World Food Books

The Erotic Doll : A Modern Fetish
by Marquard Smith

2013, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 376 pages, 16.5 x 22.9 cm
Published by Yale University Press / New Haven

$120.00 - In stock -

ince the 19th century, dolls have served as toys but also as objects of obsession, love, and lust. That century witnessed the emergence of the term "heterosexual" and of modern concepts of fetishism, perversity, and animism. Their convergence, and the demands of a growing consumer society resulted in a proliferation of waxworks, shop-window dummies, and customized love dolls, which also began to appear in art. Oskar Kokoschka commissioned a life-sized doll of his former lover Alma Mahler; Hans Bellmer crafted poupées; and Marcel Duchamp fabricated a nude figure in his environmental tableau Etant donnés. The Erotic Doll is the first book to explore men's complex relationships with such inanimate forms from historical, theoretical, and phenomenological perspectives. Challenging our commonsense grasp of the relations between persons and things, Marquard Smith examines these erotically charged human figures by interweaving art history, visual culture, gender, and sexuality studies with the medical humanities, offering startling insights into heterosexual masculinity and its discontents.

‘Ladies and gents, welcome to the museum of the erotic doll. Step right up and feast your eyes on modern man’s curious contraptions. If the saucy blow-up doll makes you squeamish, brace yourself for the Dutch Wife (a sailor’s delight!), lubricating robot ladies, surrealist brides stripped bare, state-of-the-art RealDolls, and the iDollators who love them. Marquard Smith is the curator of this collection of men's dolls, rendered in a lavishly illustrated volume.’—Laura Frost, Times Higher Education

'This book is platypus-like, unclassifiable.'—Marina Warner, London Review of Books

“[An] intriguing book . . . Smith teases out the history of these sex objects to provide a thorough genealogy of today’s erotic mannequins.”—Shelly Ronen, Public Books

File under: Oskar Kokoschka Hans Bellmer Marcel Duchamp Marquard Smith Yale University Press / New Haven Surrealism Art Sculpture / Installation Theory / Essay Film / Video Dada Eros LGBTQ+ Photography Painting Performance / Dance / Theater

The Readymade Boomerang: Certain Relations in 20th Century Art
The 8th Biennale of Sydney 1990

1990, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 512 pages, 29.5 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Biennale of Sydney / Sydney

$120.00 - In stock -

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First edition of the incredible (huge) catalogue published to accompany the 8th Biennale of Sydney 1990 "The Readymade Boomerang: Certain Relations in 20th Century Art", held 11 April-3 June 1990 in Sydney across various venues. The eighth Biennale began from ‘a trio of Dada originators’: Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Francis Picabia. A large number of artists across generations joined these key figures in Artistic Director René Block’s exploration of the ‘readymade’ in twentieth-century art, which aimed to highlight ‘its invention and pure use by Duchamp, to its resurgence in Nouveau Realism, Pop Art, and Fluxus of the 60s, all the way to new versions by young contemporary artists’. Pop, fluxus and conceptual artists such as Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, Joseph Beuys, John Cage, Alison Knowles, César, George Brecht, Nam Jun Paik and Piero Manzoni were shown alongside Rosemarie Trockel, John Nixon, Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden, Janet Burchill, Peter Tyndall, Robert Rooney, Rosalie Gascoigne, Cindy Sherman, Bruce Nauman, Hans Haacke, Rebecca Horn, Sophie Calle, Jeff Koons, Allan Kaprow, Jenny Holzer, Robert Gober, Jill Scott, Bill Culbert, Stanley Brouwn, Peter Cripps, Terry Fox, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Fischli & Weiss, KP Brehmer, Sigmar Polke, Dieter Rot, Hanne Darboven, Robert MacPherson, Jackie Redgate, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Bloom, Oyvind Fahlstrom, amongst so many others. The industrial Bond Store at Millers Point featured site-specific works by artists such as Olaf Metzel and Simone Mangos, and several works were created on-site in Sydney, amplifying Block’s notion of the Biennale as a ‘workshop’. A comprehensive satellite program of music, performance, lectures, symposia, workshops and exhibitions at various Sydney venues complemented the exhibition, with Carles Santos’ piano recital on a barge in Sydney Harbour a highlight. Five satellite exhibitions included On Kawara, Joseph Beuys, Alain Fleischer, Fluxus and Broken Record, which featured artist’s experimentations with audio recordings, vinyl and album artwork – from John Cage’s 33 1/3 composition for 12 record players to Milan Knížák’s record-collages.

An incredible Sydney biennale, captured here across over 500 pages conceived and realised by René Block and Jennifer Cook - profusely illustrated with examples of all artists works and accompanying texts throughout by Lynne Cooke, Bernice Murphy, Anne Marie Freybourg, Dick Higgins, René Block and Jennifer Cook. Very Good copy with only general wear/ageing. Bright and clean, includes tanned original dust jacket now preserved under plastic wrap.

Having represented Beuys, Richter and Polke, German gallery owner, art publisher, art collector and curator René Block (born 1942) ranks among the central figures of the 1960s avant-garde.

Very Good copy with original dust jacket. Common tanning to dust jacket spine, now preserved under mylar wrap.

File under: Marcel Duchamp Man Ray Francis Picabia Andy Warhol Richard Hamilton Marcel Broodthaers Joseph Beuys John Cage Alison Knowles César George Brecht Bruce Nauman Hans Haacke Rebecca Horn Sophie Calle Jeff Koons Rosemarie Trockel John Nixon Ian Burn Janet Burchill Peter Tyndall Robert Rooney Allan Kaprow Jenny Holzer Robert Gober Jill Scott Stanley Brouwn Peter Cripps Terry Fox Ian Hamilton Finlay Fischli & Weiss Sigmar Polke Dieter Rot Hanne Darboven Robert MacPherson Ed Ruscha Barbara Bloom Carles Santos Milan Knížák On Kawara Alain Fleischer Öyvind Fahlström K. P. Brehmer Jacky Redgate Nam June Paik Cindy Sherman Piero Manzoni Rosalie Gascoigne Arman Olaf Metzel Shigeko Kubota Allan McCollum Panamarenko Stephen Prina Markus Raetz Edward Ruscha Reiner Ruthenbeck Sarkis Michael Snow Ken Unsworth Ben Vautier Robert Watts Lawrence Weiner David Weiss Emmett Williams Raymond Hains Bill Henson Tony Cragg Stan Douglas Christian Boltanski Dale Frank Jennifer Bolande Bill Culbert Zvi Goldstein Mel Ramsden Anne Zahalka George Maciunas Richard Dunn Milan Knizak Rainer Ruthenbeck Ger van Elk Derek Kreckler Dennis Adams Mimmo Rotella Rémy Zaugg Yoshi Wada Arthur Køpcke Stuart Sherman Henning Christiansen René Block Jennifer Cook Lynne Cooke Bernice Murphy Anne Marie Freybourg Dick Higgins Biennale of Sydney / Sydney Art Group Shows / Collections Out-of-print / Rare Australian Art Conceptual Art Fluxus Feminism Film / Video Minimal Art Performance / Dance / Theater Painting Photography Sculpture / Installation Sound / Music Surrealism Poetry Dada Curatorial Arte Povera Pop Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic

Passages in Modern Sculpture
by Rosalind E. Krauss

1977, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 308 pages, 24 x 16 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Thames and Hudson / London

$70.00 - In stock -

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First 1977 hardcover edition of Passages in Modern Sculpture, Rosalind E. Krauss classic study of major works by important sculptors since Rodin in the light of different approaches to general sculptural issues to reveal the logical progressions from nineteenth-century figurative works to the conceptual work of the present.

