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:
W—F 12—6 PM
Sat 12—5 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
info@worldfoodbooks.com
Art
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World Food Books Gift Voucher
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Australian Art
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'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
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Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
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Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
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Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
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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.
2011, English/Japanese
Softcover, 224 pages (colour ill. throughout), 230 x 280 mm
Published by
ADP / Japan
$65.00 - Out of stock
The encounter between the two creators featured in this exhibition, Shiro Kuramata and Ettore Sottsass, was magical. When Kuramata received a letter from Sottsass asking him to join Memphis, he was so elated that he said, “I got a love letter from Sottsass!” Sottsass also said in an interview, “I thought Kuramata was someone special. It was like lovers from Brazil and New Guinea. Have you ever fallen in love? It’s similar to that feeling”. Their interaction began in 1981 with Memphis, a project that had tremendous impact on the design world. The exhibition focuses on 1981, the year that Kuramata and Sottsass met, and explores their philosophies and spirit through their work. It also provides us with an overall view of design from the 20th to 21st century, as well as showing us a vision of the future. Texts by Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, and biographies of both Kuramata and Sottsass are included.
1992, Japanese / Italian
Softcover, 200 pages, 17.5 x 23.5 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Vénte Museum / Tokyo
$60.00 - Out of stock
A fine copy of this scarce Japanese book on POP in Italian Art and Design in the 1960s, published on the occasion of the exhibition "l'Italia Negli Anni Della Pop", 12 Dec 1992 - 17 Feb 1993 at Vente Museum, Tokyo, organised by Fujita Vente.
Features colour-illustrated profiles on Michelangelo Pistoletto, Enzo Mari, Superstudio, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Mario Schifano, Domenico Gnoli, Mario Ceroli, Franco Angeli, Marco Zannuzo, Achille Castiglioni, Vico Magistretti, Angelo Mangiarotti, Concetto Pozzati, Tano Festa, Gianni Pareschi, Lapo Binazzi, UFO, and Studio 65.
1988, German / Italian
Softcover, 94 pages, 18 x 24 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Alessi / Italy
$45.00 - Out of stock
Published by Alessi in 1988, this scarce volume reports on a unique seminar and exhibition "Esslandschaften" at Internationales Design Zentrum Berlin IDZ, Berlin in 1981.
Volume edited by François Burkhardt. Contributions by Alessandro Mendini, Peter Kubelka, Hans Hollein, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Peter Cook, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Richard Sapper, Stefan Wewerka.
Text in Italian and German.
1983, Italian
Softcover, 177 pages, 18.5 cm × 15 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Firenze Alinea Editrice / Italy
$160.00 - Out of stock
Handsome and very rare book on the concepts, stories and project research of Italian designer and architect Ettore Sottsass. Edited by Antonio Martorana and published by Firenze Alinea Editrice in 1983, this book is densely packed with the writings, reflections and ideas of Ettore Sottsass, illustrated by many of his drawings, plans and photographs rarely seen elsewhere.
Very scarce first edition, with all texts in Italian.
1989, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 325 pages (619 colour and b/w ill.), 23 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / As New*,
Published by
Prestel / Munich
$70.00 - Out of stock
Published by Prestel Munich, in 1989, this wonderful, richly illustrated and stylishly designed book covers the entire range of design in the late 1980's and it's predecessors. With sections dedicated to themes and subjects such as Exemplars; High Tech; Trans High Tech; Alchimia/Memphis; Post-Modernism; Minimalism; Archetypes; plus dense profile chapters on Dieter Rams, Stefan Wewerka and Holger Scheel; and essay sections from Matteo Thun ("Neo-Baroque Yardsticks"; "Micro-Architecture"; "Banal Design"), Volker Albus ("Rolex and Manhattan: Skyscraper Symbolism in Advertising") and Jochen Gros ("Small but Sophisticated: Microelectronics and Design"). Featuring fantastic photo-documentation and archival imagery of some of the finest and most radical design-objects of the period, including work by Frank Gehry, Hans Hollien, Michael Graves, Robert Venturi, Norbert Berghof, Aldo Rossi, Zeus, Shiro Kuramata, Philippe Starck, Dakota Jackson, Stanley Tigerman, Marcus Brotsch, Jorg Hieronymous, Michael Matuschka, Stefan Ambrozus, Michele De Lucchi, Ettore Sottsass, Ron Arad, Gaetano Pesce, George J. Sowden, Peter Shire, Martine Bedin, Carla Ceccariglia, Alessandro Mendini, Bruno Gregori, Ingo Maurer, Till Lesser, Gerard Kuijpers, Mario Botta, Jean-Marc da Costa, Piero Vendruscolo, Heide Warlamis, Robert A.M. Stern, Robert and Trix Hausmann, Stanley Tigerman, Margaret McCurry, Steven Holl, Danilo Silvestrin, Dieter Rams, Stefan Wewerka, Daniel Weil, Holger Scheel, Matteo Thun, SITE, and so many more, this generous publication is a must for any enthusiast of design from this period.
