit of the fanzine. Started "without any means, and without any experience, because we wanted to make a magazine that was radically different. We wanted to support the artists around us that no one else supported, much less talked about."—Olivier Zahm. The magazine became associated with the "realism" of the new fashion photography of the 1990s, with names like Juergen Teller, Terry Richardson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Mark Borthwick, Corinne Day, and Mario Sorrenti. Soon after the birth of Purple Prose, Zahm and Fleiss created spin-off publications such as les cahiers purple, Purple Sexe, Purple Fiction, and of course, Purple Fashion, in which Zahm aimed at fusing together his two worlds, fashion and art. Now one of the most iconic and influential fashion magazines in history.
Very Good—Neear Fine copy.
2005, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 15.2 x 22.9 cm
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
$40.00 - Out of stock
Set in post-9/11 New York City, Reena Spaulings was written by a large collective of writers and artists that bills itself as The Bernadette Corporation. Like most contemporary fiction, Reena Spaulings is about a female twenty-something. Reena is discovered while working as a museum guard and becomes a rich international supermodel. Meanwhile, a bout of terrible weather seizes New York, leaving in its wake a strange form of civil disobedience that stirs its citizens to mount a musical song-and-dance riot called “Battle on Broadway.” Fashioned in the old Hollywood manner by a legion of professional and amateur writers striving to achieve the ultimate blockbuster, the musical ends up being about a nobody who could be anybody becoming a somebody for everybody. The result is generic and perfect—not unlike Reena Spaulings itself, whose many authors create a story in which New York itself strives to become the ultimate collective experiment in which the only thing shared is the lack of uniqueness.
The artist-collective Bernadette Corporation was founded in a night club in 1994. In the beginning the group organized spontaneous, purposeless events in public space. In 1995 they morphed into a fashion label, then a self-publishing company that from 1999 to 2001 published an art magazine called Made in USA. Bernadette Corporation has also produced films, including Hell Frozen Over (2000), and Get Rid of Yourself (2003), as well as exhibits at art galleries and museums throughout the world.
2022, English
Hardcover, 544 pages, 24 x 33 cm
Published by
Purple Institute / Paris
$89.00 - Out of stock
Purple celebrates its 30th anniversary and for this issue interweaves new editorial content with facsimiles of pages from past issues to show how different moments in time resonate and connect to each other. This issue tells the story of 30 years devoted to artists, designers, photographers, writers, cities and other facets that define the Purple World - such as night, philosophy, diversity, avant-garde, sex and politics. Throughout 30 parts full of photography, fashion, cool kids and nostalgia, the 30YRS issue features Elein Fleiss, Martin Margiela, Takashi Homma, Chloë Sevigny, Richard Prince, Bernadette Corporation, Wolfgang Tillmans, Comme Des Garçons, Rita Ackermann, Kenneth Anger, Olivier Zahm, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Abel Ferrara, Maurizio Cattelan, Dash Snow, Arthur Jafa, Glenn O'brien, Harmony Korine, Juergen Teller, David Lynch, Susan Cianciolo, Kim Gordon, Terry Richardson, Chikashi Suzuki, Katja Rahlwes, Henrik Purienne, Marlene Dumas, Rick Owens, and many many more. Accompanied by a special Urs Fischer Purple Book.
Purple magazine issue #38 features 29 different photographic covers. Unfortunately it is not possible to buy a specific cover.
2022, English
Softcover, 340 pages, 17.8 x 24.1 cm
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$46.00 - Out of stock
Back in print! And in a more affordable softcover edition.
Independent publishing, art publishing, publishing as artistic practice, publishing counterculture, and the zine, DIY, and POD scenes have proliferated over the last two decades. So too have art book fairs, an increasingly important venue-or even medium-for art. Art publishing experienced a similar boom in the 1960s and 1970s, in response to the culture's "linguistic turn." Today, art publishing confronts the internet and the avalanche of language and images that it enables. The printed book offers artists both visibility and tangibility. Publishing Manifestos gathers texts by artists, authors, editors, publishers, designers, zinesters, and activists to explore this rapidly expanding terrain for art practice.
The book begins in the last century, with texts by Gertrude Stein, El Lissitsky, Oswald de Andrade, and Jorge-Luis Borges. But the bulk of the contributions are from the twenty-first century, with an emphasis on diversity, including contributions from Tauba Auerbach, Mariana Castillo Deball, Ntone Edjabe, Girls Like Us, Karl Holmqvist, Temporary Services, and zubaan. Some contributors take on new forms of production and distribution; others examine the political potential of publishing and the power of collectivity inherent in bookmaking. They explore among other topics, artists' books, appropriation, conceptual writing, non-Western communities, queer identities, and post-digital publishing. Many texts are reproduced in facsimile-including a handwritten "speculative, future-forward newspaper" from South Africa. Some are proclamatory mission statements, others are polemical self-positioning; some are playful, others explicitly push the boundaries. All help lay the conceptual foundations of a growing field of practice and theory.