"...Krauss's book is undoubtedly the best treatment of its subject yet written. As a textbook, it ought to raise the level of discourse in art history classes, for it is the meaning, not the chronology, of sculpture since Rodin that is the book's central concern. Krauss avoids the conventional plodding survey and divides the book into a sequence of 'case studies' that permit sustained attention to specific works and artists. In so doing, she attempts to trace a 'tradition' to stand behind that portion of American sculpture of the past 15 years which she espouses critically."—Art in America

"Distinguished art historian and critic Rosalind Krauss analyzes with exceptional clarity and insight the major works that have led 20th century sculpture from the traditional and figurative to the revolutionary conceptual art of the 1970s—an art which has developed a new 'syntax' that discards 'narrative' for instantaneous impact and boldly breaks new ground. Beginning with a penetrating study of Rodin's modernity in rejecting 'narrative' in his 'The Gates of Hell,' she moves successively through detailed examinations of futurism, constructivism, Duchamps' 'readymades,' Brancusi, David Smith's 'Tanktotem,' sculptural realism, and the introduction of light, motion, and theatrical elements into sculpture by Picabia, Calder, Oldenburg, and others right up to younger sculptors like Carl Andre, Blochner, and others [including Robert Morris, Don Judd, Richard Serra, Sol Le Witt, Robert Smithson, and Michael Heizer]. As critic and theorist, Krauss makes demands that will challenge even the most sophisticated."—Publishers Weekly

Rosalind E. Krauss, editor and cofounder of October magazine, is University Professor at Columbia University. She is the author of The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, The Optical Unconscious, Bachelors, and Perpetual Inventory, all published by the MIT Press.

Very Good in VG dust jacket designed by Krauss with interior architect Alan Buchsbaum!

File under: Marcel Duchamp Rodin Francis Picabia Calder Oldenburg Carl Andre Mel Blochner Robert Morris Don Judd Richard Serra Sol Le Witt Robert Smithson Michael Heizer Seymour Lipton Herbert Ferber David Smith John Chamberlain Isamu Noguchi Beverly Pepper Vladimir Tatlin Naum Gabo Constantin Brancusi Constantin Brâncuși Man Ray Alberto Giacometti Salvador Dalí Joseph Cornell René Magritte Louise Nevelson Barbara Hepworth Eva Hesse Joel Shapiro Alexander Calder Pol Bury Jean Tinguely Hans Haacke Anthony Caro Tim Scott László Moholy-Nagy Pablo Picasso Marcel Jean Rosalind E. Krauss Thames and Hudson / London Sculpture / Installation Conceptual Art Minimal Art Feminism Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Art Pop Art Surrealism Dada Arte Povera Bauhaus Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic

ENCYCLOPEDIA ACEPHALICA
GEORGES BATAILLE, MICHEL LEIRIS, MARCEL GRIAULE, ROBERT DESNOS ...

1996, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 23 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by Atlas Press / London

$85.00 - Out of stock

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First edition of the incredible and sadly long out-of-print Encyclopedia Acephalica, published by Atlas Press in 1996 as part of their mighty Atlas Arkhive : Documents of the Avant Garde series.

Bataille’s thought is complex, and his books make few concessions to the reader. The first series of texts here, however, were written for a wider audience by Bataille and his friends, in the form of a Critical Dictionary, and they provide a witty, poetic and concise introduction to his ideas. The Dictionary appeared in the magazine edited by Bataille, Documents, in the early 1930s, and includes entries from prominent ethnologists and cultural commentators of the day. The second series of texts here, the Da Costa Encyclopédique was published anonymously after the liberation of Paris in 1947 by members of the Acéphale group and writers associated with the Surrealists. Both cover the essential concepts of Bataille and his associates: sacred sociology; scatology, death and the erotic; base materialism; the aesthetics of the formless; sacrifice, the festival and the politics of the tumult etc: a new description of the limits of being human. Humour, albeit, sardonic, is not absent from these remarkable redefinitions of the most heterogeneous objects or ideas: Camel, Church, Dust, Museum, Spittle, Skyscraper, Threshold, Work – to name but a few.

While the Documents group was celebrated for joining together artists, authors, sociologists and ethnologists (among the most important of their time) in a literary and philosophical project, the Acéphale group was more mysterious. Until recently even its membership was only vaguely known, and its activities remained secret (these are explored in detail for the first time in English in The Sacred Conspiracy, published by Atlas Press, also available at World Food Books). The origins of the Da Costa only became known in 1993, the present volume revealed for the first time its principal compilers: Robert Lebel, Isabelle Waldberg and Marcel Duchamp, but the identity of the authors of a large part of it is still unknown.

Texts by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Carl Einstein, Robert Desnos and writers associated with the Acéphale and Surrealist groups.

Introduced by Alastair Brotchie. Translated by Iain White, Dominic Faccini, Annette Michelson, John Harman, Alexis Lykiard.

Average—Good, cover with edge and corner wear and some some damages from spine sticker removal, fuzzed corners, otherwise Good pre-loved copy throughout.

File under: Isabelle Waldberg Pierre Klossowski André Masson Marcel Duchamp Jean Painlevé Eli Lotar Alastair Brotchie Iain White Dominic Faccini Annette Michelson John Harman Alexis Lykiard Pierre Klossowski Georges Bataille Michel Leiris Marcel Griaule Carl Einstein Robert Desnos Atlas Press / London Surrealism Occult / Esoterica Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Philosophy Eros Art

Archive of Dreams: Surrealist Impulses, Networks, and Vision

2024, English
Softcover, 328 pages, 21 x 28 cm
Published by Spector Books / Leipzig

$110.00 - In stock -

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The book Archive of Dreams is published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name that will open the Archiv der Avantgarden. Marking the hundredth anniversary of the first surrealist manifesto and the founding of the Bureau of Surrealist Research in Paris in 1924, the volume is dedicated to the surrealist movement as well as the networks it engendered and the artistic stimuli it provided in the twentieth century. The idea was for the Bureau to collect dream testimonies in whatever form, not only to preserve and analyse them but also to give active expression to them in artistic processes. The publication shows how the practices of the avantgardes blurred the boundaries between dream and reality, between the traditional, passive notion of the archive and the idea of active, innovative artistic experiment — and thus ultimately also between the past, the present, and possible futures.

Works and documents from the period before, during, and after the Second World War shed light on the working methods of international artists and the global network they were involved in. They are complemented by diverse reflections on global protest movements and the traumas of war, thus connecting, too, to everyday experiences in a Europe beset by warfare.

File under: Salvador Dalí Max Ernst Marcel Duchamp Hans Bellmer Yves Tanguy Man Ray Unica Zürn Toyen Kurt Seligmann Carolee Schneeman Carolee Schneemann René Magritte Alexander Calder Diego Giacometti Leonora Carrington Egidio Marzona Marion Ackermann Rudolf Fischer Przemysław Strożek Friederike Fast David Wittinghofer Author Erin McClenathan Kristoffer Noheden Sven Spieker Abigail Susik David Wittinghofer Georges Bataille Marcel Duchamp André Breton Guillaume Apollinaire Michel Leiris Louis Aragon Spector Books / Leipzig Surrealism Dada Art Painting Sculpture / Installation Fiction / Poetry Theory / Essay Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art

Broken Music

1989, English / German / French
Softcover (w. flexi-disc), 280 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Daadgalerie / Berlin Gelbe Musik / Berlin

$280.00 - In stock -

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Rare first 1989 edition of Broken Music, an essential compendium for records created by visual artists. Complete with original flexi-disc. The publication was edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier and published in 1989 by DAAD and Gelbe Musik, Berlin. Broken Music focuses on recordings, record-objects, artwork for records, and record installations made by thousands of artists between WWII and 1989.

It also includes essays by both editors as well as Theodor W. Adorno, René Block, Jean Dubuffet, Milan Knizak, László Moholy-Nagy, Christiane Seiffert, and Hans Rudolf Zeller, as well as a flexi disc of the Arditti Quartet performing Knizak’s “Broken Music.” The centerpiece of the publication is a nearly 200-page bibliography of artists’ records.

Works chosen for the publication revolved around four criteria: (1) record covers created as original work by visual artists; (2) record or sound-producing objects (multiples/editions/sculptures); (3) books and publications that contain a record or recorded-media object; and (4) records or recorded media that have sound by visual artists.

