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:
BOOKSHOP CLOSED FOR BREAK UNTIL NOV 10.
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
ORDERS CAN STILL BE PLACED AND WILL BE PROCESSED AFTER NOV 10.
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.
1965, English
Softcover, 284 pages, 11 x 18 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Penguin Books / London
$18.00 - Out of stock
Jean Genet, French playwright, novelist and poet, turned the experiences in his life amongst pimps, whores, thugs and other fellow social outcasts into a poetic literature, with an honesty and explicitness unprecedented at the time. Widely considered an outstanding and unique figure in French literature, Genet wrote five novels between 1942 and 1947, now being republished by Faber & Faber in beautiful new paperback editions.
Miracle of the Rose was Jean Genet's second novel, composed in 1943 while incarcerated in prison. The novel is informed by Genet's memories of confinement, both in prison and the Mettray reformatory where he spent three years from the age of 15. The central figure of the novel is Harcamone, whom Genet first encountered at Mettray, and who resurfaces in an adult prison - now a murderer and, in the world-turned-upside-down of Genet's vision, a quasi-divine figure.
Jean Genet, (1910—1986), French criminal and social outcast turned writer who, as a novelist, transformed erotic and often obscene subject matter into a poetic vision of the universe and, as a dramatist, became a leading figure in the avant-garde theatre, especially the Theatre of the Absurd.
Good copy of the 1965 Penguin edition.
1973, English
Softcover, 238 pages, 18 x 11 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Panther / London
$18.00 - Out of stock
1973 Panther paperback edition with introduction of Genet's last novel, about love and betrayal in a World War 2 setting, translated by Bernard Frechtman. Genet's sensual and brutal portrait of World War II unfolds between the poles of his grief for his lover Jean, killed in the Resistance during the liberation of Paris, and his perverse attraction to the collaborator Riton. Elegaic, macabre, chimerical, Funeral Rites is a dark meditation on the mirror images of love and hate, sex and death.
Very Good copy. Panther 1977 paperback edition.
1973, English
Softcover, 284 pages, 18 x 11 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Panther / London
$18.00 - Out of stock
"The famous underground bestseller. A shattering novel of human depravity by one of the greatest writers of the century."
Panther paperback edition with introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre. Our Lady of the Flowers (Notre Dame des Fleurs) was the debut novel of French writer Jean Genet, written in prison and first published anonymously in original French in 1943. The free-flowing, poetic, highly erotic, often explicitly sexual novel is a largely autobiographical account of a man's journey through the Parisian underworld, the story of Divine, a drag queen, and a murderer, dubbed Our Lady of the Flowers. Death and ecstasy accompany the acts of every character, as Genet performs a transvaluation of all values, making betrayal the highest moral value, murder an act of virtue and sexual appeal. Written to amuse himself (and to assist his masturbation) whilst he passed his sentence in prison, Genet wrote the manuscript on sheets of brown paper which prison authorities provided to prisoners to make into paper bags. Genet's "unauthorized" use of the paper, was discovered, confiscated and burned by a prison guard. Undaunted, Genet wrote it all over again. The second version survived and Genet took it with him when leaving the prison. For sale to collectors of erotica, Notre Dame des Fleurs first circulated privately and under the counter before entering the literary stream via Marc Barbezat, publisher of the French literary journal L'Arbalete, who published the book in 1944 and again in 1948. It soon became an enormous influence on the post-structuralists and beat writers alike. Our Lady of the Flowers made Genet, in Sartre's mind at least, a poster child of existentialism and most especially an embodiment of that philosophy's views on freedom.
Very Good copy. Panther 1973 paperback edition.
1989, Japanese
Hardcover (w. slipcase), 259 pages, 28.4 x 23 x 3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Shirayo Shobo / Japan
$140.00 - Out of stock
Japanese hardcover edition of the Kubrick photo-book/definitive study by film critic Michel Ciment, in original hard printer's slipcase. Providing an insightful examination of Kubrick's films--including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket--this lavishly illustrated book features more than four hundred photographs that form a complementary photo essay. Rounding out this dense and unique work are a short biography of Kubrick; interviews with the director, as well as cast and crew members, including Malcolm McDowell, Shelley Duvall, and Jack Nicholson; and a detailed filmography and bibliography. Meshed with masterful integrity, the book's text and illustrations pay homage to one of the most visionary, original, and demanding filmmakers of our time. Texts in this edition are in Japanese.