Edited by Volker Fischer, deputy director of the German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt.
1986, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 239 pages, 25 x 31 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Abbeville Press / New York
$68.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Robert A.M. Stern, one of the world's leading exponents of the Post-Modern movement, "The International Design Yearbook 1985/86" was "the first volume of an important annual review of domestic design in an international context. It shows the best, the most characteristic and the most exciting recent designs in furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles, glass and metalware. It illustrates the work not only of such leading figures as Rossi, Hollein, Venturi, Sottsass and Castiglioni, but of hundreds of other contemporary designers around the world, whose work is notable for its topicality and promise, or for its aesthetic or functional excellence."
As well as contemporary design of the mid 1980's, the annual "deals with the reproduction of classic designs by such masters as Eileen Gray, Hoffman, Mackintosh, Rietveld and Le Corbusier." The annual also functioned as a guidebook to the featured designers and the respective companies, manufacturers and retailers of their designs. Biographies for all those designers featured are included, plus texts throughout.
This large book is richly illustrated with wonderful examples of the featured designers in their many forms via 520 illustrations, 382 in colour. Many works rarely (some possibly never) seen documented in any other book.
Includes the work of: Verner Panton, Nathalie du Pasquier, Charlotte Perriand, Paolo Piva, Andrée Putman, Dieter Rams, Gerrit Rietveld, Aldo Rossi, Stanley Tigerman, Brian Faucheux, Jay Stanger, Yrjo Kukkapuro, Hans Gunnarsson, Studio Alchimia, Gabrielle Regondi, John Smith, Alberto Salvati and Ambrogio Tresoldi, Paolo Deganello, Alessio Sarri, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Matteo Thun, Pierre Jeanneret, Memphis, Giuseppe Terragni, Robert George Sowden, SITE, Afra Scarpa, Tobia Scarpa, Robert Venturi, Ugo La Pietra, Le Corbusier, Ettore Sottsass, Adolf Loos, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Richard Meier, Alessando Mendini, Fujiwo Ishimoto, Hans Hollein, Josef Hoffmann, William Morris, Frank Gehry, Robert A.M. Stern, Eileen Gray, Michael Graves, Michele De Lucchi, Joe Colombo, Achille Castiglioni, Mario Bellini, Gae Aulenti, Hans Ansems, Ron Arad, Emilio Ambasz, Alver Aalto, Daniel Weil, Marco Zanini, to name but a few!
1988, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 191 pages, 22.5 x 26 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
Heavily illustrated first edition of this title, published by Rizzoli in 1988.
An international selection of over 400 objects (over 500 illustrations) such as tableware, furniture, jewellery, glassware and light fixtures designed by more than 50 leading architects. The book provides a cross-section of original ideas to be found in the best of modern design and aims to show the powerful influence that architects continue to have on industrial and furniture design. Furniture and lighting by Norman Foster, tableware by Sottsass, Robert Stern and Venturi, jewellery by Arata Isogaki and Stern, furniture by Ambasz, Mario Botta, Michael Graves and Richard Meier are some of the artefacts included in this study. The architects, Juli Capella and Quim Larreo are editors of the magazine "De Diseno" and are on the board of the architectural magazine "El Croquis" published in Madrid.
Includes an introduction by Alessandro Mendini, "This Book is This Painting".
