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
SAT 12—4 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
2022, English
Softcover, 364 pages, 14.2 x 21.8 cm
Published by
Divided Publishing / London
$46.00 - In stock -
Recorded and transcribed throughout the 1960s, Carla Lonzi’s Self-portrait ruptures the narration of post-war modern art in Italy and beyond. Artmaking struck Lonzi as an invitation to be together in a ‘humanly satisfying way’, and this experiment in art-historical writing is a testament to her belief. Lonzi abolishes the role of the critic, her own, seeking change over self-preservation by theorising against the act of theorising.
The life and work of Carla Lonzi (1931–1982) is inseparable from the cultural, political, and social history of Italy in the decades following the Second World War; she occupies a singular position, which today merits reevaluation. A reputed art critic of the 1960s artistic scene, both friend and collaborator of such figures as Carla Accardi, Luciano Fabro, Giulio Paolini, and Jannis Kounellis, she wrote “Autoportrait” in 1969, a “love letter” to the artists and to creation, but also a farewell chorus to art criticism and the art world. The following year she founded Rivolta Femminile, an active feminist collective, thus becoming the central figure of Italian feminism.
Interviews with Carla Accardi, Getulio Alviani, Enrico Castellani, Pietro Consagra, Luciano Fabro, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Nigro, Guilio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Mimmo Rotella, Salvatore Scarpita, Guilio Turcato, Cy Twombly.
Afterword by Claire Fontaine.
Translated by Allison Grimaldi Donahue.
"Before she spurred everyone to spit on Hegel, Carla Lonzi arranged her Self-portrait in the form of a dialogue recorded with friends – artists – with whom she had been in conversation for years. She wanted to feel less alienated, to figure out a way for art to be a part of living, not a stupid contrivance to be consumed. Soon after the book was published, in order to continue to ‘live life in a creative way, not in obedience with the models that society proposes over and over’, she abandoned art criticism, but not art – and never life." —Bruce Hainley
“The volume underscores the genderedness of its genre. Yet, it also pokes holes in the enterprise of art criticism more broadly and proves original precisely in its author’s intermittent passivity...”—Frieze Magazine
The life and work of Carla Lonzi (1931–1982) is inseparable from the cultural, political, and social history of Italy in the decades following the Second World War; she occupies a singular position, which today merits reevaluation. A reputed art critic of the 1960s artistic scene, both friend and collaborator of such figures as Carla Accardi, Luciano Fabro, Giulio Paolini, and Jannis Kounellis, she wrote “Autoportrait” in 1969, a “love letter” to the artists and to creation, but also a farewell chorus to art criticism and the art world. The following year she founded Rivolta Femminile, an active feminist collective, thus
2024, English
2 hardcover vols in slipcase, 544 pages, 21 x 28 cm
Published by
Fondazione Prada / Venice
$220.00 - In stock -
Lavish two-volume slipcased exhibition catalogue tracing the entire, tragically short career of Arte Povera artist Pino Pascali (1935–68), who created “fake sculptures” that played with perceptions of reality. From fuzzy spiders to toy machine guns, Pascali’s playfulness is on full display in this expansive catalogue-cum-reader, published on the occasion of the largest retrospective of the artist's work, curated by Mark Godfrey for the Fondazione Prada in Milan. Profusely illustrated in colour and b/w, the publication juxtaposes 49 of his works with nine pieces by other postwar artists, and includes both a full exhibition chronology and an anthology of texts on the artist.
Introduction by Miuccia Prada. Text by Mark Godfrey, Valérie Da Costa, Michele D’Aurizio, Eva Fabbris, Pia Gottschaller, Teresa Kittler, Peter Fischli, Achille Bonito Oliva, et al.
1972, German / English / French
Vinyl ring-binder (screen printed w. design by E. Ruscha), 650 pages +, 32 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
documenta / Kassel
$500.00 - Out of stock
Scarce copy of the only edition of the most elaborately designed, and lowest circulated Documenta catalogue, conceived by curator Harald Szeemann to accompany the fifth edition of Documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition held in Kassel, Germany.
Subtitled "100 Days of Inquiry into Reality -- Today's Imagery," curated by the team of Harald Szeemann, Jean-Christophe Ammann and Arnold Bode, Documenta 5 followed a lineage of comprehensive shows documenting conceptually and minimally charged artworks curated by Szeemann including Live in Your Head (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969), and Happenings and Fluxus (Kunstverein, Köln), 1970. The largest, most expensive and most diverse of any exhibition anywhere, Documenta 5 was criticized in 1972 as being “bizarre…vulgar…sadistic” by art critic and essayist Hilton Kramer and “monstrous… overtly deranged” by art historian and art critic Barbara Rose, yet it still resonates today as one of the most important exhibitions in history. Featuring the works of over 170 artists and an equally expansive variety of materials and subjects drawn from popular cultural materials, architecture, science fiction, kitsch objects, film, advertising, children's art, etc. in addition to the more anticipated international survey of new painting and sculpture - Documenta 5 valiantly attempted to bridge the gap between art, culture, science and the broader society. This massive tome is housed in the iconic orange vinyl-covered, two-ring binder screen printed with the famous ant design by Edward Ruscha. The binder holds a tabbed index of illustrated artist's pages and associated texts and material, largely in German, but also many in English. All registers are present apart from the usual missing 19-25 which were not directly integrated into the catalogue and had to be ordered by the visitor separately to become their own contribution. This very complete copy also includes the additional 80 page, hole-punched Documenta 5 guide book, with floor plans, complete listing of exhibited artworks, list of exhibitions, bibliography, and many gallery, museum and other related advertisements. More than a catalogue, this publication is a piece of art history in itself.