Contributors
AND Publishing, Oswald de Andrade, Archive Books, Art-Rite, Rasheed Araeen, Tauba Auerbach, Michael Baers, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Ricardo Basbaum, Derek Beaulieu, Bernadette Corporation, Riccardo Boglione, Bombay Underground, Jorge Luis Borges, bpNichol, Kate Briggs, Broken Dimanche Press, Eleanor Vonne Brown, Urvashi Butalia, Ulises Carrion, Mariana Castillo Deball, Paul Chan, Chimurenga, Arpita Das, Anita Di Bianco, Guy Debord, Constant Dullaart, Craig Dworkin, Ntone Edjabe, Zenon Fajfer, Marina Fokidis, General Idea, Annette Gilbert, Girls Like Us, Gloria Glitzer, Marianne Groulez, Alex Hamburger, Karl Holmqvist, Lisa Holzer, Mahmood Jamal, Tom Jennings, Ray Johnson, David Jourdan, Sharon Kivland, Kione Kochi, Kwani?, Bruce LaBruce, Tan Lin, El Lissitzky, Alessandro Ludovico, Sara MacKillop, Steve McCaffery, Jonathan Monk, Simon Morris, Mosireen, Leon Munoz Santini, Takashi Murakami, Deke Nihilson, Aurelie Noury, Johnny Noxzema, Clive Phillpot, Michalis Pichler, Seth Price, Riot Grrrl, Carlos Soto Roman, Allen Ruppersberg, Joachim Schmid, Oliver Sieber, Paul Soulellis, Matthew Stadler, Gertrude Stein, Paul Stephens, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinovic, Katja Stuke, Temporary Services, Nick Thurston, TIQQUN, Elisabeth Tonnard, V. Vale, Eric Watier, Erik van der Weijde, Lawrence Weiner, Eva Weinmayr, Jan Wenzel, Stephen Willats, Gil J Wolman, zubaan
Copublished with Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair
2019, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 340 pages, 17.8 x 24 cm
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$76.00 $69.00 - Out of stock
Independent publishing, art publishing, publishing as artistic practice, publishing counterculture, and the zine, DIY, and POD scenes have proliferated over the last two decades. So too have art book fairs, an increasingly important venue-or even medium-for art. Art publishing experienced a similar boom in the 1960s and 1970s, in response to the culture's "linguistic turn." Today, art publishing confronts the internet and the avalanche of language and images that it enables. The printed book offers artists both visibility and tangibility. Publishing Manifestos gathers texts by artists, authors, editors, publishers, designers, zinesters, and activists to explore this rapidly expanding terrain for art practice.
The book begins in the last century, with texts by Gertrude Stein, El Lissitsky, Oswald de Andrade, and Jorge-Luis Borges. But the bulk of the contributions are from the twenty-first century, with an emphasis on diversity, including contributions from Tauba Auerbach, Mariana Castillo Deball, Ntone Edjabe, Girls Like Us, Karl Holmqvist, Temporary Services, and zubaan. Some contributors take on new forms of production and distribution; others examine the political potential of publishing and the power of collectivity inherent in bookmaking. They explore among other topics, artists' books, appropriation, conceptual writing, non-Western communities, queer identities, and post-digital publishing. Many texts are reproduced in facsimile-including a handwritten "speculative, future-forward newspaper" from South Africa. Some are proclamatory mission statements, others are polemical self-positioning; some are playful, others explicitly push the boundaries. All help lay the conceptual foundations of a growing field of practice and theory.
Contributors
AND Publishing, Oswald de Andrade, Archive Books, Art-Rite, Rasheed Araeen, Tauba Auerbach, Michael Baers, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Ricardo Basbaum, Derek Beaulieu, Bernadette Corporation, Riccardo Boglione, Bombay Underground, Jorge Luis Borges, bpNichol, Kate Briggs, Broken Dimanche Press, Eleanor Vonne Brown, Urvashi Butalia, Ulises Carrion, Mariana Castillo Deball, Paul Chan, Chimurenga, Arpita Das, Anita Di Bianco, Guy Debord, Constant Dullaart, Craig Dworkin, Ntone Edjabe, Zenon Fajfer, Marina Fokidis, General Idea, Annette Gilbert, Girls Like Us, Gloria Glitzer, Marianne Groulez, Alex Hamburger, Karl Holmqvist, Lisa Holzer, Mahmood Jamal, Tom Jennings, Ray Johnson, David Jourdan, Sharon Kivland, Kione Kochi, Kwani?, Bruce LaBruce, Tan Lin, El Lissitzky, Alessandro Ludovico, Sara MacKillop, Steve McCaffery, Jonathan Monk, Simon Morris, Mosireen, Leon Munoz Santini, Takashi Murakami, Deke Nihilson, Aurelie Noury, Johnny Noxzema, Clive Phillpot, Michalis Pichler, Seth Price, Riot Grrrl, Carlos Soto Roman, Allen Ruppersberg, Joachim Schmid, Oliver Sieber, Paul Soulellis, Matthew Stadler, Gertrude Stein, Paul Stephens, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinovic, Katja Stuke, Temporary Services, Nick Thurston, TIQQUN, Elisabeth Tonnard, V. Vale, Eric Watier, Erik van der Weijde, Lawrence Weiner, Eva Weinmayr, Jan Wenzel, Stephen Willats, Gil J Wolman, zubaan
Copublished with Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair
2016, English
Softcover, 544 pages, 21.5 x 15 cm
Published by
Paper Monument / New York
$49.00 - Out of stock
edited by Jennifer Liese
Since the turn of the millennium, artists have been writing, and circulating their writing, like never before. The seventy-five texts gathered here — essays, criticism, manifestos, fiction, diaries, scripts, blog posts, and tweets — chart a complex era in the art world and the world at large, weighing in on the exigencies of our times in unexpected and inventive ways.