Features the work of: Emilio Ambasz, Ron Arad, Gae Aulenti, Mario Bellini, Cini Boeri, Pep Bonet, Mario Botta, Andrea Branzi, Santiago Calatrava, Anna Castelli, Achille Castiglioni, Cristian Cirici, Antonio Citterio, Lluis Clotet, Paolo Deganello, Michele de Lucchi, Jonathan de Pas, Donato d'Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, Vittorio Gregotti, Pierluigi Cerri, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Charles Jencks, Ugo la Pietra, Vico Magistretti, Angelo Mangiarotti, Richard Meier, Alessandro Mendini, Pedro MMiralles, Rafael Moneo, Nemo, Oscar Niemeyer, Peolo Portoghesi, Aldo Rossi, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Alvaro Siza Vieira, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Robert A.M. Stern, Giotto Stoppino, Kazuide Takahama, Matteo Thun, Elias Torres Tur, José Antonio, Martinez Lapeña, Oscar Tusquets, Robert Venturi, Daniel Weil, Stefan Wewerka, Marco Zanuso.
2014, English
"Interior Moments", Fall Winter 2013/14
Published by
PIN-UP MAGAZINE
$34.00 - Out of stock
PIN–UP is a magazine that captures an architectural spirit, rather than focusing on technical details of design, by featuring interviews with architects, designers, and artists, and presenting work as an informal work in progress – a fun assembly of ideas, stories and conversations, all paired with cutting-edge photography and artwork. Both raw and glossy, the magazine is a nimble mix of genres and themes, finding inspiration in the high and the low by casting a refreshingly playful eye on rare architectural gems, amazing interiors, smart design, and that fascinating area where those areas connect with contemporary art. In short, PIN–UP is pure architectural entertainment!
Issue 15 features:
ARANDA\LASCH
Two Architectural Shape Shifters are Taking Things to the next Level
Interview by Felix Burrichter
Portraits by Asger Carlsen
MARIA PERGAY
The Indisputable Grand Dame of French Collectible Design is anything but Steely
Interview by Jina Khayyer
Portraits by Katja Rahlwes
STEVEN HOLL
Into the recesses of the Imagination of New York’s resident Space Poet
Interview by Pierre Alexandre de Looz
Portraits by Jason Rodgers
JON RAFMAN
The best of both Worlds with a Modern Internet Explorer
Interview by Stephen Froese
Portraits by Topical Cream
HERMAN HERTZBERGER
A special feature on the Eminence Grise of Dutch Architecture
Introduction by Dirk van den Heuvel
Interview by Florian Idenburg
Photography by Elsbeth Struijk van Bergen
PLUS 67 pages of Interior Moments, including the Princeton home of Michael Graves, the DESTE Foundation in Athens by Dakis Joannou and Andreas Angelidakis, Jean Pigozzi’s Sottsass-designed beach-side getaway, a beautiful Fifth Avenue penthouse designed by Michael Schaible, an imaginary home at London’s V&A designed by artists Elmgreen & Dragset, Veronica Chou’s Beijing party home, and a spectacular New York lair entirely designed by the late Ward Bennett.
ALSO:
The future imagined with Konstantin Grcic’s most iconic designs, wise words on furniture by the inimitable Edgar Allan Poe, a whole new outfit for the house of Balenciaga, Trix and Robert Haussmann revisited, artist Oliver Michaels’ new architectural vernacular, a design symphony in shades of beige, and so much more.
1988, English / Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 341 pages, 24 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Books Nippan / Tokyo
$110.00 - Out of stock
One of the most incredible books on Italian design of the last century, this epic, long-out-of-print volume, published in Japan in 1988, is as visually encompassing in it's design and visual content as it is invaluable as a resource of essays and profiles on the many artists and designers working in Italy from (roughly) the 1930's to the late 1980's.
With texts by none other than Mario Bellini, Andrea Branzi, and Bruno Munari, this heavy volume, co-ordinated by Fumio Shimizu and Studio Matteo Thun, is broken into "The First Generation" (Carlo Alessi, Bruno Munari, Gio Ponti, Carlo Scarpa, and many others); "The Second Generation" (Mario Bellini, Aldo Rossi, Alessandro Mendini, Enzo Mari, Ettore Sottsass, and many others); "The Third Generation" (Andrea Branzi, George J. Sowden, Ugo La Pietra, Paolo Deganello, and many others); "The Fourth Generation" (Alchimia, Aldo Cibic, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Matteo Thun, Alessio Sarri, and many others) - all with illustrated examples of their furniture, architecture, fashion, product design, interiors, etc. and profiles on each and every featured artist and designer. The names above are only the tip of the iceberg of the many amazing practices highlighted in this book, many of which are not easily found in any other publications on the subject.