Artists documented in the volume include Vito Acconci, albrecht/d., Laurie Anderson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Karel Appel, Arman, Hans Arp, Antonin Artaud, John Baldessari, Hugo Ball, Claus van Bebber, John Bender, Harry Bertoia, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Claus Böhmler, Christian Boltanski, KP Brehmer, William Burroughs, John Cage, Henri Chopin, Henning Christiansen, Jean Cocteau, William Copley, Philip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Hanne Darboven, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Fischli and Weiss, R. Buckminster Fuller, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Jack Goldstein, Peter Gordon, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Bernard Heidsieck, Holger Hiller, Richard Huelsenbeck, Isidore Isou, Marcel Janco, Servie Janssen, Jasper Johns, Joe Jones, Thomas Kapielski, Allan Kaprow, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Cheri Knight, Milan Knizak, Richard Kriesche, Christina Kubisch, Laibach, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Annea Lockwood, Paul McCarthy, Meredith Monk, Josef Felix Müller, Piotr Nathan, Hermann Nitsch, Albert Oehlen, Frank O’Hara, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, A.R. Penck, Tom Phillips, Robert Rauschenberg, The Red Crayola, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Gerhard Richter, Jim Rosenquist, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Robert Rutman, Sarkis, Thomas Schmit, Conrad Schnitzler, Kurt Schwitters, Selten Gehörte Musik, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Strafe für Rebellion, Jean Tinguely, Moniek Toebosch, Tristan Tzara, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, Emmett Walsh, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, and Lawrence Weiner.

Ursula Block is a curator living in Berlin, Germany. From 1981 until 2014, she ran gelbe Musik, a gallery and record shop in Berlin that featured work by artists at the crossroads between music and art. She was married to curator René Block.

Michael Glasmeier is a professor, writer, and editor living in Berlin, Germany. Since the early 1980s, he has curated dozens of shows that explore the intersection between the visual arts, music, film, and language.

Very Good copy all-round, light cover/corner wear.

File under: ×Vito Acconci albrecht/d. Laurie Anderson Karel Appel Arman Antonin Artaud John Baldessari Hugo Ball Claus van Bebber John Bender Harry Bertoia Jean-Pierre Bertrand Joseph Beuys Mel Bochner Claus Böhmler Christian Boltanski John Cage Henri Chopin Henning Christiansen Jean Cocteau William Copley Philip Corner Merce Cunningham Hanne Darboven Jim Dine Marcel Duchamp Max Ernst Lawrence Ferlinghetti Buckminster Fuller Fischli & Weiss Peter Fischli Peter Fischli & David Weiss David Weiss Allen Ginsberg Philip Glass Jack Goldstein Peter Gordon Hans Haacke Richard Hamilton Bernard Heidsieck Holger Hiller Richard Huelsenbeck Isidore Isou Marcel Janco Servie Janssen Jasper Johns Joe Jones Thomas Kapielski Allan Kaprow Martin Kippenberger Per Kirkeby Cheri Knight Milan Knizak Richard Kriesche Christina Kubisch Laibach John Lennon Sol Lewitt Roy Lichtenstein Annea Lockwood Paul McCarthy Meredith Monk Josef Felix Müller Piotr Nathan Hermann Nitsch Albert Oehlen Frank O’Hara Claes Oldenburg Yoko Ono Dennis Oppenheim Nam June Paik Charlemagne Palestine A.R. Penck Tom Phillips Robert Rauschenberg The Red Crayola Ursula Reuter Christiansen Gerhard Richter Jim Rosenquist Dieter Roth Gerhard Rühm Robert Rutman Sarkis Thomas Schmit Conrad Schnitzler Kurt Schwitters Selten Gehörte Musik Richard Serra Robert Smithson Michael Snow Keith Sonnier Strafe für Rebellion Jean Tinguely Moniek Toebosch Tristan Tzara Ben Vautier Yoshi Wada Emmett Walsh Andy Warhol William Wegman Lawrence Weiner Jean Arp (Hans Arp) K. P. Brehmer William S. Burroughs Theodor W. Adorno René Block Jean Dubuffet Milan Knizak László Moholy-Nagy Christiane Seiffert Hans Rudolf Zeller Ursula Block Michael Glasmeier Daadgalerie / Berlin Gelbe Musik / Berlin Art Conceptual Art Performance / Dance / Theater Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Counterculture Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections Curatorial Theory / Essay Fluxus Arte Povera Pop Art Sound / Music Dada Minimal Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Bauhaus Objects / Ephemera / A/V

Francis Picabia
1999/2000 & 391

1999, English / French / Japanese
Two-volume softcover bookset in curregated cardboard slip-case, 120 pages & 220 pages (colour and b&w ill. throughout), 18 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by APT International / Tokyo Isetan Museum of Art / Tokyo

$250.00 $160.00 - Out of stock

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First Edition of this comprehensive, beautifully produced Japanese two-volume publication on the life and work of the great French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist, Francis Picabia.

Published by APT International in 1999 for a major Japanese travelling exhibition on Francis Picabia, starting at the Isetan Museum of Art in Tokyo in 1999, then to Fukushima and Osaka throughout 1999-2000.

Two Volumes bound in french-fold wraps, beautifully kept fine volumes, both housed in protective corrugated cardboard slip-case with scarlet label wrapped around spine. Slipcase itself is now protected under plastic sleeve.

First volume (226 page) forms a comprehensive retrospective of Picabia's life and prolific and defying work across painting, drawing, printing, poetry and film. Extensive colour and b&w reproductions of a vast collection of his painting, illustration and publishing projects are presented alongside a folio of his poems and drawings, plus photo documentation of his studio and private/social life. Also includes a biography and bibliography, as well as an insightful conversation between Olga Picabia (Francis Picabia's widow), Pierre Calté (director of Comité Picabia), Hans Ulrich Obrist (independent curator) and Stefan Banz (independent curator), about Picabia's life (text in English and Japanese). Introductory essays in Japanese and French by Beverley Calte and Arnauld Pierre.

Second volume (120 pages) "391" is a very special book made up of collated facsimiles of the 19 issues of Picabia's famous Dada periodical, "391", dating 1917-1924.
391 first appeared in January 1917 in Barcelona, published and edited by Picabia, assisted in assembling by Olga Sacharoff, a Georgian emigre residing in Barcelona. The title of the magazine derives from Alfred Stieglitz's New York periodical 291 (to which Picabia had contributed), and bore no relation to its contents. Despite Picabia's renown as an artist, it was mostly literary in content, with a wide-ranging aggressive tone, possibly influenced by Alfred Jarry and Apollinaire. There were contributions by two men new to Dada: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. However 391 remained essentially the expression of the inventive, energetic and wealthy Picabia, who stated of it: "Every page must explode, whether through seriousness, profundity, turbulence, nausea, the new, the eternal, annihilating nonsense, enthusiasm for principles, or the way it is printed. Art must be unaesthetic in the extreme, useless and impossible to justify."

Francis Picabia (22 January 1879 – 30 November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism. His highly abstract planar compositions were colourful and rich in contrasts. He was one of the early major figures of the Dada movement in the United States and in France. His was later briefly associated with Surrealism, but would soon turn his back on the art establishment.

Very Good copy.

File under: Francis Picabia Man Ray Marcel Duchamp Arnauld Pierre Beverley Calte Francis Picabia Hans Ulrich Obrist Stefan Banz APT International / Tokyo Isetan Museum of Art / Tokyo Art Dada Out-of-print / Rare Painting Drawing Surrealism Fiction / Poetry SALE

Noise War
by Masami Akita (Merzbow)

1992, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 238 pages, 22 x16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Seikyūsha / Tokyo

$200.00 - Out of stock

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MB, Negativland, SPK, Nocturnal Emissions, Werkbund, Asmus Tietchens, Monte Cazazza, Throbbing Gristle, William S. Burroughs, Aleister Crowley, COME, Whitehouse, Esplendor Geometico, Lustmord, Ramleh, Club Moral, Mail Music, The Hafler Trio, Organum, The New Blockaders, Etant Donnes, Pirate Radios, P16.D4, S.B.O.T.H.I., Anti Records, Gum, Trax, MC5, Gordon Mumma, Boyd Rice / NON, Vagina Dentata Organ, The Haters, RRR Records, Schimpfluch, Entre Vifs, Moholy Nagy, Luigi Russolo, Carcass....