With Contributions By:
Greg Allen, Rasheed Araeen, Tauba Auerbach, Fia Backström, Fiona Banner, Bill Beckley, Caroline Bergvall, Bernadette Corporation, Xu Bing, Gregg Bordowitz, James Bridle, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Tania Bruguera, Paul Chan, Mel Chin, Molly Crabapple, Critical Art Ensemble, Moyra Davey, Tacita Dean, David Diao, Jimmie Durham, Shannon Ebner, Harrell Fletcher, Andrea Fraser, Coco Fusco, Rainer Ganahl, Ryan Gander, Mariam Ghani, Renée Green, Deanna Havas, Pablo Helguera, Karl Holmqvist, Ashley Hunt, Juliana Huxtable, Emily Jacir, Helen Johnson, Ronald Jones, Nina Katchadourian, Mike Kelley, John Kelsey, Jutta Koether, Glenn Ligon, Yve Lomax, LTTR, Jill Magid, Josiah Mcelheny, John Miller, Naeem Mohaiemen, Nástio Mosquito, Takashi Murakami, Jayson Musson, Olu Oguibe, Marisa Olson, Şener Özmen, Katrina Palmer, Adam Pendleton, Mai-Thu Perret, Adrian Piper, Pope.L, Seth Price, Raqs Media Collective, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Kay Rosen, Peter Rostovsky/David Geers, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Mira Schor, Karin Schneider and Nicolás Guagnini, Michael Schwab, Gregory Sholette, Slavs And Tatars, Cally Spooner, Frances Stark, Hito Steyerl, Koki Tanaka, Ryan Trecartin, Suzanne Treister, Dmitry Vilensky, W.A.G.E., Mary Walling Blackburn, Ai Weiwei, The Yes Men, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, and Qiu Zhijie
Praise for Social Medium:
"A thoroughly engrossing read ... entertaining as well as intellectually stimulating."
—Oliver Basciano, ArtReview
"The distinct textures of these individual voices together produce a larger portrait – not of a collective, but of art with a capital A: something far from prescription or cohesion, unable to be contained, requiring the work and words of many."
— Jennifer Krasinski, Frieze
“As this indispensable anthology so engagingly demonstrates, legions of artists armed with laptops have for the past fifteen years brilliantly hacked the ways we think about 21st-century culture and politics. Full of imaginative texts and revolutionary ideas, this is a user’s guide to the postinternet era.”
—Brian Wallis, editor of Blasted Allegories: An Anthology of Writings by Contemporary Artists
“This is such a beautiful book because the real thought balloon of the art world is exactly these brainy and ecstatic citizens’ writings. Hang out a lot with them please — gain everything and miss nothing. Watch ‘democracy’ get palped and monitored, challenged and witnessed here. I’d call Social Medium a deep vacation into the present, which we totally need.”
— Eileen Myles, author of Chelsea Girls
2018, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 22.5 x 28.5 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$45.00 - Out of stock
Curated by Karola Kraus, the exhibition Optik Schröder II presents a representative selection from the collection of Alexander Schröder to date. This includes important works by Kai Althoff, Tom Burr, Bernadette Corporation, Claire Fontaine, Gelitin, Isa Genzken, Anne Imhof, Sergej Jensen, Pierre Klossowski, Manfred Pernice, Martha Rosler, and Reena Spaulings, and is one of the most important German private collections of contemporary art.
These works illustrate some of the key conceptual trends and positions in the development of Western art in the past three decades, including references to social issues, queer lifestyles, the critique of institutions and the economy, critical investigation of public spaces and architecture, poetry, and contemporary forms of critical painting. The prominently represented artists’ collectives exemplify endeavors to challenge and transform the traditional roles and systems of the artist, of art production, and of the sale of art.
This comprehensive overview shows a collection built up consistently since the mid-1990s and based on close proximity to the artists and sensitivity for new developments. The collection illustrates an exemplary philosophy of collecting focusing on the nature of the contemporary, on curiosity, expertise, humor, independence, and outstanding aesthetic judgement.
Participating Artists:
Kai Althoff, Lutz Bacher, Cosima von Bonin, KP Brehmer, Tom Burr, Merlin Carpenter, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Anne Collier, Bernadette Corporation, Lukas Duwenhögger, Jana Euler, Cerith Wyn Evans, Claire Fontaine, Gelitin, Isa Genzken, Ull Hohn, Karl Holmqvist, Alex Hubbard, Peter Hujar, Anne Imhof, Sergej Jensen, Martin Kippenberger, Pierre Klossowski, John Knight, Michael Krebber, Mark Leckey, Klara Lidén, Lucy McKenzie, Christian Philipp Müller, Henrik Olesen, Paulina Olowska, Dietrich Orth, Manfred Pernice, Josephine Pryde, Martha Rosler, Cameron Rowland, Andreas Slominski, Reena Spaulings, Katja Strunz, Philippe Thomas, Danh Vo, Peter Wächtler
Designed by Studio Manuel Raeder.
2018, English
Softcover, 280 pages, 27.9 x 21.5 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$48.00 - Out of stock
299 792 458 m/s is a magazine created in 2016 by German artist David Lieske and photographer Rob Kulisek.