Highly recommended.
All texts are in both English and Japanese.
"Engaging Italian industry and culture in a single-minded and spontaneous project of national image building, Italy's designers have produced a complete variety of forms--fashion, graphic arts and product and set design--with a unique international resonance. This volume explores Italian design of the last half-century, featuring the classic lines of the Vespa, Bruno Munari's deconstruction of the common fork, the nostalgic appeal of Italo Marchioni's ice cream cone and the sleek Minimalism of Alberto Meda's 1987 "Light Light Chair," among many other masterpieces. Paola Antonelli's lively introduction provides an overview of Italy's design culture; an essay by Giampiero Bosoni illuminates the design objects that are superbly reproduced in the volume's plate section."
1993, English
Hardcover (w. dustjacket), 264 pages, 22 x 28 cm,
1st British edition. Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$49.00 - Out of stock
Italian designer Ettore Sottsass is celebrated internationally for his contribution to architecture, industrial and furniture design, ceramics, jewellery, crafts, graphic design, and photography. In 1981 he founded the Memphis group, and through its startling, eclectic and irreverent aesthetic he dominated furniture and interior style for over a decade. Almost every area of modern design displays his influence. Featuring over 100 full-page colour illustrations - photographs, architectural drawings, sketches, collages - this monograph explores Sottsass's work in all his many fields of activity, including his world-famous office products for Olivetti, and his colourful Memphis furniture.
Barbara Radice, a long-time associate of Sottsass, and fellow founding member of the Memphis group, gives a sensitive account of his life and work, drawing on her keen understanding of his talents, personality, preoccupations, likes and dislikes. She outlines his working methods, describes the inspiration he draws from popular culture, follows him on his constant travels, and explains the interactions necessary for his long-term responsibilities at Olivetti's design division.
This is a complete summary of the career and achievement of Ettore Sottsass - not only perhaps the most important and gifted designer of modern times, but easily the most stimulating, innovative, inspired and entertaining.
Barbara Radice is the editor of "Terrazzo" and a regular contributor to several Italian art and design magazines. She was co-author of "Sottsass Associates" (1989).
1984, Dutch
Softcover, 80 pages, 21 x 30 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Kruithuis / Den Bosch
$140.00 - Out of stock
Extremely rare, wonderfully designed Dutch catalogue from a survey exhibition on the Italian design group Memphis Milano in the Kruithuis, Den Bosch, in 1984.
Lavishly illustrated with colour and black and white photographs, plus features profiles on each of Memphis' key designers (Ettore Sottsass, Andra Branzi, Shiro Kuramata, George Sowden, Michele de Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Peter Shire, Matteo Thun, Marco Zanini, Aldo Cibic, Martine Bedin, Gerard Taylor...), and essays by Ghislain Kieft and Peter van Kester.
2013, English / German
Softcover, 240 pages
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$44.00 - Out of stock
Utopie beginnt im Kleinen / Utopia starts small
Catalogue publication to accompany the 12th Fellbach Triennial of Small Scale Sculpture 2013, featuring the work of Armando Andrade Tudela, Leonor Antunes, Ei Arakawa & Nikolas Gambaroff, Anna Artaker, Vojin Bakic´, Neïl Beloufa, Bless, Arno Brandlhuber, Teresa Burga, Luis Camnitzer, Nina Canell, Lygia Clark, Nathan Coley, Thea Djordjadze, Maria Eichhorn, Michaela Eichwald, Felix Ensslin & Studierende, Geoffrey Farmer, Yona Friedman, Meschac Gaba, Carlos Garaicoa, Isa Genzken, Konstantin Grcic, Günter Haese, Diango Hernández, Judith Hopf, Iman Issa, Christian Jankowski & Studierende, Rachel Khedoori, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Jakob Kolding, Moshekwa Langa, Manuela Leinhoß, Anita Leisz, Anna Maria Maiolino, Victor Man, Cildo Meireles, Michaela Melián, Michele Di Menna, Charlotte Moth, Timo Nasseri, Manfred Pernice, Pratchaya Phinthong, Falke Pisano, Erwin Piscator, Rita Ponce de León, Vjenceslav Richter, Yorgos Sapountzis, Jochen Schmith, Nora Schultz, Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz, Yutaka Sone, Ettore Sottsass, Pascale, Marthine Tayou, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Danh Võ and Haegue Yang.