Includes artists: Vito Acconci, Vincenzo Agnetti, Peter Alexander, John de Andrea, Giovanni Anselmo, Arbeitszeit, Archigram, Chuck Arnoldi, Art & Language, Richard Artschwager, Michael Ashkin, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Georg Baselitz, Lothar Baumgarten, Robert Bechtle, Gottfried Bechtold, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Karl Oskar Blase, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Christian Boltanski, Claudio Bravo, George Brecht, K.P. Brehmer, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Günter Brus, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Michael Buthe, James Lee Byars, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Castelli, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Chuck Close, Tony Conrad, Ron Cooper, Bill Copley, Joseph Cornell, Robert Cottingham, Paul Cotton, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, David Deutsch, Jan Dibbets, Herbert Distel, Gino de Dominicis, Marcel Duchamp, John Dugger, Don Eddy, Franz Eggenschwiler, Ger van Elk, Richard Estes, Luciano Fabro, John C. Fernie, Robert Filliou, Jud Fine, Joel Fisher, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Hamish Fulton, Franz Gertsch, Gilbert & George, Ralph Goings, Hubert Gojowczyk, Dan Graham, Walter Grasskamp, Nancy Graves, Hans Haacke, Duane Hanson, Guy Harloff, Michael Harvey, Haus-Rucker-Co, Auguste Herbin, Eva Hesse, Rebecca Horn, Jean Olivier Hucleux, Douglas Huebler, Jörg Immendorff, Will Insley, Rolf Iseli, Ken Jacobs, Neil Jenney, Alfred Jensen, Jasper Johns, Joan Jonas, Max G. Kaminski, Howard Kanovitz, Edward Kienholz, Imi Knoebel, Christof Kohlhofer, Jannis Kounellis, Tom Kovachevich, Piotr Kowalski, David Lamelas, Barry Le Va, Jean LeGac, Alfred Leslie, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Ingeborg Luscher, Inge Mahn, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Etienne Martin, Richard McLean, David Medalla, Fernando Melani, Jim Melchert, Mario Merz, Gustav Metzger, Bernd Minnich, Malcolm Morley, Ed Moses, Bruce Nauman, Hermann Nitsch, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Blinky Palermo, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, A.R. Penck, Giuseppe Penone, Vettor Pisani, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Posen, Markus Raetz, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Klaus Rinke, Dorothea Rockburne, Peter Roehr, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Ulrich Ruckriem, Robert Ryman, John Salt, Salvo, Lucas Samaras, Paul Sarkisian, Jean-Frederic Schnyder, Ben Schonzeit, Werner Schroeter, HA Schult, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Fritz Schwegler, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Allan Shields, Katharina Sieverding, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Klaus Staeck, Paul Staiger, Jorge Stever, Robert Strubin, Paul Thek, Wayne Thiebaud, Andre Thomkins, David Tremlett, Richard Tuttle, Ben Vautier, W + B Hein, Franz Erhard Walther, Robert Watts, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, John Wesley, H.C. Westermann, William Wiley, Rolf Winnewisser, Tom Wudl, Klaus Wyborny, La Monte Young, Peter Young, Gilberto Zorio.
Catalogue also includes Bob Projansky and Seth Siegelaub's "The Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement." This "Agreement form has been drafted by Bob Projansky, a New York lawyer, after my [Siegelaub] extensive discussions and correspondence with over 500 artists, dealers, lawyers, collectors, museum people, critics and other concerned people involved in the day-to-day workings of the international art world. The Agreement has been designed to remedy some generally acknowledged inequities in the art world, particularly artists' lack of control over the use of their work and participation in its economics after they no longer own it. The Agreement for has been written with special awareness of the current ordinary practices and economic realitites of the art world, particularly its private, cash and informal nature, with careful regard for the interests and motives of all concerned. It is expected to be the standard form for the transfer and sale of all contemporary art, and has been made as fair, simple and useful as possible. It can be used either as presented here or slightly altered to fit your specific situation. If the following information does not answer all your questions consult your attorney." -- from Agreement's cover. Copies of the contract are individually included in English, Germany, and French editions.
Very Good, complete (as issued) copy. Very minor wear.
1971, English / Italian / French
Softcover, 150 pages, 24.5 x 24.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Cento Di / Florence
$190.00 - Out of stock
Rare exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the 7th Paris Biennale held at the Parc Floral de Paris, Bois de Vincennes, Paris, France, September 24 — November 1, 1971, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva. An important volume representing the Italian avant-garde of the various sectors of art (including music and architecture) in this critical period in history, including the work of Alighiero Boetti, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Gino De Dominicis, Luciano Fabro, Mimmo Germanà, Giuseppe Penone, Emilio Prini, Gilberto Zorio, Jannis Kounellis, Giulio Paolini, Giorgio Pressburger, Achille Bonito Oliva, Mario Franco, Umberto Silva, Paolo Mussat Sartor, Frederic Rzewski, Marcello Panni, Archizoom, Superstudio, and Ufo. Illustrated throughout with many examples by each artist, alongside artists' biographies, exhibition histories, and bibliographies, and essay by Achille Bonito Oliva. Text in English, Italian, and French.
Achille Bonito Oliva (born 1939) is an Italian art critic and historian of contemporary art. Since 1968 he has taught history of contemporary art at La Sapienza, the university of Rome. He has written extensively on contemporary art and contemporary artists; he originated the term Transavanguardia to describe the new direction taken in the late 1970s by artists such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino. He has organised or curated numerous contemporary art events and exhibitions; in 1993 he was artistic director of the Biennale di Venezia.
Good copy w. light wear/tanning/spotting.
1969 / 2006, English / French / German / Italian
Softcover binder (w. spring-loaded plate), 170 pages, 31.5 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Kunsthalle Bern / Bern
$290.00 - Out of stock
One of the great art documents of the 20th century, "Live in Your Head : When Attitudes Become Form", curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, March 22 - April 27, 1969. This is the impeccably re-produced facsimile edition of the exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with an exhibition honouring the legacy of Szeemann in 2006, published by the Kunsthalle Bern, the producers of the original. Strictly limited edition and immediately out-of-print, this most faithful reprint, with the unique die-cut alphabetically tabbed index bound with hardware-fittings, has become as collectible as the 1969 edition.