First (only) hardcover edition of the seldom seen and highly coveted "Noise War", written by Merzbow's Masami Akita and published only in Japan in 1992. Long out-of-print, "Noise War" surveys 10 years of noise, tracing developments and interests in the work of Burroughs and Crowley into the the birth of industrial music, power electronics, experimental noise and noise art/performance, bionic noise, metal alchemy, noise electronics, anti-information and avant-garde radio, mail art, noise collage/exchange music, media attack, record destruction, ambient noise, and much more, delving into the work of keys artists and record labels from all over the world within the survey period, but also influential historical figures. Heavily illustrated throughout in black and white with record sleeves, posters, photographs, and finishes with Akita's compiled noise record list.

Merzbow is a noise project created in Tokyo, Japan in 1979 under the direction of noise technician Masami Akita. As well as a legendary underground noise artist, Akita is a prolific writer in Japan and frequently writes on the arts, music, erotica, esoterica, modern architecture, and animal rights, with articles on emerging subcultures and underground extreme cultures appearing in publications like SM Sniper, Studio Voice and Fool's Mate. His development of the Merzbow aesthetic ran parallel with a series of investigative books in which he catalogued and introduced a vast amount of hermetic types of music, sexual practices and autonomous creativity to a fairly conservative (but not close-minded) Japanese audience. "Noise War" is the most sought after of these very books.

Japanese text, fine copy with fine metallic endpapers, metallic illustrated hardcovers, and illustrated dust jacket. Tight with little-to-no wear.

File under: Masami Akita (Merzbow) László Moholy-Nagy Marcel Duchamp Negativland SPK Nocturnal Emissions Werkbund Asmus Tietchens Monte Cazazza Throbbing Gristle William S. Burroughs Aleister Crowley COME Whitehouse Esplendor Geometico Lustmord Ramleh Club Moral Mail Music The Hafler Trio Organum The New Blockaders Etant Donnes Pirate Radios P16.D4 S.B.O.T.H.I. Anti Records Gum Trax MC5 Gordon Mumma Boyd Rice / NON Vagina Dentata Organ The Haters RRR Records Schimpfluch Entre Vifs Moholy Nagy Luigi Russolo Carcass Boyd Rice Maurizio Bianchi (MB) MB (Maurizio Bianchi) Masami Akita (Merzbow) William S. Burroughs Aleister Crowley Seikyūsha / Tokyo Sound / Music Theory / Essay Art Performance / Dance / Theater Dada

Dada: Art and Anti-Art
by Hans Richter

1965, English
Softcover, 246 pages, 20.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Harry N. Abrams / New York

$30.00 - Out of stock

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First 1965 English edition of German Dada painter, graphic artist, avant-garde film producer, and art historian, Hans Richter's important book of the Dada movement. "Where and how Dada began is almost as difficult to determine as Homer's birthplace" writes Hans Richter, who was associated with Dada from its early days. The noted artist and film-maker records here the history of that boisterous and fantastic movement, from its beginnings in wartime Zurich to its collapse in the Paris of the 1920s Dada invited the world to misunderstand it and fostered all kinds of confusion; nearly fifty years later its contradictions still intrigue us.

By skilful quotation from manifestoes and other documents of the time Professor Richter re-creates the events of those turbulent days. Looked at in retrospect Dada's role in the development of modern art seems inevitable, and the creative force of its planned outbursts can now be perceived: Dada led on from Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism, and in its turn prepared the way for Surrealism. Dada was enlivened by extravagant, bizarre personalities: Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray. Today the wheel has turned again; the gestures and provocations of the original movement reappear, hardly changed, in such forms as Pop art. The final section discusses this phenomenon.

"Mr.Richter, one of the original adherents of Dada, describes their attitude in a first-rate history, as objective and sober as the laughter was once derisive."—THE TIMES OF LONDON

Very Good copy, light wear to extremities, tanning to covers.

File under: Hans Richter Tristan Tzara Francis Picabia Hans Arp Kurt Schwitters Marcel Duchamp Max Ernst Man Ray Raoul Hausmann George Grosz Giorgio de Chirico Marcel Janco Hans Richter Tristan Tzara Louis Aragon Andre Breton André Breton Richard Huelsenbeck Philippe Soupault Harry N. Abrams / New York Dada Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Painting Drawing Performance / Dance / Theater Photography Sociology / Politics Protest / Revolt Art 'Pataphysics / Oulipo

Francis Picabia
Litterature

2018, English
Hardcover (die-cut linen-bound), 64 pages, 22.9 x 29.9 cm
Ed. of 500,
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Small Press / New York

$115.00 - In stock -

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Limited to 500 copies, and now out-of-print, Litterature pairs excerpts from Francis Picabia’s (1879–1953) novel Caravanserail with nine drawings and seventeen studies he created for the cover of André Breton’s Litterature journal between 1922 and 1924. This beautifully produced linen-bound book—whose front cover features circular die-cuts derived from one of Picabia’s dice drawings—offers a celebration of subversive play and fluid forms.

Originally produced as potential covers for André Breton's 1920s Surrealist literary journal, Littérature, the twenty-six subversive—at the time, even scandalous—Francis Picabia drawings that are collected in this remarkable new limited edition from Small Press Books had been sealed in an envelope (dated August 8, 1923) and forgotten for decades until Breton's daughter, Aube Breton-Elléouët, unearthed and exhibited them in 2008. Of the original group, only nine of these playfully insurgent works were actually published by Breton. According to a 1922 letter from fellow Dadaist Marcel Duchamp to Breton, American retailers considered Picabia's cover graphics far too salacious to be displayed on their newsstands. Thus Duchamp was forced to become the journal's only American micro-distributor, circulating it among likeminded friends until its demise in 1924.

Edited by Stephanie LaCava. Translated by Lauren Elkin. Design by Eric Wrenn Office.

File under: Francis Picabia Marcel Duchamp Andre Breton Small Press / New York Dada Art Painting Drawing Fiction / Poetry Surrealism

Yaso No. 5
Special Feature : Corpse

1982/1992, Japanese
Softcover, 192 pages, 21 x 14.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo

$60.00 - Out of stock

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"Corpse" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, first published in 1982, then re-printed in 1992, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Heavily illustrated with texts in Japanese that look at the theme of death and the dead in the arts, literature, occultism, ancient sciences, philosophy, mythology, poetry, film, crime, and much more. Features John Duncan, Tetsumi Kudo, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Masahisa Fukase, Franz Kafka, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Guillaume Apollinaire, Joe Potts (LAFMS), Takashi Ishii, Rudolf II — Holy Roman Emperor, Akinari Ueda, Marcel Duchamp, Chris Burden, Paul Celan, Alain Resnais, Gilyak Amagasaki, Shusaku Arakawa, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Shuji Terayama, Andy Warhol, Charles Manson, Brian Wilson, Kyoko Endoh, Princess Yongtai, Salvador Dalí, Ono no Komachi, Kiyoshi Kasai, Caravaggio, Throbbing Gristle, Takizawa Bakin, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Manson Family, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Wu Zetian, Genesis P-Orridge, Yusuke Nakahara, Ranpo Lagrange, Mitsusada Fukasaku, Nakai Hideo, Richard Wagner, and many more.

Very Good copy.