Issue 2 "The Overworked Body" is co-edited by curator Matthew Linde and functions not just as fashion magazine and artist's book but also as a catalogue for the eponymous exhibition at Mathew Gallery, New York (2017) titled "The Overworked Body: An Anthology of 2000's Dress", organised by Linde. The exhibition and associated "Overworked Runway" show (all documented extensively in full-colour here) includes works by 20471120, A.F. Vandevorst, Adeline André, Alexander McQueen for Target, Andrea Ayala Closa, Andrew Groves, Anke Loh, Ann-Sofie Back, Annalisa Dunn, Arkadius, As Four, Benjamin Cho, Bernadette Corporation, Bernhard Willhelm, BLESS, Carol Christian Poell, Christophe Coppens, Comme des Garçons, Cosmic Wonder, Dorothée Perret, Dutch Magazine, FINAL HOME, Helmut Lang, Hideki Seo, House of Holland, Hussein Chalayan, Imitation of Christ, Isaac Mizrahi for Target, Issey Miyake, Jean Paul Gaultier, Junya Watanabe, KEUPR/van BENTM, Kim Jones, Koji Arai, Kostas Murkudis, Lutz Huelle, Maison Martin Margiela, Maison Martin Margiela and Marina Faust, Miguel Adrover, Number (N)ine, Organization for Returning Fashion Interest, Proenza Schouler for Target, Purple Fashion, Rodarte for Target, Shelley Fox, Sophia Kokosalaki, Stephen Jones, Susan Cianciolo, Tao, Telfar, Undercover, Victoria Bartlett (previously VPL), Viktor & Rolf, Viktor & Rolf for H&M, Walter van Beirendonck, Wendy & Jim, Yohji Yamamoto, and ____fabrics interseason.
Full contents:
2016, English
Hardcover, 288 pages, 25.4 x 30.5 cm
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$70.00 - Out of stock
A stunning work on contemporary fashion spectacles, showcasing the most innovative, creative, and artistic high-fashion runway shows of the last twenty years.
In recent years, as fashion shows have become a part of our collective imagination and an important part of contemporary culture, blockbuster productions have redefined the runway show as a form of entertainment and creativity on par with the clothes themselves. This book focuses on designers for whom fashion and the mode of presenting it have held equal significance: Alexander McQueen, Maison Martin Margiela, Susan Ciancialo, Issey Miyake, Bernadette Corporation, Ann Demeulemeester, Bernhard Willhelm, Gucci, Helmut Lang, Hussein Chalayan, Viktor & Rolf, Givenchy, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Rick Owens, A.F. Vandevorst, Louis Vuitton, W<, X-Girl, Christian Dior, Prada, Yeezy, Marc Jacobs, Chanel, Raf Simons, Thom Browne, and Imitation of Christ, among them. From the performance art spectacles of the first Alexander McQueen collections in the mid-1990s and the high-art concept shows of Hussein Chalayan in the late 1990s to the lavish beauty of Chanel haute couture in 2012, author Alix Browne explores the highest pinnacles of fashion today. Runway gives the reader full access to the theatrical and creative aspects of the production, in both intimate, little-seen runway shows from the pre-Internet era many of the photographs here have never been published before as well as major productions with elaborate sets and full-blown narrative. Each show is presented through lush, full-bleed photography and many through fold-out four-page images - an index gives a blurb about each runway presentation with further images.
A thrilling, immersive, and inspiring look into the wide-ranging creativity of contemporary fashion, Runway is the most thorough book available on the subject. Featuring the most innovative fashion designers of the last twenty years, this book is a must for lovers of fashion and culture.
2004, English
Softcover, 87 pages, 18.5 x 12.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
ICA / Pennsylvania
$45.00 - Out of stock
Conceptions of “nothing” are one of the driving themes of twentieth-century art. One thinks of Piet Mondrian's reductivist approach to abstraction, Marcel Duchamp's contention that art resides in ideas, not objects, Mark Rothko's painterly reach for the sublime, Andy Warhol's affirmations of the vacuity of Pop culture. The Big Nothing will focus on themes of nothing, nothingness and negation in contemporary art and culture, surveying the legacy of these and other manifestations of absence made manifest in contemporary art. Artist include Gareth James, Jutta Koether, Louise Lawler, Richard Prince, Yves Klein, Bernadette Corporation, John Miller and James Welling, among others. Given its broad connotations, “nothing” provides general audiences with immediate access to looking at and thinking about the art of today.
Exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with show held May 1 - August 1, 2004. Curated and with essays by Ingrid Schaffner, Bennett Simpson, and Tanya Leighton. Additional essay by Paula Marincola. Artists include: Bas Jan Ader, Richard Artschwager, Michael Asher, Michel Auder, Jo Baer, Robert Barry, Larry Bell, Bernadette Corporation, James Lee Byars, Maurizio Cattelan, Thomas Chimes, Bruce Conner, Day Without Art, Jessica Diamond, Roe Ethridge, Lili Fleury, Rene Gabri, Jack Goldstein, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Nicolas Guagnini, David Hammons, Heavy Industries, Nancy Holt, Richard Hoeck, Roni Horn, Pierre Huyghe, Gareth James, Ray Johnson, Yves Klein, Joachim Koester, Jutta Koether, Yayoi Kusama, Louise Lawler, Gordon Matta-Clark, Allan McCollum, Patrick McMullen, John Miller, Matt Mullican, Eileen Neff, Gabriel Orozco, Raphael Ortiz, Charlemagne Palestine, Philippe Parreno, William Pope.L, Doris Salcedo, Karin Schneider, Allan Sekula, Arlene Shechet, Santiago Sierra, John Smith, Robert Smithson, Paul Swenbeck, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Andy Warhol, James Welling, John Wesley, and Steve Wolfe. Includes checklist of the exhibition.