Sponsored by the Philip Morris tobacco company, this was an important, extensive and primary exhibition dedicated to the amalgam of Pop, Minimal and Conceptual Art in Europe and the United States. The catalogue itself is designed and produced by Szeemann, and printed in Switzerland by Stämpfli & Cie in Bern. Alongside those of Seth Siegelaub, Szeemann's now historical catalogues changed the way exhibition publishing performed. Presented as a indexical binder (spring-bound with a metal plate) forming an index of alphabetical artist pages and accompanying texts. Includes a biography, bibliography, illustrations and portrait for each artist.
Texts by Harald Szeemann, Scott Burton, Grégoire Müller and Tommaso Trini.
Artists include Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Richard Artschwager, Thomas Bang, Jared Bark, Robert Barry, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Marinus Boezem, Bill Bollinger, Michael Buthe, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Paul Cotton, Alighiero Boetti, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Ger Van Elk, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Hans Haacke, Michael Heizer, Douglas Huebler, Paolo Icaro, Alain Jacquet, Neil Jenney, Jo Ann Kaplan, Eva Hesse, Edward Kienholz, Yves Klein, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Gary B. Kuehn, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Roelof Louw, Bruce McLean, Walter De Maria, David Medalla, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Paul Pechter, Panamarenko, Michelangelo Pisteletto, Emilio Prini, Markus Raetz, Allen Ruppersberg, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Robert Ryman, Alan Saret, Sarkis, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle, Frank Viner, Erhard Walther, Lawrence Weiner, William Wegman, William Wiley and Gilberto Zorio.
Texts in English, French, German and Italian.
As New with only light creasing to the overhanging edges of the cover edges, otherwise a Fine copy.
2022, English
Softcover, 384 pages, 19.8 x 24.1 cm
Published by
Walker Art Centre / Minneapolis
$110.00 - Out of stock
Six decades of sculptural innovation from the Arte Povera pioneer and alchemist of the everyday captured in this stunning new volume.
Over the course of more than five decades, Jannis Kounellis developed a singular practice across painting, works on paper, sculpture, installation and hybrid works combining objects with live performance. Playing a central role in the Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, Kounellis created wide-ranging and innovative works exploring theater, migration, history, politics and other themes, which continue to influence subsequent generations of artists.
Published by the Walker Art Center for the first US Kounellis survey in over 35 years, Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts offers the most comprehensive assessment of his career to date. The richly illustrated catalog, assembled with the full cooperation of the artist's estate and archive, presents a first-of-its-kind collection of visual materials and Kounellis' writings, including image-based exhibition and performance chronologies. The volume also features essays by Vincenzo de Bellis, Claire Gilman, Kit Hammonds and Ara H. Merjian.
Jannis Kounellis (1936-2017) was born in Piraeus, Greece. In 1956, he moved to Rome and by 1960 was an active member of the Arte Povera movement. In 1969 he created one of his best-known works: the installation of 12 live horses in the gallery L'Attico in Rome. Kounellis' first New York solo show was in 1972. Recent exhibitions have been held at the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greece (2012) and the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (2007), among others.
1968,
Silkscreen and offset print (85 x 46 cm)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Galleria Alexandre Iolas / Rome
$1000.00 - Out of stock
Stunning, extremely rare early Jannis Kounellis (1936—2017) exhibition poster, published on the occasion of one of his most iconic early solo exhibitions at Galleria Alexandre Iolas, Rome, 1968. A piece of printed history of the forefather of the Arte Povera movement, issued by the legendary Galleria Alexandre Iolas and published by Sergio Tosi Editore. Gorgeous silkscreen and offset print. Since the 1960s Greek—Italian artist Kounellis investigated the alienation inherent in contemporary society, juxtaposing the materials of mass urban and industrial civilization with symbols and values of the pre-industrial world.
A stunning collector's item, ready to frame.
Dimensions : 85 x 46 cm
Very Good condition, well preserved.
Signed offset printed poster (80 x 59 cm)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
$900.00 - In stock -
Rare and signed vintage Jannis Kounellis (1936—2017) litho/serigraph print poster. Possibly an Italian museum artist's edition, although we have never seen another like it available. Beautifully large print in offset halftone with over-print of black square and "KOUNELLIS". Hand signed in pencil in the lower right by Jannis Kounellis, Greek Italian artist and forefather of the Arte Povera movement. Since the 1960s Kounellis investigated the alienation inherent in contemporary society, juxtaposing the materials of mass urban and industrial civilization with symbols and values of the pre-industrial world.
A stunning collector's item, ready to frame.
Dimensions : 80 x 59 cm.
Very Good condition, well preserved.
1969, French
Softcover, 96 pages, 20.5 cm x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Musée des Arts Decoratifs / Paris
$150.00 - Out of stock
Beautiful, scarce catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition "Ceroli Kounellis Marotta Pascali : 4 Artistes Italiens Plus Que Nature" at Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, in 1969.
"Four of the most representative artists of the last season of Italian art, four artists in full activity except, unfortunately, Pino Pascali, who died last year. Despite the brevity of his career, Pascali has given an international contribution to the artistic research of today. It is arbitrary to look for traits and points in common among these artists, even if they are more or less the same trend, so I preferred to draw separate portraits ... " (M. Calvesi, 1969)
Each artist has a profusely illustrated section dedicated to their work, each divided by printed wax title pages, introduced (in French) by Maurizio Calvesi, and closed with an exhibition history and list of works. Blakc and white photography throughout by Gianni Berengo Gardin, Ugo Mulas, Adele Macchi, Claudio Abate, Andrea Taverna, and silkscreened covers.
Included in ARTE POVERA 1966-1980. LIBRI E DOCUMENTI / BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS, the critical catalogue raisonné of artist's books from the Arte Povera movement 1966-1980, compiled by Giorgio Maffei.