File under: Chris Burden Alain Resnais Gilyak Amagasaki Shusaku Arakawa Andy Warhol Brian Wilson Kyoko Endoh John Duncan Tetsumi Kudo Cosey Fanni Tutti Joe Potts (LAFMS) Takashi Ishii Salvador Dali Caravaggio Throbbing Gristle Marcel Duchamp Masahisa Fukase Shuji Terayama Franz Kafka Guillaume Apollinaire Ono no Komachi Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Akinari Ueda Kiyoshi Kasai Takizawa Bakin Paul Celan Yusuke Nakahara Fyodor Dostoevsky Ranpo Lagrange Mitsusada Fukasaku Nakai Hideo Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Crime / Violence Film / Video Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Occult / Esoterica Philosophy Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Fiction / Poetry Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Ancient / Medieval / Gothic Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Art Counterculture Eros Fetishism / BDSM Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Surrealism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Theory / Essay

Young Cherry Trees Secured Against Hares / Jeunes cerisiers garantis contre less lievres
by André Breton; cover by Marcel Duchamp; illustrations by Arshile Gorky

1946, English / French
Hardcover (w. die-cut dust jacket), unpaginated, 23.5 by 15.9 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by View Editions / New York

$690.00 - In stock -

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Very Rare first 1946 hardcover English edition of André Breton's poetry collection "Young Cherry Trees Secured Against Hares / Jeunes cerisiers garantis contre less lievres", with original die-cut cover art by Marcel Duchamp and internal illustrations by Arshile Gorky, published by View Editions. A beautiful publication with Breton's original French poems with facing English translations by Edouard Roditi. Breton asked Armenian-American painter Gorky, an essential bridge between European Surrealism and American Abstract Expression, to produce unique drawings in 1945. Marcel Duchamp contributed the cover design and the title was a chance find in a horticulture magazine that also contains a pun on Breton's private life, whose wife had recently left him for artist David Hare. Gorky produced drawings to accompany Breton's poems that did not so much illustrate the poems, as they applied free association mark making analogous with the poetry's evocation, similarly free from logic or narration. Gorky's “automatic drawings” were made without preconception and the creations are interpreted as subconscious thought.

Average—Good copy for a book rarely seen outside museum collections. Internally Good throughout, content pages Very Good. Ex-library of Royal College of of Art, London, with associated markings to front/back blanks (not covers), jacket laminated (die-cut free) adhered in place with wear to extremities, tanning, marking and spine damages. More images upon request.

File under: André Breton Marcel Duchamp Arshile Gorky André Breton Edouard Roditi View Editions / New York Surrealism Fiction / Poetry Poetry Out-of-print / Rare Art

ENCYCLOPEDIA ACEPHALICA
GEORGES BATAILLE, MICHEL LEIRIS, MARCEL GRIAULE, ROBERT DESNOS ...

1996, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 23 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Atlas Press / London

$90.00 - Out of stock

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First edition of the incredible and sadly long out-of-print Encyclopedia Acephalica, published by Atlas Press in 1996 as part of their mighty Atlas Arkhive : Documents of the Avant Garde series.

Bataille’s thought is complex, and his books make few concessions to the reader. The first series of texts here, however, were written for a wider audience by Bataille and his friends, in the form of a Critical Dictionary, and they provide a witty, poetic and concise introduction to his ideas. The Dictionary appeared in the magazine edited by Bataille, Documents, in the early 1930s, and includes entries from prominent ethnologists and cultural commentators of the day. The second series of texts here, the Da Costa Encyclopédique was published anonymously after the liberation of Paris in 1947 by members of the Acéphale group and writers associated with the Surrealists. Both cover the essential concepts of Bataille and his associates: sacred sociology; scatology, death and the erotic; base materialism; the aesthetics of the formless; sacrifice, the festival and the politics of the tumult etc: a new description of the limits of being human. Humour, albeit, sardonic, is not absent from these remarkable redefinitions of the most heterogeneous objects or ideas: Camel, Church, Dust, Museum, Spittle, Skyscraper, Threshold, Work – to name but a few.

While the Documents group was celebrated for joining together artists, authors, sociologists and ethnologists (among the most important of their time) in a literary and philosophical project, the Acéphale group was more mysterious. Until recently even its membership was only vaguely known, and its activities remained secret (these are explored in detail for the first time in English in The Sacred Conspiracy, published by Atlas Press, also available at World Food Books). The origins of the Da Costa only became known in 1993, the present volume revealed for the first time its principal compilers: Robert Lebel, Isabelle Waldberg and Marcel Duchamp, but the identity of the authors of a large part of it is still unknown.

Texts by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Carl Einstein, Robert Desnos and writers associated with the Acéphale and Surrealist groups.

Introduced by Alastair Brotchie. Translated by Iain White, Dominic Faccini, Annette Michelson, John Harman, Alexis Lykiard.

Good—Very Good copy, with edge wear to covers and corners, otherwise VG throughout. No spine creasing.

File under: André Masson Marcel Duchamp Isabelle Waldberg Eli Lotar Jean Painlevé Pierre Klossowski Pierre Klossowski Georges Bataille Michel Leiris Marcel Griaule Carl Einstein Robert Desnos Alastair Brotchie Iain White Dominic Faccini Annette Michelson John Harman Alexis Lykiard Robert Lebel Isabelle Waldberg Marcel Duchamp Atlas Press / London Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Philosophy Art Occult / Esoterica Eros

Man Ray
1890–1976 Genius of light

2024, English
Softcover, 232 pages, 29.8 x 24.8 cm
Published by Silvana / Milan Palais Lumière / Évian-les-Bains

$85.00 - Out of stock

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Man Ray occupies a prominent place in the history of 20th-century art. A versatile artist, who lived mainly in Paris, he is best known as a photographer. Indeed, he was one of the first to use photography, not as a simple means of reproduction, but as a genuine creative medium, turning the technique into an art form. Some of his photographs, such as Le Violon d’Ingres (1924) and Noire et blanche (1926), have achieved iconic status.

Born in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) on 27 August 1890, Emmanuel Radnitsky, known as Man Ray (as in a ray of light), actively participated in the intellectual and artistic circles of New York. He discovered the European avant-gardes and befriended Marcel Duchamp who opened the doors of Dadaism to him and welcomed him to Paris in July 1921.

At the heart of Parisian artistic life, he participated in the innovative experiments of the Dadaists and Surrealists, met with painters, poets and intellectuals, and became famous for his portraits. He developed a career as a fashion photographer, notably for designers Paul Poiret and Elsa Schiaparelli. A tireless experimenter, he rediscovered the technique of “photograms” (abstract silhouettes of objects) that Tristan Tzara named “rayographs” and in 1929, with his new partner Lee Miller, developed the “solarization” technique. In 1940, after the fall of France, Man Ray left for the United States and met Juliet Browner, who became his wife and muse. He returned to Paris in 1951 and lived there until his death in 1976.
Man Ray is renowned for having revolutionized the art of photography, but he was also a painter, draughtsman, assembler of objects, sculptor, writer and filmmaker. It is this protean artist that we seek to discover or re-discover, through a true panorama of his works, which will enable us to comprehend Man Ray’s creative process and the importance of his art.

Edited by Robert Rocca, Pierre-Yves Butzbach.
Texts by Robert Rocca, Pierre-Yves Butzbach, Serge Sanchez, Man Ray, Sylvie Gonzalez, Laurence Benaïm, Marie-Pierre Ribère, Jean-Michel Bouhours.

File under: Man Ray Marcel Duchamp Lee Miller Juliet Browner Robert Rocca Pierre-Yves Butzbach Serge Sanchez Man Ray Sylvie Gonzalez Laurence Benaïm Marie-Pierre Ribère Jean-Michel Bouhours. Silvana / Milan Palais Lumière / Évian-les-Bains Surrealism Dada Photography Sculpture / Installation Painting Drawing Art

The Uncanny
by Mike Kelley

1993, English
Softcover, 150 pages, 24 x 17 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Sonsbeek / Arnhem

$550.00 - Out of stock

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First 1993 edition of one of the great art books, by one of the great artists. This provocative, copiously illustrated catalogue by renowned American artist Mike Kelley is a meditation on Sigmund Freud's "Uncanny", and its relation to the grotesque in art and everyday life. Published to accompany the exhibition curated by Kelley as part of the "Sonsbeek 93" exhibition in Arnhem, The Netherlands, June 5 - September 26, 1993, Kelley presents (like a photo scrapbook) an arresting mix of modern and contemporary artists alongside bizarre figurative, prosthesis, animatronic, and mannequin-related imagery throughout history. Artists included : Hans Bellmer, Robert Gober, Tetsumi Kudo, Zoe Leonard, Paul McCarthy, Nayland Blake, John Miller, Bruce Nauman, Tony Oursler, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Duane Hanson, Man Ray, Guillaume Bijl, Dennis Oppenheim, Edgar Degas, Piero Manzoni, Marcel Broodthaers, Goya, Nam June Paik, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Dorothea Lange, Thom Puckey, Charles Ray, Edward Kienholz, Martin Kippenberger, Laurie Simmons, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, Paul Thek, Mike Kelley himself, and many more. Includes Kelley's accompanying essay, "Playing with Dead Things". The exhibition took on mythical status and was re-staged in Liverpool in 2004. The Uncanny has become one of the most desired of Kelley's books.