With contributions by Yilmaz Dziewior, Angelika Nollert, Dieter Roelstraete, Thomas Schölderle, Kerstin Stakemeier, et al.
Edited by Kulturamt der Stadt Fellbach, Angelika Nollert, Yilmaz Dziewior
240 pages with numerous colour illustrations
Beyond the bounds of the visual arts, this accompanying publication also examines approaches from architecture, theatre and design by means of examples. Alongside historical positions, the focus is placed in particular on contemporary, young artists, whose works has frequently been created in situations of radical change in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. As well as texts on the exhibiting artists, the accompanying catalogue includes four academic essays that deal with the sociopolitical meaning of utopia through its historical development, the thematization and development of utopian models in art as well as the aesthetics of the small.
2013, English
Softcover, 224 pages (42 color, 39 b/w ill.), 13.1 x 20.6 cm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$36.00 - Out of stock
With contributions by Paola Antonelli, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Andrea Branzi, Carlo Caldini, Alison J. Clarke, Experimental Jetset, Verina Gfader, Martino Gamper, Joseph Grima, Alessandro Mendini, Antonio Negri, Paola Nicolin, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Catharine Rossi, Vera Sacchetti, Libby Sellers, Studio Formafantasma, and Ettore Vitale.
EP is the first critically underpinned series of publications that fluidly move between art, design, and architecture. The series creates a discursive platform between popular magazines (“single play”) and academic journals (“long play”) by introducing the notion of the “extended play” into publishing: with thematically edited pocket books as median.
The first volume is devoted to the activities of the Italian avant-garde between 1968 and 1976. While emphasizing the multiple correspondences between collectives and groups like Arte Povera, Archizoom, Superstudio, and figures such as Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini, The Italian Avant-Garde: 1968–1976 also highlights previously overlooked spaces, works, and performances generated by Zoo, Gruppo 9999, and Cavart. Newly commissioned interviews and essays by historians and curators shed light on the era, while contemporary practitioners discuss its complex legacy.
Design by Experimental Jetset
1988, German
Softcover, 263 pages, 24 x 31 cm
Out of print title / used*,
Published by
DVA / Stuttgart
$60.00 - Out of stock
This large, lavishly illustrated book examines the diverse array of projects by Italian design group, Sottsass Associati - a partnership formed in Milan in 1980 between Ettore Sottsass, Marco Zanini, Matteo Thun, Aldo Cibic, and Marco Marabelli. Each of their major projects, traversing architecture, interior design, textiles, graphic design, product design, exhibition design, furniture design, etc. are documented here in full-colour photography and illustrations, including projects for Brionvega, Olivetti, Esprit, Fiorucci, Memphis Group, Knoll, Alessi, Driade, and many others.
Essays by Ettore Sottsass, Barbara Radice, Jean Pigozzi, Herbert Muschamp, Philippe Thome, Doug Tompkins, Luciano Torri, and Marco Zanini.
*Condition: Very Good, some shelf wear, otherwise tight copy – All care is taken to provide accurate condition details of used books, photos available on request.
Due to the weight of this volume, your order will possibly 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.
2002, English
Hardcover, 193 pages (colour ill.), 20 x 28 cm
Published by
Skira / Milan
$24.00 - Out of stock
Richly illustrated, this catalogue accompanies an international jewelry exhibition. Ettore Sottsass presents the Collection Art de Cartier in a brilliant new manner, viewing the collection as a reflection of form and design, while understanding its function and relation with the surrounding space and the bodies it adorns. For this impressive project Ettore Sottsass has selected over 200 jewels, watches and accessories following his personal and intuitive taste forgoing epochs and fashion trends, and creates and highlights the ties amongst the materials, style and colour. To emphasize his vision, for each piece Sottsass creates a decorative element meant to contain the object as a shrine located in a cosmic space.
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.