2019, English
Hardcover, 516 pages, 21 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Fondazione Prada / Venice
$240.00 - Out of stock
The ultimate (now out-of-print) Jannis Kounellis book. Published by Fondazione Prada to accompany the exhibition 'Jannis Kounellis', curated by Germano Celant, the major retrospective in Venice dedicated to the artist. Developed in collaboration with Archivio Kounellis, the exhibit brings together more than 60 works from 1959 to 2015, from both Italian and international museums, as well as from important private collections both in Italy and abroad. This comprehensive hardcover catalogue explores the artistic and exhibition history of Jannis Kounellis (Piraeus 1936 - Rome 2017), a Greek Italian artist and key figure associated with Arte Povera, a movement theorized by curator Germano Celant as a major shift from work on flat surfaces to installations. In 1967, Kounellis installed "live birds in cages along with rose-shaped, cloth cut-outs pinned to canvas" alongside his painting. Through this shift in his work, "Kounellis was more interested in anarchical freedom from linguistic norms and conventional materials. The space of the gallery and the exhibition site in general were transformed into a stage where real life and fiction could join in a suspension of disbelief." Viewers became part of the scene of these living natural sources of energy within the gallery space. He continued his involvement with live animals later in 1969, when he exhibited twelve living horses, as if they were cars, in the Galleria l'Attico's new location in an old garage in Via Beccaria. Kounellis introduced recurring materials such as propane torches, smoke, coal, meat, ground coffee, lead, and found wooden objects into his installations, which looked beyond the gallery environment to historical (mostly industrial) sites. Lavishly illustrated throughout with full bleed large installation photographs, individual works, performances, details, an illustrated bibliographic history, introductory essay by Germano Celant, foreword by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, and more, this volume forms a valuable, intimate resource on Kounellis.
1972, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 66 pages, 24 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
$160.00 - Out of stock
Issue number five of the legendary New York quarterly periodical Avalanche, published Summer 1972. Cover features Yvonne Rainer. Contents: "Rumbles," featuring Hiro Kosaka, Trisha Brown and Marcel Broodthaers; "Braco Dimitrijevic: Casual Passers-by I Met"; "Direct Demokratie: Joseph Beuys Talking at Documenta 5"; "Structure and Sensibility: An Interview with Jannis Kounellis," by Willoughby Sharp; "Phil Glass: An Interview in Two Parts" by Liza Béar and Willoughby Sharp; "Illustrated Time - Proscenium II," by Keith Sonnier, Tina Girouard, Suzanne Harris, Richard Landry and Kurt Munkacs; "The Performer as Persona: An Interview with Yvonne Rainer". Edited by Liza Bear, published by Willoughby Sharp, designed by Boris Wall Gruphy.
The short-lived New York based art magazine Avalanche, which existed between 1970 and 1976, captured a sense of its time, but also engaged critically with the relationship between printed matter (books, samizdat, etc.) and artwork. Founded by Liza Bear and Willoughby Sharp Avalanche pushed artistic ideas, focusing on new forms of art-making (of it’s day), providing a timely format for art’s movement away from galleries and museums and towards the printed page and emerging discourses surrounding Performance and Land art. The interviews, all conducted by Bear and Sharp, employ a loose but thoughtful approach. Often the articles ran as large as 16 pages. The featured artists were at the time relatively unknown, today they read like a Who’s Who of the avant-garde (in particular as defined by Dia:). The square covers of the early issues feature now iconic portraits of artists; Joseph Beuys, Lawrence Weiner, Yvonne Rainer, Vito Acconci (who had the entire Issue of #6 dedicated to him) and Bruce Nauman.
Featured artists were Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Bill Beckley, Joseph Beuys, Chris Burden, Daniel Buren, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Barbara Dilley, Simone Forti, Gilbert & George, the Philip Glass Ensemble, Grand Union, Hans Haacke, Jannis Kounellis, Meredith Monk, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Gordon Matta-Clark, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Klaus Rinke, Joel Shapiro, Jack Smith, Keith Sonnier, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, George Trakas, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, the Western Front and Jackie Winsor.
Very Good copy with tanning and light wear.
1969, English / French / German / Italian
Softcover binder (w. spring-loaded plate), 170 pages, 31.5 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Kunsthalle Bern / Bern
$600.00 - Out of stock
One of the great art documents of the 20th century, the original printing of the legendary catalogue for "Live in Your Head : When Attitudes Become Form", curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, March 22 - April 27, 1969. Very rare original 1969 edition!
Sponsored by the Philip Morris tobacco company, this was an important, extensive and primary exhibition dedicated to the amalgam of Pop, Minimal and Conceptual Art in Europe and the United States. The catalogue itself is designed and produced by Szeemann, and printed in Switzerland by Stämpfli & Cie in Bern. Alongside those of Seth Siegelaub, Szeemann's now historical catalogues changed the way exhibition publishing performed. Presented as a indexical binder (spring-bound with a metal plate) forming an index of alphabetical artist pages and accompanying texts. Includes a biography, bibliography, illustrations and portrait for each artist.
Texts by Harald Szeemann, Scott Burton, Grégoire Müller and Tommaso Trini.
Artists include Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Richard Artschwager, Thomas Bang, Jared Bark, Robert Barry, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Marinus Boezem, Bill Bollinger, Michael Buthe, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Paul Cotton, Alighiero Boetti, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Ger Van Elk, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Hans Haacke, Michael Heizer, Douglas Huebler, Paolo Icaro, Alain Jacquet, Neil Jenney, Jo Ann Kaplan, Eva Hesse, Edward Kienholz, Yves Klein, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Gary B. Kuehn, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Roelof Louw, Bruce McLean, Walter De Maria, David Medalla, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Paul Pechter, Panamarenko, Michelangelo Pisteletto, Emilio Prini, Markus Raetz, Allen Ruppersberg, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Robert Ryman, Alan Saret, Sarkis, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle, Frank Viner, Erhard Walther, Lawrence Weiner, William Wegman, William Wiley and Gilberto Zorio.
Texts in English, French, German and Italian.
Light wear and marking to folder covers, internal rubbing from metal plate, previous owners name and "69" to top of inside cover, otherwise very good copy throughout, complete.