Very Good copy with only light cover wear.

File under: Hans Bellmer Robert Gober Tetsumi Kudo Zoe Leonard Paul McCarthy Nayland Blake Duane Hanson Edward Kienholz Martin Kippenberger Jeff Koons John Miller Bruce Nauman Tony Oursler Cindy Sherman Kiki Smith Paul Thek Mike Kelley Laurie Simmons Guillaume Bijl Thom Puckey Dennis Oppenheim Marcel Broodthaers Marcel Duchamp Man Ray Dorothea Lange Yayoi Kusama Francisco Goya Edgar Degas Nam June Paik Andy Warhol Mike Kelley Sonsbeek / Arnhem Art Sculpture / Installation Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Pop Art Surrealism Theory / Essay

Man Ray
[1890—1976]

1990, Japanese / French / English
2 volumes in cardboard slipcase (w. exhibition flyer); volume 1 68 pages (colour ill.) volume 2 196 pages (b/w ill.), 22.5 x 29.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Sezon Museum of Art / Tokyo

$100.00 - Out of stock

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Wonderful, visually exhaustive two-volume boxset catalogue for the traveling exhibition in Japan in 1990—1991, held on the centenary of Man Ray's birth.

Each volume of this Japanese publication on the American artist Man Ray serves as a wonderful index of his incredible lifetime of work. Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Man Ray was a renowned representative of avant-garde photography in the 20th century and is considered as the pioneer of Surrealist photography. A major contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media including drawings, objects and films, but considered himself a painter above all. Volume One compiles many examples of his diverse non-photographic works, reproducing his many paintings, drawings, objects, prints and book editions in full colour. Volume Two (the heavier of the two volumes) focuses on his prolific photographic work, copiously illustrated with a huge catalogue of beautifully reproduced monochromatic works throughout his entire career — Paris, America, Dada, Surrealism and beyond — showcasing his significant contribution to the evaluation of photography as a form of modern art.

Accompanying texts by Merry Foresta, Lucien Treillard, Toshiharu Ito in Japanese, French and English. Primarily in Japanese language. Includes full biography, bibliography and catalogue of all works.

Good—VG copy. Light wear/age/foxing to slipcase and covers otherwise Very Good in general.
1991 exhibition flyer at Seibu laid in.

File under: Man Ray Marcel Duchamp Sezon Museum of Art / Tokyo Surrealism Dada Out-of-print / Rare Sculpture / Installation Art Photography Eros

Text Buchstabe Bild (Text, Letter, Image)

1970, German / French
Softcover, 118 pages, 21 x 19 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft Helmhaus Zürich / Zürich

$200.00 - In stock -

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Rare, important exhibition catalogue designed by Walter Diethelm, published on the occasion of the exceptional exhibition Text Buchstabe Bild (Text, Letter, Image), held at the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft Helmhaus Zürich, July 11—August 23, 1970. Preface by Felix Andreas Baumann. "The point is to present this literature, which is located between writing and images, text and graphics and around the tertium comparationis of typography, to an audience that is probably not too familiar with the techniques and variants of “concrete literature”—from the preface. An incredible and varied anthology of the experimental, poetic, graphic interplay of text and image, profusely illustrated in b/w, accompanied by texts in German and French by Stéphane Mallarmé, F.T. Marinetti, Tristan Tzara, Oyvind Fahlström, El Lissitzky, André Breton, Eugen Gomringer, Augusto de Campos, Decio Pignatari, Haroldo de Campos, Jan Hamilton Finlay, Pierre Garnier, Max Bense, Reinhard Döhl, Carlfriedrich Claus, Seiichi Niikuni, Henri Chopin, Franz Mon, Jiri Kolár, and Bob Cobbing.

Artists included: Stéphane Mallarmé, Arno Holz, Christian Morgenstern, F.T. Marinetti, Carlo Carrà, Lacerba, Ardengo Soffici, Hugo Ball, Georges Braque, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Amédée Ozenfant, Guillaume Apollinaire, Marcel Janco, Tristan Tzara, Raoul Hausmann, Fernand Léger, Richard Hülsenbeck, Vincente Huidobro, Francis Picabia, Jean Pougny, Kurt Schwitters, Paul Klee, Bruno Adler, Jean Epstein, Theo Van Doesburg, El Lissitzky, Jozef Peeters, Sonja Delaunay-Terk, Iliazd, Friedrich Kiesler, Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Käthe Steinitz, Kurt Schwitters, Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Henryk Berlewi, Farkas Molnár, Zenit, Hendrik Nicolaas Werkmann, Walter Gropius, John Heartfield, Marcel Duchamp, Le Corbusier, and Georges Hugnet.

Very Good ex-NGV library copy, well preserved with only light wear and "National Gallery of Victoria" light stamp to block edge and lower back-cover. No internal stamping/marking.

File under: Carlo Carrà F.T. Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Arno Holz Christian Morgenstern Lacerba Ardengo Soffici Hugo Ball Georges Braque Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Amédée Ozenfant Guillaume Apollinaire Marcel Janco Tristan Tzara Raoul Hausmann Fernand Léger Richard Hülsenbeck Vincente Huidobro Francis Picabia Jean Pougny Kurt Schwitters Paul Klee Bruno Adler Jean Epstein Theo Van Doesburg El Lissitzky Jozef Peeters Sonja Delaunay-Terk Iliazd Friedrich Kiesler Man Ray László Moholy-Nagy Käthe Steinitz Theo van Doesburg Hans Arp Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart Henryk Berlewi Farkas Molnár Zenit Hendrik Nicolaas Werkmann Walter Gropius John Heartfield Marcel Duchamp Le Corbusier Georges Hugnet Walter Diethelm Jiří Kolář Öyvind Fahlström Stéphane Mallarmé F. T. Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Marinetti André Breton Haroldo de Campos Jan Hamilton Finlay Pierre Garnier Max Bense Reinhard Döhl Carlfriedrich Claus Seiichi Niikuni Henri Chopin Franz Mon Bob Cobbing Tristan Tzara El Lissitzky Eugen Gomringer Felix Andreas Baumann Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft Helmhaus Zürich / Zürich Group Shows / Collections Concrete Poetry Conceptual Art Dada Fluxus Art Fiction / Poetry Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Graphic Design / Typography Minimal Art Out-of-print / Rare Poetry Bauhaus

Documenta 5
by Harald Szeemann

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

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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.