2017, English
Softcover, 248 pages, 21 x 24 cm
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$59.00 - Out of stock
It may be time to forget the art world--or at least to recognize that a certain historical notion of the art world is in eclipse. Today, the art world spins on its axis so quickly that its maps can no longer be read; its borders blur. In Forgetting the Art World, Pamela Lee connects the current state of this world to globalization and its attendant controversies. Contemporary art has responded to globalization with images of movement and migration, borders and multitudes, but Lee looks beyond iconography to view globalization as a world process. Rather than think about the “global art world” as a socioeconomic phenomenon, or in terms of the imagery it stages and sponsors, Lee considers “the work of art’s world” as a medium through which globalization takes place. She argues that the work of art is itself both object and agent of globalization.
Lee explores the ways that art actualizes, iterates, or enables the processes of globalization, offering close readings of works by artists who have come to prominence in the last two decades. She examines the “just in time” managerial ethos of Takahashi Murakami; the production of ethereal spaces in Andreas Gursky’s images of contemporary markets and manufacture; the logic of immanent cause dramatized in Thomas Hirschhorn’s mixed-media displays; and the “pseudo-collectivism” in the contemporary practice of the Atlas Group, the Raqs Media Collective, and others.
To speak of “the work of art’s world,” Lee says, is to point to both the work of art’s mattering and its materialization, to understand the activity performed by the object as utterly continuous with the world it at once inhabits and creates.
About the Author
Pamela M. Lee is Professor of Art History at Stanford University and the author of Object to Be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark and Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s, both published by the MIT Press.
Endorsements
“Pamela Lee makes a major contribution to our understanding of art’s globalization through her brilliant exploration of ‘worlds’ as a medium and ‘worlding’ as a process by which unruly networks of financial, political, and spectacular forces are crystallized as works of art.”
—David Joselit, Carnegie Professor, History of Art, Yale University
“For those who want to chart the difference between the world and world markets, for those nostalgic for genuinely intellectual depth in art criticism, and for those wanting to understand the outer, digital limits of art, this book will be your guide. Forgetting the Art World sets a new stage—a picture theory for art practice.”
—Molly Nesbit, Professor of Art History, Vassar College
“Pamela Lee presents an exciting, highly original discussion of what constitutes an art world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Forgetting the Art World examines not only the processes sustaining the reciprocal relationship between globalization and contemporary art, but also what the art world needs to forget in order to assume its current condition. The analysis is timely and provocative, and will be essential reading for anyone concerned with contemporary art.”
—Alexander Alberro, author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity
2017, English / French
Softcover, 220 pages, 240 x 175 mm
Published by
May Revue / Paris
$29.00 $10.00 - In stock -
This issue seeks to reflect the post-Trump, post-Brexit and French pre-election climates at a time of reconfiguration of habitual political representations and polarizations. We decided to favour reports, a more reactive writing format on issues of concerns in art schools, universities, institutions: Angela Davis and Gina Dent’s talk in Paris, the exhibition Soulèvements at the Musée du Jeu de Paume, The Color Line at the Musée du Quai Branly on African-American artists and segregation…
American Goodness - Elise Duryee-Browner
If our Lives are Black. On Angela Davis and Gina Dent’s conference at La Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Paris - Claire Fontaine
αντιanti
Interview with Ilaria Bussoni. On the symposium “Sensible Commons” at GNAM, Rome - May
Dynamis, 2016–2017 Athens and Kassel simultaneously and in continuum - Georgia Sagri
On Soulèvements by Georges Didi-Huberman at Jeu de Paume, Paris - Giovanna Zapperi
On the film Two A.M. by Loretta Fahrenholz at Museum Fridericianum, Kassel - Tobias Madison
On Amelie von Wulffen at Barbara Weiss, Berlin - Jay Chung
On Yuki Kimura at CCA Wattis, San Francisco - J. Gordon Faylor
Behind Enemy Lines: Black Power & Taboo. On The Color Line: African-American Artists and Segregation at Musée du Quai Branly, Paris - Kari Rittenbach
On Morag Keil at Eden Eden, Berlin - Nicholas Tammens
On Greg Parma Smith at MAMCO, Geneva - Enzo Shalom
Francis Picabia seen from Switzerland and America. On Francis Picabia’s retrospectives at Kunsthaus Zurich and at MoMA, New York - Carole Boulbès
Villa Noailles - Jeanne Graff
Weather report
Limited Editions by Jean-Luc Moulène and Bernadette Corporation with Benjamin Alexander Huseby
Reprint booklet: LGG$B
About MAY Revue:
Conceived as a collective space in which to develop thoughts and confront positions on artistic production, May magazine examines, quaterly, contemporary art practice and theory in direct engagement with the issues, contexts and strategies that construct these two fields. An approach that could be summed up as critique at work – or as critique actively performed in text and art forms alike.
Featuring essays, interviews, art works and reviews by artists, writers and diverse practitioners of the arts, the magazine also intends to address the economy of the production of knowledge – the starting point of this reflection being the space of indistinction between information and advertisement typical of our time. This implies a dialogue with forms of critique produced in other fields.
2017, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 21 x 23 cm
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
Whitechapel / London
$50.00 - Out of stock
Without boredom, arguably there is no modernity. The current sense of the word emerged simultaneously with industrialization, mass politics, and consumerism. From Manet onwards, when art represents the everyday within modern life, encounters with tedium are inevitable. And starting with modernism’s retreat into abstraction through subsequent demands placed on audiences, from the late 1960s to the present, the viewer’s endurance of repetition, slowness or other forms of monotony has become an anticipated feature of gallery-going.