2021, English / German
Hardcover, 392 pages, 28 x 22 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg / Mönchengladbach
$85.00 - Out of stock
For the first time, the 35 legendary box catalogues of Städtische Museum Mönchengladbach have been published as a book. Museum director Johannes Cladders developed the idea of catalogues in the form of a box with Joseph Beuys in 1967. Understated in their initial appearance, the grey boxes provide an unconventional and pertinent overview of the international vanguard art of the period, including seminal movements such as Conceptual Art, Fluxus, Arte Povera, and Pop Art. Until 1978, Cladders worked closely with exhibiting artists to create such catalogues, which radically re-envisaged the traditional exhibition and museum publication. They embody the participatory approach of their time and instance a vision of a porous democratic work. Viewers are invited to actively participate in this artistic and institutional endeavour and engage both intellectually and physically. Some of the boxes include posters, booklets, documentation and texts, while others comprise multiples.
Artists included are Blinky Palermo, Daniel Buren, Marcel Broodthaers, Hans Hollein, Piero Manzoni, Hanne Darboven, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Stanley Brouwn, Brecht/Filliou, Jasper Johns, Richard Long, Panamarenko, James Lee Byars, Braco Dimitrijević, Jannis Kounellis, Lawrence Weiner, Giulio Paolini, and Gerhard Richter, among many others.
Researched by Susanne Rennert, designed by Petra Hollenbach, with photographs documenting all catalogues by Tobias Hohn & Stanton Taylor, and introductory essays by Susanne Rennert and Susanne Titz. English and German text.
1985, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 278 pages, 22 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Electa / Milan
$180.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 edition of Arte Povera : Storie e protagonisti by Germano Celant, published by Electa. This first edition was never distributed and, since it was only circulated among those involved in the Arte Povera movement, became a much-sought-after and inaccessible cult item. This invaluable, comprehensive title collated, for the first time everything written by Germano Celant about the group of artists associated with the movement, for which he himself, in 1967, coined the term Arte Povera (Poor Art). "This book is the product of decades of work done jointly with others, and of the accompanying exchange of ideas and opinions. It deals with an adventure - Arte Povera - that has won a lasting place in "our" history." - Germano Celant.
The book is a collection of profusely illustrated theoretical texts, all in parallel English and Italian, focusing on the art of the individual artists involved (Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio), whilst concentrating as much on the movement’s contingent side as on its fragmentary, contradictory, pluralistic way of creating art. It also provides a comprehensive illustrated chronology and extensive bibliography, making it one of the most essential reference volumes ever published on the movement.
Arte Povera was a radical Italian art movement from the late 1960s to 1970s whose artists explored a range of unconventional processes and non traditional ‘everyday’ materials. Coined by Celant, Arte Povera means literally ‘poor art’ but the word poor here refers to the movement’s signature exploration of a wide range of materials beyond the traditional ones of oil paint on canvas, bronze, or carved marble. Materials used by the artists included soil, rags, twigs, papier-mâché, wood, iron, plastic, and industrial waste, with which they made installations that were not always understood or immediately accepted. This field of art has always been based on a de-constructive attitude, which takes into account the many different kinds of artistic expression in relation to the context in which it is created. In using such throwaway materials they also aimed to challenge and disrupt the values of the commercialised contemporary gallery system.
Good ex-libris copy with moderate associated markings, general edge wear, and some tape markings to the dust jacket, now preserved under mylar wrap.
2019, English
Paperback (w. corrugated board wrap), 212 pages, 21.1 x 25.9 cm
Published by
Hauser & Wirth / Zurich
$95.00 - In stock -
Before or After, at the Same Time: Rome, Milan, and Fabio Mauri, 1948–1968 is a landmark publication from Hauser & Wirth Publishers exploring post-war Italian art through the cultural lens of remarkable 20th-century thinkers and artists. Discover the fascinating narrative of Fabio Mauri, an artist, writer, producer and intellectual, alongside the history of his family, a publishing dynasty which thrived on close connections to radical Italian art, poetry, cinema, philosophy and literature. Mauri’s story becomes a starting point from which to explore Italian visual culture, its influences and the defining ideas behind it. The title refers to Mauri’s statement: "I can’t stay in step with my time. I am either before or after it, at the same time." (Fabio Mauri, Ideology and Memory).
The social and political aftermath of the Second World War engendered two highly energetic pockets of creativity in the cities of Rome and Milan. Uncover a tale of these two cities, with Mauri—a multi-disciplinary artist who resisted categorisation—acting as the point of introduction to the artistic practices that emerged from each of these distinct cultural, economic and political scenes. The book examines and, in cases, re-examines the artistic milieu surrounding Mauri which included Carla Accardi, Franco Angeli, Enrico Baj, Alberto Burri, Alighiero Boetti, Enrico Castellani, Dadamaino, Piero Dorazio, Tano Festa, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis, Piero Manzoni, Gastone Novelli, Mimmo Rotella, Mario Schifano, Giulio Turcato and Cy Twombly.
Edited by Ben Eastham, the publication features essays and newly commissioned texts by Giorgio Agamben, Ilaria Bernardi, Barbara Casavecchia, Pierre Testard, Andrea Viliani and Laura Cherubini; an interview between Achille and Sebastiano Mauri discussing the enduring and near unbelievable family history; a historic article by Fabio Mauri "In 1960 the 1950s Were 10 Years Old," bringing his prescient character to life; never before published and translated letters between Silvana Mauri, Fabio’s eldest sister, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, the filmmaker, writer and poet expressing a remarkable intimacy and honesty
1990, English
Softcover, 100 pages, 8 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
A&D / London
$25.00 - Out of stock
"New Art International" from 1990, a special "Art & Design Profile" edition from London's A.D. magazine. Articles/essays by Thomas Lawson, Victor Burgin, Germano Celant, Robert Rosenblum, Donald Kuspit, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, and many more. Profusely illustrated throughout with the work of Haim Steinbach, Cady Noland, Zoe Leonard, Jenny Holzer, Allan McCollum, Jannis Kounellis, Cindy Sherman, Mario Merz, Barbara Kruger, Susana Solano, Ashley Bickerton, Larry Johnson, David Salle, Peter Halley, Robert Longo, John Baldessari, Barbara Bloom, Laurie Simmons, Luciano Fabro, Christian Boltanski, Thomas Schütte, Günther Förg, Annette Lemieux, Gilbert & George, Victor Burgin, Jeff Koons, Tim Rollins + KOS, Giuseppe Penone, James Lee Byars, Anselm Kiefer, Yves Klein, Thérèse Oulton, Kryzstof Wodiczko, and many more....