File under: 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 Joseph Beuys Karl Oskar Blase Mel Bochner Alighiero Boetti Christian Boltanski Claudio Bravo George Brecht Marcel Broodthaers Stanley Brouwn Günter Brus Daniel Buren Victor Burgin Michael Buthe James Lee Byars Pier Paolo Calzolari Luciano Castelli 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 H.C. Westermann William Wiley Rolf Winnewisser Tom Wudl Klaus Wyborny La Monte Young Peter Young Gilberto Zorio Franz Erhard Walther Robert Watts William Wegman Lawrence Weiner John Wesley Tom Kovachevich Piotr Kowalski David Lamelas Barry Le Va Jean LeGac Alfred Leslie Richard Long Ingeborg Lüscher Inge Mahn Brice Marden 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 Malcolm Morley Ed Moses Bruce Nauman Hermann Nitsch Claes Oldenburg Agnes Martin Etienne-Martin Richard McLean David Medalla Fernando Melani Bernd and Hilla Becher K. P. Brehmer Christo & Jeanne-Claude Seth Siegelaub Harald Szeemann Jean-Christophe Ammann Bob Projansky Arnold Bode documenta / Kassel Art Group Shows / Collections Out-of-print / Rare Objects / Ephemera / A/V Arte Povera Conceptual Art Feminism Theory / Essay Architecture / Interior Performance / Dance / Theater Fluxus Dada Curatorial Film / Video Minimal Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Painting Photography Pop Art Sculpture / Installation Counterculture Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Environments and Happenings
Edited by Adrian Henri

1974, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 21 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Thames and Hudson / London

$30.00 - Out of stock

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Environments and Happenings by painter and poet Adrian Henri, published by Thames & Hudson in 1974, forms one of the first mainstream book surveys to trace the phenomenon of environmental/performative/total living artworks that became prevalent in the 1960s/70s. This historical study is profusely illustrated in colour and b/w with many international works from Fluxus to Zero to Dolle Mina to Nouveau Réalisme to Provo to Gutai to The Situationists and much more. Includes the works of Joseph Beuys, Clarence Schmidt, Ray Johnson, Öyvind Fahlström, Paul Thek, Yves Klein, Allan Kaprow, Hans Haacke, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Guerllia Art Action Group, Daniel Spoerri, Wolf Vostell, Gustav Metzger, Peter Kuttner, Jackson Pollock, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Robert Morris, Situationist International, Ferdinand Kriwet, Klaus Rinke, Duane Hanson, A-Yo, Meret Oppenheim, Space Structure Workshop, Ferdinand Cheval, Dolle Mina (Mad Mina), Robert Smithson, Jeff Nuttall, Stefan Wewerka, Christo, Dennis Oppenheim, Vladimir Tatlin, Provo, Barry Flanagan, Andy Warhol, Meredith Monk, Atsuko Tanaka, Kazuo Shiraga, Ed Keinholz, Yayoi Kusama, Piero Gilardi, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Claes Oldenburg, Les Levine, James Rosenquist, Red Grooms, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Eduardo Paolozzi, and many many more. Includes reproductions of performance scripts, partial chronology, etc.

Very Good copy, previous owner name to front endpaper.

File under: Guerilla Art Action Group Joseph Beuys Clarence Schmidt Ray Johnson Öyvind Fahlström Paul Thek Yves Klein Hans Haacke Kurt Schwitters Marcel Duchamp Guerllia Art Action Group Daniel Spoerri Wolf Vostell Gustav Metzger Peter Kuttner Jackson Pollock Alison Knowles Dick Higgins Robert Morris Situationist International Ferdinand Kriwet Klaus Rinke Duane Hanson A-Yo Meret Oppenheim Space Structure Workshop Ferdinand Cheval Dolle Mina (Mad Mina) Robert Smithson Jeff Nuttall Stefan Wewerka Christo Dennis Oppenheim Vladimir Tatlin Provo Barry Flanagan Andy Warhol Meredith Monk Atsuko Tanaka Kazuo Shiraga Ed Keinholz Yayoi Kusama Piero Gilardi Niki de Saint-Phalle Jean Tinguely Claes Oldenburg Les Levine James Rosenquist Red Grooms Tom Wesselmann George Segal Eduardo Paolozzi Allan Kaprow Adrian Henri Thames and Hudson / London Sculpture / Installation Out-of-print / Rare Performance / Dance / Theater Fluxus Arte Povera Conceptual Art Art Dada Counterculture Curatorial Group Shows / Collections Painting Pop Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Surrealism Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Sound / Music

Total Expansion of the Letter Avant-Garde Art and Language After Mallarmé
By Trevor Stark

2020, English
Hardcover, 440 pages, 17.8 x 22.9 cm
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts October Books / New York

$89.00 - In stock -

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How cubism and Dada radically reimagined the social nature of language, following the utopian poetic vision of Stéphane Mallarmé.

At the outset of the twentieth century, language became a visual medium and a philosophical problem for European avant-garde artists. In Total Expansion of the Letter, art historian Trevor Stark offers a provocative history of this “linguistic turn,” centered on the radical doubt about the social function of language that defined the avant-garde movements. Major cubists and Dadaists—including Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Tristan Tzara—appropriated bureaucratic paperwork, newspapers, popular songs, and advertisements, only to render them dysfunctional and incommunicative. In doing so, Stark argues, these figures contended with the utopian vision of the late nineteenth-century poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who promised a “total expansion of the letter.”

In his poems, Mallarmé claimed, “the act of writing was scrutinized down to its origins.” This scrutiny, however, delivered his work into an indeterminate zone between mediums, social practices, and temporalities—a paradox that reverberates through Stark's wide-ranging case studies in the history of the avant-garde. Stark examines Picasso's nearly abstract works of 1910, which promised to unite painting and writing at the brink of illegibility; the cubists' “hope of an anonymous art,” expressed in newspaper collages and industrial colors; the collaborative, cacophonous invention of “simultaneous poems” by the Dadaists in Zurich during World War I; and Duchamp's artistic exploration of chance in gambling and finance. Each of these cases reflected the avant-garde's transformative encounter with the premise of Mallarmé's poetics: that language—the very medium of human communication and community—is perpetually in flux and haunted by emptiness.

As certain artists experimenting in the postwar orbit of John Cage well knew, it was not he who introduced the conceptual scope of chance and musical metric into the language of art. In his brilliant book on Mallarmé's legacy—sure to correct the record—Trevor Stark positions the Coup de Dés as the first score of the twentieth century. Inhabiting industrialism's destruction of the subject, and an infinite abstraction—as chance gave way to indeterminism—Mallarmé encoded his best-known poem with score-like traits (time/realization) and ambiguity (language's readymade indeterminacy); thus he cast the death of the author like a bottle thrown at sea. Such stakes are clear because Stark makes them so. With not a word or a sentence wasted, he adroitly guides us through the Mallarméan dimensions of three pivotal experiments: Braque and Picasso's introduction of text into pictorial space (1910/1912); the temporal-auditory collage of Tzara's simultaneous poems honed in the collectivism of Zurich Dada; and Duchamp's ultimate transvaluation of art/work in Monte Carlo. The often-startling fruits of Stark's meticulous research are presented with a light touch, a space for realization; yet we sense the intellectual and “intermedial” virtuosity the author brings to the task—handling, deciphering, hearing, seeing, translating, across disciplines, languages, and time(s)—to convey his cases and insights to 21st-century readers with the force of contemporaneity. — Julia E. Robinson, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at New York University; curator of the exhibition John Cage & Experimental Art: The Anarchy of Silence

File under: John Cage Marcel Broodthaers Pablo Picasso Tristan Tzara Marcel Duchamp Paul Cezanne Georges Braque Francis Picabia Hugo Ball F.T. Marinetti Trevor Stark Stéphane Mallarmé Tristan Tzara Martin Heidegger Theodor W. Adorno Maurice Blanchot Edmund Husserl Maurice Merleau-Ponty The MIT Press / Massachusetts October Books / New York Art Performance / Dance / Theater Fiction / Poetry Dada Fluxus

Visual Message 1 & 2

1978 / 1979, Japanese
Softcover, 127 pages + 144 pages, 22.5 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Visual Message / Tokyo

$150.00 - Out of stock

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First (1978) and second (1979) issues of Visual Message, the "comprehensive magazine of the visual age", published in Japan for a short period at the end of the 1970s. This explosive inaugural issue, co-edited by graphic designers Ikko Tanaka and Kazuya Uegami, and copywriter Shinya Nishimura and themed "Visual Scandal" is cover-to-cover packed with leading graphic artists, photographers, architects, textile designers, etc. from Japan and overseas including Tadanori Yokoo, Masao Saito, Harumi Yamaguchi, Masamichi Oikawa, Eiko Ishioka, Shigeo Fukuda, Tomi Ungerer, Masayuki Kurokawa, SITE, Tsunehisa Kimura, Tenmei Kano, Raymond Savignac, Katsumi Asaba, Ken Mori, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Folon, Asai Shinpei, Marcel Duchamp, Rene Magritte, Herb Lubalin, Osamu Nagahama, M.C. Escher, Shiro Tatsumi, Hiroki Hayashi, Masayoshi Nakajo, Hiroshi Yoda, Hipgnosis, and many more.