In contemporary art, boredom is no longer viewed as a singular experience; rather, it is contingent on diverse social identifications and cultural positions, and exists along a spectrum stretching from a malign condition to be struggled against to an something to be embraced or explored as a site of resistance. This anthology contextualizes the range of boredoms associated with our neoliberal moment, taking a long view that encompasses the political critique of boredom in 1960s France; the simultaneous aesthetic embrace in the United States of silence, repetition, or indifference in Fluxus, Pop, Minimalism and conceptual art; the development of feminist diagnoses of malaise in art, performance, and film; punk’s social critique and its influence on theories of the postmodern; and the recognition, beginning at the end of the 1980s, of a specific form of ennui experienced in former communist states. Today, with the emergence of new forms of labor alienation and personal intrusion, deadening forces extend even further into subjective experience, making the divide between a critical and an aesthetic use of boredom ever more tenuous.
Artists surveyed include:
Chantal Akerman, Francis Alÿs, John Baldessari, Vanessa Beecroft, Bernadette Corporation, John Cage, Critical Art Ensemble, Merce Cunningham, Marcel Duchamp, Fischli & Weiss, Claire Fontaine, Dick Higgins, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ilya Kabakov, Boris Mikhailov, Robert Morris, John Pilson, Sigmar Polke, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Gerhard Richter, Situationist International, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Andy Warhol, Faith Wilding, Janet Zweig
Writers include:
Ina Blom, Nicolas Bourriaud, Jennifer Doyle, Alla Efimova, Jonathan Flatley, Julian Jason Haladyn, The Invisible Committee, Jonathan D. Katz, Chris Kraus, Tan Lin, Sven Lütticken, John Miller, Agné Narušyté, Sianne Ngai, Peter Osborne, Patrice Petro, Christine Ross, Moira Roth, David Foster Wallace, Aleksandr Zinovyev
About the Author
Tom McDonough is Associate Professor of Art History at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is the author of “The Beautiful Language of My Century”: Reinventing the Language of Contestation in Postwar France, 1945–1968 (MIT Press)
From the "Documents of Contemporary Art" series.
2007, English
Softcover, 16.5 x 24.1 cm, 152 pages (27 color ill.)
Published by
Art in General / New York
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$32.00 - Out of stock
“For this book Bernadette Corporation uses screenplay formatting software and the screenplay form with no intention to produce a film or communicate anything. ... the hack is used as a starting point for a literature, with hack tools in a hack medium. EINE PINOT GRIGIO, BITTE to remind you of the necessity to understand that all creativity is equal.” Bernadette Corporation
A novel-in-disguise, Eine Pinot Grigio, Bitte is a dark foray into capitalism gone awry. Set against a backdrop of decadent zombies, the screenplay follows John Delp and Aude as they shoot a movie in the cities of Paris, Berlin, and Mexico City. With its wild and messy sense for the absurd, Eine Pinot Grigio, Bitte unravels that conventional Hollywood repertoire of screenwriting all to better recycle both fiction and the real.
Eine Pinot Grigio, Bitte is followed by “Pedestrian Memoranda,” a series of notes on Bernadette Corporation's temporary underground film studio, operated from 2005–2007 in Paris, Berlin, and Mexico City.
Bernadette Corporation has previously worked under the guise of an eponymous underground fashion label, published a fashion magazine called Made in USA, produced video-films, including the 2003 documentary Get Rid of Yourself, collectively authored the novel Reena Spaulings (Semiotext[e] 2004), as well as exhibited at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the Witte de With museum, and the Centre Pompidou.
Co-published by Art in General, New York
2014, Englsih
Softcover, 273 colour (69 b&w ill.), 25.6 cm x 19.2 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$88.00 - Out of stock
This is the first monograph on the work of Bernadette Corporation, the New York-based collective founded in the early '90s.
The book extends from their retrospective exhibition Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years held at Artists Space, New York (2012) and ICA, London (2013), constituting a further site to reframe BC's activities and identity of the past 20 years.
Since the 1990s the New York-based collective has fashioned itself as publisher, filmmaker, designer, novelist, artist, political radical, among other identities. The book extends from their retrospective Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years at Artists Space in 2012, constituting yet another site to reframe the activities of BC spanning the past 20 years.
Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years is structured chronologically, loosely following the year-by-year timeline of the group’s history. The publication gathers a vast array of visual and textual material spanning the rich image grammar and styling of BC’s operations within the realm of so called style-culture, including a fashion line; their interventions into the publishing culture of the ‘90s, including BC’s own short-lived magazine Made in USA; the fragmented output of Pedestrian Cinema developed during the group’s time in Berlin; up to the fusion of poetics, branding and meta-commentary that characterized Bernadette Corporation’s gallery shows of the 2000s.
Edited by Bernadette Corporation, Jim Fletcher, Richard Birkett, Stefan Kalmár
With text contributions by Caroline Busta, Jim Fletcher, Tom Holert and Josef Strau
With photos by Alex Antitch, Mark Borthwick, Dietmar Busse, Anders Edstrom, Jamil GS, Benjamin Alexander Huseby, JMN, Marcelo Krasilcic, Cris Moor, Eline Mugaas, Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett, Wolfgang Tillmans, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, David Vasiljevic, and Wah
Designed by Bill Hayden and Eric Wrenn
2013, English / French
Softcover, 257 pages, 240 x 175 mm
Published by
May Revue / Paris
$27.00 - In stock -
Newest issue of Paris' MAY Revue, and already out of print.