Very Good copy, light tanning to cover and some bumping to bottom back cover edge.
2019, English
Softcover, 272 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Published by
Valiz / Amsterdam
$58.00 - Out of stock
Conceptual Art in a Curatorial Perspective: Between Dematerialization and Documentation focuses on the curatorial practice of exhibiting conceptual art. The fact that conceptual works are not object-based, creates challenges in exhibiting or re-exhibiting them. This book offers various perspectives on how to handle conceptual art in the context of the museum, based on three detailed case studies and an extensive introduction in which the paradox of conceptual art is analyzed. It also elaborates on the history of exhibiting conceptual artworks, and on the influence of curators in their canonization.
The aim of the book is not to offer clear-cut practical solutions, but to raise awareness of the issue and the different ways of dealing with it within the traditional curatorial field. It is relevant for students of art and culture (particularly in museum and curatorial studies), art and museum professionals, and everyone interested in the art of the 1960s and 1970s.
Nathalie Zonnenberg is an art historian and curator. She holds a PhD in Art History from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (NL). Zonnenberg regularly writes on contemporary art, and she lectures at the post-graduate Curatorial Studies programme at KASK/the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (BE).
1986, English / Dutch / German / French / Italian
Hardcover (cloth w. dust jacket, inc. ephemera, guide/ticket, prints), 366 pages, 27 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst / Gent
$220.00 - Out of stock
First and only edition of this very special, scarce exhibition catalogue / photo-book published to document and accompany the innovative exhibition Chambres d'Amis (‘friends’ rooms’), organised by Jan Hoet in Ghent in 1986, awarding him an international reputation as a leading artistic figure in Belgium. Chambres d'Amis featured about 50 European and American artists invited by Hoet to create works for 50 private homes in Ghent, which were then opened to the public for several weeks between June 21 - September 21, 1986. Artists included are Carla Accardi, Christian Boltanski, Raf Buedts, Daniël Buren, Michaël Buthe, Jacques Charlier, Nicola de Maria, Luciano Fabro, Günther Förg, Jef Geys, Dan Graham, Milan Grygar, François Hers, Kazuo Katase, Niek Kemps, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Bertrand Lavier, Sol LeWitt, Danny Matthys, Gerhard Merz, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Helmut Middendorf, Juan Muñoz, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Bruce Nauman, Maria Nordman, Oswald Oberhuber, Heike Pallanca, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, Royden Rabinowitch, Norbert Radermacher, Roger Raveel, Wolfgang Robbe, Claude Rutault, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Remo Salvadori, Rob Scholte, Ettore Spalletti, Paul Thek, Niele Toroni, Charles Vandenhove, Philip van Isacker, Jan Vercruysse, Jean-Luc Vilmouth, Martin Walde, Lawrence Weiner, Robin Winters, Gilberto Zorio.
The entire city-wide exhibition is comprehensively documented herein (from the domestic interior installations themselves to behind-the-scenes photography, social and working imagery of the artists installing and meeting, public events, etc.) in colour and b/w on various paper stocks with many fold-out panels and reproductions of artist's sketches, alongside extensive texts by Jan Hoet and statements accompanying the work of each artist all in Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian. Includes a list of all hosts/hostesses alongside the artists.
An incredible document of one the most important and unique contemporary art exhibitions in Belgium's history. Jan Hoet (23 June 1936 – 27 February 2014) was the Belgian founder and director of SMAK (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst) in Ghent (director from 1975 until 2003) and subsequently managed several important exhibitions all over the world including curating Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992, presenting several hundred works by 190 artists from nearly 40 countries.
“Intriguingly titled ‘Chambres d’Amis’ –-‘guest rooms’,” or, literally, ‘friends’ rooms’-– the show places art in 58 houses belonging to everyday townspeople, carrying the work outside the separate universe, the total institution, of the museum, to bring it within the private zone of the private home, an asocial place insofar as it is removed from the public arena. (...) His [Hoet’s] project takes the exhibition structure off its hinges, goes beyond the limits of the frame and spills over, whole, into an interior. Art here no longer offers a mirror or a window, nor constitutes the privileged sign of a choice, but is an actual, provocative presence, confirming its difference both from the museum space, which has lost its sanctity, and from the contextual frame in which the object serves as a fetish.”—Pier Luigi Tazzi, “Albrecht Dürer would have come too”, Artforum, September 1986
Very Good copy w. some wear/light spine fading to Good dust jacket, now preserved under mylar wrap. This special copy comes most complete, including exhibition guide/work checklist, Ghent map of exhibit locations, and a selection of 4 loose photographic press prints of featured installations.
1982, English
Softcover, 88 pages, 24 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Electa / Milan
$35.00 - Out of stock
Scarce exhibition catalogue published in 1982 by Electra International, Milano, to accompany Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, 'a thorough example of what Italian artistic research has produced in recent years' curated by Luigi Ballerini. Featuring the work of Alighiero Boetti, Italo Bressan, Pietro Coletta, Dadamaino, Alberto Garutti, Marco Gastini, Paolo Icaro, Jannis Kounellis, Vittorio Matino, Eliseo Mattiacci, Mario Merz, Maurizio Mochetti, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Claudio Olivieri, Giulio Paolini, Claudio Parmiggiani, Sergio Sermidi, Giuseppe Spagnulo, Gilberto Zorio, the exhibition was staged at the Power Gallery, University of Sydney, and the University Art Museum, University of Queensland. Profusely illustrated throughout with accompanying texts in English, biographical notes and bibliography.
Very Good copy.