Second 1979 issue of Visual Message is structured around the themes "Before/After" and "Scale" and again is cover-to-cover packed with leading graphic artists, photographers, architects, textile designers, etc. from Japan and overseas including Tadanori Yokoo, Philip Johnson, Hideo Yamashita, Seiji Takada, Takahisa Kamijō, Haruo Takino, Takenobu Igarashi, Akira Yokoyama, Hisaki Hiramatsu, Takamichi Ito, Tomoya Nakano, Shōji Yamagishi, and many more.

V.M. 1. Good copy. Some cover/spine wear/creases/small closed tear to cover edge.
V.M. 2. Very Good copy. Light general wear, bumping.

File under: Tadanori Yokoo Masao Saito Harumi Yamaguchi Masamichi Oikawa Eiko Ishioka Shigeo Fukuda Tomi Ungerer Masayuki Kurokawa SITE Tsunehisa Kimura Tenmei Kano Raymond Savignac Katsumi Asaba Ken Mori Andy Warhol Jean-Michel Folon Asai Shinpei Marcel Duchamp Rene Magritte Herb Lubalin Osamu Nagahama M.C. Escher Shiro Tatsumi Hiroki Hayashi Masayoshi Nakajo Hiroshi Yoda Hipgnosis Philip Johnson Hideo Yamashita Seiji Takada Takahisa Kamijō Haruo Takino Takenobu Igarashi Akira Yokoyama Hisaki Hiramatsu Takamichi Ito Tomoya Nakano Shōji Yamagishi Visual Message / Tokyo Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Japanese Photography Photography Architecture / Interior Art Graphic Design / Typography Eros

Tricks of the Light: Essays on Art and Spectacle
by Jonathan Crary

2023, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 264 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 cm
Published by Zone Books / New York

$56.00 - Out of stock

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Essays on media systems and contemporary art by a leading theorist of modern visual culture.

Tricks of the Light brings together essays by critic and art historian Jonathan Crary, internationally known for his groundbreaking and widely admired studies of modern Western visual culture. This collection features a compelling selection of Crary's responses to modern and contemporary art and to the transformations of twentieth-century media systems and urban/technological environments. These wide-ranging and provocative texts explore the work of painters, performance artists, writers, architects, and photographers, including Allan Kaprow, Eleanor Antin, Ed Ruscha, John Berger, Bridget Riley, J.G. Ballard, Rem Koolhaas, Gretchen Bender, Dennis Oppenheim, Paul Virilio, Robert Irwin, and Uta Barth. There are also reflections on filmmakers Fritz Lang, Stanley Kubrick, Jean-Luc-Godard, David Cronenberg, and others. The book is enhanced by several expansive essays on the unstable status of television, both amid its beginnings in the 1930s and then during its assimilation into new assemblages and networks in the 1980s and 90s. These assess its many-sided role in the reshaping of subjectivity, temporality, and the operation of power. Like all of Crary's work, his writing here is grounded in the acuteness of his engagement with perceptual artifacts of many kinds and in his nuanced reading of historical processes and their cultural reverberations.

File under: Uta Barth Fritz Lang Stanley Kubrick Jean-Luc-Godard David Cronenberg Allan Kaprow Eleanor Antin Ed Ruscha Bridget Riley Rem Koolhaas Gretchen Bender Dennis Oppenheim Robert Irwin László Moholy-Nagy Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Marcel Duchamp Alfred Hitchcock Peter Fend Jonathan Crary Paul Virilio J.G. Ballard John Berger Zone Books / New York Theory / Essay Art Performance / Dance / Theater Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Film / Video Fluxus Situationism / Lettrism Photography

ENCYCLOPEDIA ACEPHALICA
Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Robert Desnos ...

1996, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 23 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Atlas Press / London

$65.00 - Out of stock

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First edition of the incredible and sadly long out-of-print Encyclopedia Acephalica, published by Atlas Press in 1996 as part of their mighty Atlas Arkhive : Documents of the Avant Garde series..

Bataille’s thought is complex, and his books make few concessions to the reader. The first series of texts here, however, were written for a wider audience by Bataille and his friends, in the form of a Critical Dictionary, and they provide a witty, poetic and concise introduction to his ideas. The Dictionary appeared in the magazine edited by Bataille, Documents, in the early 1930s, and includes entries from prominent ethnologists and cultural commentators of the day. The second series of texts here, the Da Costa Encyclopédique was published anonymously after the liberation of Paris in 1947 by members of the Acéphale group and writers associated with the Surrealists. Both cover the essential concepts of Bataille and his associates: sacred sociology; scatology, death and the erotic; base materialism; the aesthetics of the formless; sacrifice, the festival and the politics of the tumult etc: a new description of the limits of being human. Humour, albeit, sardonic, is not absent from these remarkable redefinitions of the most heterogeneous objects or ideas: Camel, Church, Dust, Museum, Spittle, Skyscraper, Threshold, Work – to name but a few.

While the Documents group was celebrated for joining together artists, authors, sociologists and ethnologists (among the most important of their time) in a literary and philosophical project, the Acéphale group was more mysterious. Until recently even its membership was only vaguely known, and its activities remained secret (these are explored in detail for the first time in English in The Sacred Conspiracy, published by Atlas Press, also available at World Food Books). The origins of the Da Costa only became known in 1993, the present volume revealed for the first time its principal compilers: Robert Lebel, Isabelle Waldberg and Marcel Duchamp, but the identity of the authors of a large part of it is still unknown.

Texts by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Marcel Griaule, Carl Einstein, Robert Desnos and writers associated with the Acéphale and Surrealist groups.

Introduced by Alastair Brotchie. Translated by Iain White, Dominic Faccini, Annette Michelson, John Harman, Alexis Lykiard.

Very Good copy, with some light edge wear.

File under: Isabelle Waldberg Marcel Duchamp Jean Painlevé Eli Lotar André Masson Pierre Klossowski Robert Lebel Isabelle Waldberg Marcel Duchamp Georges Bataille Michel Leiris Marcel Griaule Carl Einstein Robert Desnos Alastair Brotchie Atlas Press / London Art Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Surrealism Eros Occult / Esoterica Philosophy

Le Sang et La Rose No. 2, 1969

1969, Japanese / French
Softcover, 228 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - Out of stock

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 2 includes photographic features by Yasuhiro Yoshioka and Yoshihiro Tatsuki, the artwork of French decorator of department store mannequins and surrealist Sunday painter Clovis Trouille, Venus in Furs erotic photo shoot by Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Yokoo Tadanori, Hans Bellmer, Leonor Fini, Alberto Martini, Félicien Rops, Rene Magritte, an incredible feature "Machine for Murder" with art by Hiroshi Nakamura, Tomi Ungerer, Koichi Tanigawa, Osamu Tsukasa, Tatsuo Ikeda, Marcel Duchamp, Seiichi Horiuchi, and others, an article on the erotica of Ukiyo-e with a fold-out colour three panel poster, the fully illustrated museum supplement on Demonology by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa with artworks throughout history, texts by Apollinaire, Burroughs, Mutsuo Takahashi, articles on laws pertaining to homosexuality, Kama Sutra, shoe fetishism, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Very Good copy. Light general tanning/wear.

File under: Yoshihiro Tatsuki Clovis Trouille Tadanori Yokoo Yasuhiro Yoshioka Yokoo Tadanori Hans Bellmer Leonor Fini Alberto Martini Félicien Rops Rene Magritte Hiroshi Nakamura Tomi Ungerer Koichi Tanigawa Osamu Tsukasa Tatsuo Ikeda Marcel Duchamp Seiichi Horiuchi Yasuhiro Ishimoto Guillaume Apollinaire William S. Burroughs Georges Bataille Mutsuo Takahashi Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Periodicals Eros LGBTQ+ Art Surrealism Counterculture Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Theory / Essay Occult / Esoterica Fetishism / BDSM Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Philosophy Fiction / Poetry Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Ancient / Medieval / Gothic