May #11 features:
An Introduction to a Juridical Legal Analysis of Contemporary Art — Judith Ickowicz
The Reappearances of Cady Noland and the Theatre of Law — Judith Ickowicz, Elvan Zabunyan, David Perreau
A Revolution “First-Hand”: Seth Siegelaub’s Journey to Portugal in May 1975 — Sara Martinetti
Zero Dark Thirty: The Aesthetics of Narcissism — Maija Timonen
Friend of the Devil. On Michael Krebber, “The ridiculized snails” at CAPC, Bordeaux — Mark von Schlegell
Reviews
On Martin Kippenberger, “Sehr Gut | Very Good” at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin — Jay Chung
Life, like networking, is a group show. On Tanja Widmann, “eine von euch” at Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Saprophyt, Vienne, tranzitdisplay, Prague — Tonio Kröner
Another image, a different song. On Mathias Poledna at Secession, Vienna — Benjamin Hirte
Get Rid of Capitalism. On Bernadette Corporation, “2000 Wasted Years” at ICA, London — Josefine Wikström
Participation, Penetration, and Phoniness. On Tobias Kaspar, “Life and Lies” at Galerie Marcelle Alix, Paris — Andrea Legiehn
On “The Issues of Our Time” at Castillo/Corrales, Paris — Seyoung Yoon
“Living in Your Head”. On “When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013” at Prada Foundation, Venice — Elvan Zabunyan
About MAY Revue:
Conceived as a collective space in which to develop thoughts and confront positions on artistic production, May magazine examines, quaterly, contemporary art practice and theory in direct engagement with the issues, contexts and strategies that construct these two fields. An approach that could be summed up as critique at work – or as critique actively performed in text and art forms alike.
Featuring essays, interviews, art works and reviews by artists, writers and diverse practitioners of the arts, the magazine also intends to address the economy of the production of knowledge – the starting point of this reflection being the space of indistinction between information and advertisement typical of our time. This implies a dialogue with forms of critique produced in other fields.
2013, English
Softcover, 144 pages, 27.5 x 21 cm
Published by
Modern Matter / London
$25.00 - Out of stock
Modern Matter’s fourth issue, Made In USA, is a collaboration with London’s ICA gallery, created on the eve of a major retrospective by the New York-based art collective, the Bernadette Corporation (making it the first independent magazine to act as an ICA partner). Its cover star is the iconic American actress, Chloë Sevigny; the issue’s content is themed, in part, around the dual ideals of Art and America, and includes an exploration of the New York art scene.
Sevigny has collaborated with both the Bernadette Corporation and with the issue’s cover photographer Mark Borthwick for a number of years, notably starring in the Corporation’s film Get Rid of Yourself, and being shot by Borthwick for several iconic magazine spreads in the mid-nineties. In this exclusive shoot, those original – and memorable – images are introduced into a visual conversation with new material created for Modern Matter: the result is an intimate exploration of collective, dialogue and creative collaboration.
Made In USA also contains:
A re-staging of the archives of the photographer MARK BORTHWICK, featuring long-term collaborators CHLOE SEVIGNY, RITA ACKERMANN and Gang Gang Dance’s LIZZI BOUGATSOS.
A history of SEMIOTEXT(E), with SYLVERE LOTRINGER, HEDI EL KHOLTI and CHRIS KRAUS.
Art & America: A New York Story, featuring GEDI SIBONY, RAFAEL ROZENDAAL, MAURIZIO CATTELAN, MAX SNOW, MATHEW CERLETTY, BJARNE MELGAARD, ERIK FOSS & more.
A visual essay by RITA ACKERMANN, comprised of her memories of working with the BERNADETTE CORPORATION.
Spring/Summer 2013 menswear by ANDREA SPOTORNO, featuring RAF SIMONS, SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE and PRADA.
Neo Campari, an original artwork by VICTOR BOULLET.
Situation, featuring clothing by DRIES VAN NOTEN and artworks by SARAH LUCAS.
& more.
2011, English
Softcover, 220 x 293 mm
Published by
Kaleidoscope Press / Milan
$18.00 - Out of stock
Kaleidoscope #12 – Fall 2011
Kaleidoscope is an international quarterly of contemporary art and culture. Distributed worldwide on a seasonal basis, it offers a timely guide to the present (but also to the past and possible futures) with an interdisciplinary and unconventional approach.
HIGHLIGHTS: Public Movement interview by Alhena Katsof; RON NAGLE INTERVIEW BY STERLING RUBY; Lucie Stahl by Joanna Fiduccia; The Suburbs by Michele D’Aurizio; Uri Aran by Bartholomew Ryan.
MAIN THEME: STATE OF THE ART BOOK: EXPERIMENTAL COLLECTIBLE LIONEL BOVIER AND AA BRONSON IN CONVERSATION; Why the Book? by Chris Sharp; Special Project by Nina Beier; Secondary into Primary
‘c5bäke and Gavin Wade in conversation; Archive Fever Chris Decon interviewed by Florencia Serrot.
MONO: BERNADETTE CORPORATION: I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On words by Chris Wiley; Matter Expands Away by Vincenzo Latronico; IF EVERYTHING WORKS INTERVIEW BY ANNIE OCHMANEK; Special Project by Bernadette Corporation.