1971, German
Softcover, 464 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
DuMont / Köln
$85.00 - Out of stock
Huge, densely-illustrated volume compiled by German publisher/editor/essayist/curator Walter Aue, who worked closely with conceptual and performance artists in the 1960s-1970s. Laid-out by Aue himself, the book feels like a very natural scrap-book compendium of artist contributions, reproducing artworks, documentation of happenings, texts, photographs, diagrams, collages, news-clippings, instructions, etc. across over 450 pages, with Aue's type-written opening essay and cataloguing throughout. Features the most notable conceptual, actionist and performance artists of the period, spanning Fluxus, Arte Povera, radical architecture, Nouveau Realisme, etc. including Dieter Rot, Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson, Pino Pascali, Stanley Brouwn, Jannis Kounellis, Klaus Rinke, Ben Vautier, Al Hansen, Walter Pichler, Hilla and Bernhard Becher, Giuseppe Penone, Ettore Sottsass, Gilbert and George, Walter De Maria, Wolf Vostell, Hans Hollein, Imi Knoebel, Barry Flanagan, Allan Kaprow, Carolee Schneemann, Hamish Fulton, Christo, Elfriede Jelinek, Dennis Oppenheim, Urs Lüthi, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Rühm, Blink Palermo, Lawrence Weiner, Ed Ruscha, HA Schult, Hermann Nitsch, James Lee Byars, Jan Dibbets, Jochen Gerz, Mauricio Kagel, Nam June Paik, Otto Mühl, Arnulf Rainer, Jan Voss, George Brecht, Robert Filliou, Franz Erhard Walther, Timm Ulrichs, Daniel Spoerri, Erich Reusch, Paul Pechter, Rainer Giese, Jörg Immendorff, Henning Christiansen, Gilberto Zorio, Panamarenko, Joseph Kosuth, Dan Graham, Dick Higgins, Ian Baxter, Mel Bochner, Haus-Rucker-Co, Markus Raetz, Sottsass, Nam June Paik, Hans Haacke, Tetsumi Kudo, Bruce Mclean, On Kawara, and so many more.
Depending on the artist, texts are in English, German, Dutch, etc. Opening essay in German.
Very Good, light wear/tear to top spine.
1984, English
Softcover, 342 pages, 270 x 280 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
U.M.I. Research Press / Michigan
$50.00 - Out of stock
Softcover edition of "LOOKING CRITICALLY: 21 YEARS OF ARTFORUM MAGAZINE", the heavy 342 page volume anthology of the first 21 years of the world's most important modern and art journal. An incredibly valuable collection of art theory.
Edited by Amy Baker Sandback, designed by Roger Gorman and Mary Beath and published in 1984 by U.M.I. Research Press, this dense volume, bound in hardcover to the dimensions of a copy of ARTFORUM, begins with an Ed Kienholz review at the Ferus Gallery from ARTFORUM's June 1962 inaugural issue, and ends with Barbara Kruger reviewing the film "TRON" for the November 1982 issue. An amazing compendium of articles and reviews from the magazine's important first 21 years, featuring contributions by the likes of John Cage, Robert Morris, Kate Steinitz, Henry T. Hopkins, Don Factor, Robert Pincus-Witten, Dennis Adrian, John Coplans, Hilton Kramer, Harold Rosenberg, Henry Geldzahler, John Cage, Walter Hopps, Ed Ruscha, Allan Kaprow, Robert Rosenblum, Dan Flavin, Boris Groys, Sam Wagstaff, Billy Kluver, Lucy R. Lippard, Robert Rosenblum, Roger Shattuck, Ad Reinhardt, Mel Bochner, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Barbara Rose, Manny Farber, Michael Fried, Robert Morris, Philip Leider, Hollis Frampton, Carl Andre, Richard Serra, Lawrence Alloway, Barbara Kruger, Jane Livingston, Lizzie Borden, Kenneth Baker, Laurie Anderson, Agnes Martin, Cindy Nemser, Sidney Tillim, Annette Michelson, Rosalind Krauss, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Roberta Smith, Peter Plagens, Peter Schjeldahl, J. Hoberman, Hal Foster, Richard Flood, Carter Ratcliff, Stuart Morgan, Max Kozloff, Donald Kuspit, Dan Graham, Walter De Maria, Komar & Melamid, Edit De Ak, Lawrence Weiner, Kathy Acker, Robert Mapplethorpe, Anselm Kiefer, Thomas McEvilley, Louise Bourgeois, Ingrid Sischy, and too many more to list. Artists featured include: Josef Albers, Richard Tuttle, Jo Baer, Carl Andre, Ant Farm, Hans Arp, Max Bill, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Lee Bontecou, Constantin Brancusi, Bertholt Brecht, Richard Avedon, Francis Bacon, Diane Arbus, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Lynda Beglis, Larry Bell, Terry Fox, James Byers, Rober Barry, Marcel Breuer, AA Bronson, Luis Buñel, Daniel Buren, Chris Burden, Joseph Beuys, Anthony Caro, Marcel Broodthaers, John Chamberlain, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Merce Cunningham, Sonia Delauney, Walter de Maria, Bruce Connor, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Walker Evans, Dan Flavin, Marcel Duchamp, Albrecht Dürer, Lucio Fontana, Hollis Frampton, Alberto Giacometti, Eva Hesse, Gilbert & George, Philip Glass, John Cage, Nancy Graves, Dan Graham, Robert Grosvenor, Nancy Grossman, Walter Gropius, Hans Haacke, Hairy Who, David Hockney, Douglas Huebler, Jorg Immendorff, Donald Judd, Jasper Johns, Joan Jonas, Allan Kaprow, On Kawara, Ellsworth Kelly, Edward Keinholz, Paul Klee, Alison Knowles, Joseph Kosuth, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, André Masson, Henri Matisse, Roberto Matta, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Barbara Kruger, Jannis Kounellis, Markus Lüpertz, El Lissitzky, Rene Magritte, Robert Mapplethorpe, John McCracken, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Robert Motherwell, Ree Morton, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Eduardo Paolozzio, A. R. Penck, Irving Penn, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Larry Poons, Ken Price, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Martial Raysse, Roman Polanski, Jackson Pollock, Steve Reich, Gerrit Rietveld, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Dorothae Rockburne, James Rosenquist, Mark Rothko, Robert Ryman, Lucas Samaras, Kurt Schwitters, Oscar Schlemmer, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, David Smith, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Robert Venturi, Wolf Vostell, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Saul Steinberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bruno Taut, Jean Tinguely, Anne Truitt, Paul Wunderlich, Lawrence Weiner, Louise Bourgeois, Alfred Hitchcock, and so many more.
A Good copy throughout, with cover rubbing and corner bumping. Tightly bound and clean copy internally.
2007, English / Italian
Softcover, 285 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Published by
Corraini / Italy
$90.00 - Out of stock
The critical catalogue raisonné of artist's books from the Arte Povera movement 1966-1980, compiled by Giorgio Maffei.
Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio: the protagonists of the most important Italian artistic movement after World War II are presented not through "traditional" works, but from the point of privileged view of their editorial production. Artist books conceived, constructed and reinvented as works "in itself", some of them with a programmatic value that makes them extremely important for the comprehension of the whole movement. A rich and in-depth introduction transversely analyzes the current of Arte Povera for people, times, places and texts, while each artist is presented individually through the review of their books and personal exhibitions, richly illustrated with the documents described. This generous volume is completed by an accurate chronology of collective exhibitions (1966-2005) and a vast bibliography of essays and articles that appeared in books and art magazines (1966-2006).
"The task this book faces is to provide news, data, and stories through documents, if not certain, at least considered reliable, and to overcome the temptation to penetrate events and present them in the simplest way possible." - from Giorgio Maffei's introduction.
Text in English and Italian.
1987, English
Softcover, 44 pages, 25.4 X 17.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Kent Fine Art Inc. / New York
$40.00 - Out of stock
Long out of print catalogue published to accompany the exhibition "Assemblage", at Kent Fine Art, New York, May 12-July 2,1987.
Assemblage is an attempt to explore and address the development of assemblage from its beginnings in Dada, with an eye towards the future in a historical climate of developing interest in minimalism and conceptualism. Addressing the West Coast propensity to recycle emotionally-charged detritus, the works in this exhibition reveal an ongoing relevancy of the synthesized by-product, which continues to shape different artist’s personal languages. Including works by: Edward Kienholtz, Bruce Conner, Llyn Foulkes, Arman, Jean Arp, Wallace Berman, Louis Bourgeois, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, Max Erst, Eva Hesse, Ed & Nancy Keinholz, Jannis Kounellis, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg, Kurt Schwitters, Dorothea Tanning, Tom Wesselmann, and others. Works selected and compiled by D.K. Walla. Includes full page bio, plus double-page plate spread in full-colour for each artist.
First, only edition.
1998, German
Hardcover, 366 pages, 22.5 x 31 cm
1st German edition, Out of print title / used / very good,
Published by
Hatje Cantz / Berlin
$70.00 - Out of stock
The long out-of-print heavyweight "Out of Actions" book (First German hardcover edition) that was published to accompany the spectacular 1998 Paul Schimmel-curated travelling exhibition. "Out of Actions" surveyed the broad international history and influence of post-war Performance Art, and the objects that exist today as its documentation. It features significant texts by Schimmel, Kristine Stiles, Guy Brett, Hubert Klocker, Shinichiro Osaki, Leslie King-Hammond and Lowery Stokes Sims, and Keiko Okamura.
This important and heavily researched document is lavishly illustrated throughout in colour and black and white, capturing the work and actions of the artists featured in the exhibition and essays: Marina Abramovic, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Vito Acconci, Genpei Akasegawa, Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, Rasheed Arseen, Mowry Baden, Artur Barrio, Joseph Beuys, Mark Boyle and Joan Hills, George Brecht, Stuart Brisley, Robert Delford Brown, Gunter Brus, Chris Burden, James Lee Byars, John Cage, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Lygia Clark, Pinchas Cohen Gan, Collective Action Group, Houston Conwill, Paul Cotton, COUM Transmissions, Guy de Cointet, Jim Dine, John Duncan, Felipe Ehrenberg, Roberto Evangelista, Valie Export, Robert Filliou, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Sherman Fleming, Lucio Fontana, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Gideon Gechtman, Gilbert & George, Alberto Greco, Ion Grigorescu, Victor Grippo, Red Grooms, Guerrilla Art Action Group, David Hammons, Al Hansen, Maren Hassinger, Lynn Hershman, Dick Higgins, Tatsumi Hijikata, Susan Hiller, Rebecca Horn, Tehching Hsieh, Joan Jonas, Kim Jones, Michel Journiac, Akira Kanayama, Tadeusz Kantor, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley, Juergen Klauke, Yves Klein, Milan Knizak, Alison Knowles, Komar & Melamid, Jannis Kounellis, Shigeko Kubota, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Leslie Labowitz, Suzanne Lacy, John Latham, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Lea Lublin, George Maciunas, Leopoldo Maier, Piero Manzoni, Tom Marioni, Georges Mathieu, Gordon Matta-Clark, Paul McCarthy, Bruce McLean, David Medalla, Cildo Meireles, Ana Mendieta, Gustav Metzger, Marta Minujin, Jan Micoch, Linda Montano, Robert Morris, Otto Muehl, Saburo Murakami, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Bruce Nauman, Paul Neagu, Senga Nengudi, Joshua Neustein, Hermann Nitsch, Helio Oiticica, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Orlan, Raphael Montanez Ortiz, Lorenzo Pace, Nam June Paik, Gina Pane, Lygia Pape, Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jackson Pollock, William Pope L., Robert Rauschenberg, Carlyle Reedy, Klaus Rinke, Ulrike Rosenbach, Dieter Roth, Zorka Saglova, Niki de Saint Phalle, Alfons Schilling, Tomas Schmit, Carolee Schneemann, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Bonnie Sherk, Shozo Shimamoto, Ushio Shinohara, Kazuo Shiraga, Barbara T. Smith, Daniel Spoerri, Petr Stembera, Wolfgang Stoerchle, Jiro Takamatsu, Atsuko Tanaka, Mark Thompson, Jean Tinguely, Rasa Todosijevic, Kerry Trengove, Ulay, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Franz Erhard Walther, Peter Weibel, Franz West, Hannah Wilke, Emmett Williams, and Zaj.
Scarce first German edition, published by Hatje Cantz.