COLUMNS: PIONEERS: Hannah Wilke by Simone Menegoi; FUTURA: David Hominal interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist; MAPPING THE STUDIO: Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet by Luca Cerizza; ON EXHIBITION: “Carlo Mollino. Maniera Moderna” by Paola Nicolin; LAST QUESTION: What Is Going on out in the Street? answer by Ari Marcopoulos.
2013, English
Softcover, 450 pages, (colour & bw ills.), 23 x 30 cm
Published by
Purple Institute / Paris
$33.00 - Out of stock
Purple Fashion S/S 2013 features Bernadette Corporation, Miranda Kerr, Slavoj Zizek, Rosemarie Trockel, Larry Clark, Phoebe Philo, Juergen Teller, Richard Artschwager, a booklet by Ryan McGinley, plus much more.
Due to the weight of this volume, your order will likely incur additional postage costs. We will contact you with the best shipping advice upon your order, or alternatively, please email us in advance. Thank you for understanding.
English, 2011
Softcover, 180 pages, 215 x 280 mm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$42.00 - Out of stock
The Bernadette Corporation was formed in a Manhattan nightclub in 1994, and began organizing social events that evolved into unofficial art carnivals in SoHo parking lots. From 1995 to 1997, the collective worked under the guise of an underground fashion label, later issuing the magazine "Made in USA" and authoring the collective novel "Reena Spaulings." For this unique amalgam of poetry and fashion shoot, the Corporation alternates fashion photographer David Vasiljevic's 38 photographs of six male and female models with an epic poem structured on various formal constraints, such as (in one section) the inclusion of words beginning with the letters B and C in each line. Corporation member Jim Fletcher describes the poem's content as "A time and a place, New York... epic means, letting it in." Thus: "What's the beautiful chorus/I hear while basting my capers/It's Bellini on the CD..." "The Complete Poem" offers a rare synthesis of authors and genres.
2010, English
Softcover, 12 x 19 cm, 248 pages (26 b/w ill.)
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$25.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Daniel Birnbaum, Isabelle Graw, Institut für Kunstkritik, Frankfurt am Main Compiled for the first time here, the critic, artist, gallerist, dealer, translator John Kelsey’s selected essays gamesomely convey some of the most poignant challenges in the art world and in the many social roles it creates. “When the critic chooses to become a smuggler, a hack, a cook, or an artist,” Kelsey said at a 2007 conference at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, “it’s maybe because criticism as such remains tied to an outmoded social relation.” It is precisely this relation that Kelsey intends to not only critique but also to surpass. In this way, Kelsey’s “Rich Texts” play the double role of explaining the art world and actively participating in it; they close the distance between the work of art and how we talk about it. “With a keen sense of the way objects and subjects appear in the spaces we share, and how we inhabit our bodies, John Kelsey writes texts at once playful and true to the situations under observation. He does not write from an imaginary critical distance, but as someone fully aware of being immersed in the commercial world, commodified and for hire—i.e., as a ‘hack’—yet constantly searching for new forms of experimentation.” —Daniel Birnbaum and Isabelle Graw Originally published in Artforum—where Kelsey is a contributing editor—Texte zur Kunst, Parkett, and various artists’ catalogues, the essays compiled in Rich Texts have all been written over the last decade, and therefore embody a timeliness that strikes at the core of the contemporary art world and the crises that have come to define it. Design by Surface, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin
2008, English
Softcover, 144 pages, offset, 130 x 200 mm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$32.00 - Out of stock
With Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Artemio, Bernadette Corporation, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Minerva Cuevas, Jeremy Deller, Claire Fontaine, Mario Garcia-Torres, Karl Holmqvist, Bruno Serralongue, Sean Snyder, Reena Spaulings, the Backroom, and Konst2
Otra de vaqueros—the book is the negative space and a souvenir of an eponymous residency and exhibition project that took place in Mexico City in 2007. Featuring stories, statements, tales, questionnaires, jokes, instructions, letters and notes by the participating artists and guest projects, the book might even provide a few hints about the mechanisms and the relational and conceptual spaces that preempted the production of the exhibition’s works, and the Otra de vaqueros project as a whole.
Edited by Perros Negros, Toasting Agency
Design by Aline Girard
2010, English/French
Softcover, 176 pages, 175 x 240 mm
Published by
May Revue / Paris
$18.00 - In stock -
May Revue is a wonderful arts journal from Paris, edited by Catherine Chevalier and Eva Svennung.
Conceived as a collective space in which to develop thoughts and confront positions on artistic production, May magazine examines, quarterly, contemporary art practice and theory in direct engagement with the issues, contexts and strategies that construct these two fields. An approach that could be summed up as critique at work – or as critique actively performed in text and art forms alike.
Featuring essays, interviews, art works and reviews by artists, writers and diverse practitioners of the arts, the magazine also intends to address the economy of the production of knowledge – the starting point of this reflection being the space of indistinction between information and advertisment typical of our time. This implies a dialogue with forms of critique produced in other fields.
May #3 features "Grève humaine (interrompue)" Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in conversation, "Lessons from Éric Rohmer" by Julien Mahon, "La Grande Parade" by Dork Zabunyan, "What Is a Bad Exhibition?" by Paul Sztulman, "The Complete Poem" by Chris Kraus, “Besides, With, Against, and Yet: Abstraction and The Ready-Made Gesture” by Caroline Busta, "CityCat, deflected in response to a system built up from under-examined details. 2 December, 2006 and 9 May, 2009, Brisbane River" by Dave Hullfish Bailey, "Shaping, Structuring, and Editing the Past" Interview with Richard Hertz by Catherine Chevalier and more!!!