1972, English
Softcover, 145 pages, 20.8 x 13.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ballantine Books / New York
$95.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the graphic photo-novel of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange based on the novel Anthony Burgess. A graphic recreation of the controversial 1971 film cut by cut, with dialogue placed in relation to the 700 stills.
"The film of the year is the basis for the unique book of the year. The incredible world of Alex and his Droogs — a world of violence and terror — is now a book with hundreds of photos from the movie as they appeared."
Very Good copy of the first paperback edition, which proceeded the hard cover version by a few months. General light cover rubbing and a single hole-punch to the top left of front. Spine remains uncreased. Good overall.
1998, Japanese / English
Softcover, 60 pages, 37 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Kinetic Inc. / Tokyo
$220.00 - Out of stock
Exceptionally rare first, only edition of this over-sized Japanese cine-file photo-book dedicated to the work of Polish-French film director Roman Polanski (b. 1933). This stunning, glossy volume is cover-to-cover filled with full-bleed colour and b/w reproductions from Polanski's first three feature-length masterpieces Knife in the Water (1962), Repulsion (1965) and Cul-de-sac (1966). Françoise Dorléac, Jolanta Umecka, Yvonne Furneaux, all here, plus Polanski, Donald Pleasence, Iain Quarrier, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Leon Niemczyk, Ian Hendry, John Fraser...
Very Good — Fine, beautifully preserved copy of this fragile over-sized publication.
1982, English
Hardcover (dust jacket), 280 pages, 27 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$75.00 - In stock -
When The History of Photography by Hemut and Alison Gernsheim was first published in 1955, it immediately established itself as the standard work on the subject, described by the Financial Times as 'the most important singe historical work in the field.' The first part of this classic book was revised by Professor Gernsheim and published here as The Origins of Photography (1982). Now, in The Rise of Photography, he brings the revision of his magnum opus up to 1880.
First 1982 hardcover edition of this important volume.
Helmut Gernsheim (1913—1995) was a photographer, collector, historian, curator, author and lecturer, and the first historian to be inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame. Gernsheim pioneered many aspects of collecting photographica and writing about photography’s history.
Profusely illustrated with beautiful historic images of photography as an art and technique from its antecedents to 1857, the book contents cover : the prehistory of photography — Heliography — The daguerreotype — Negative/positive processes on paper — Direct positives on paper — Other independent inventors — The daguerreotype in France — The daguerreotype in America — The daguerreotype in Great Britain, 1839-c. 1857 — The daguerreotype in German-speaking countries — The origins of photography in Italy — Stereoscopic daguerreotypes — The calotype and other paper processes in Great Britain, 1841-c. 1857 — The progress of photography on paper in other countries.
Very Good copy in Good dust jacket (w. some small chips to edges, light wear). Preserved under mylar wrap.
1984, German
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 408 pages, 32 x 26 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
DuMont / Köln
$35.00 - In stock -
Over-sized hardcover catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Edgar Degas: Pastelle, Ölskizen, Zeichnungen, January 14 — March 25, 1984 in the Kunsthalle Tübingen and in the Nationalgalerie Berlin, April 5 — May 20, 1984. Profusely illustrated throughout with 227 pastels, oil sketches and drawings from numerous European, American and Japanese collections, some of which have been published for the first time. Includes biography, bibliography, index and text by Götz Adriani.
Very Good copy of the 8th printing, with VG dust jacket protected under mylar wrap. Cut to front endpaper corner, presumably to remove previous owner name.
2016, English
Softcover, 312 pages, 25.6 x 30.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) / Victoria
$60.00 - Out of stock
Although Edgar Degas is one of the most celebrated French Impressionists, he referred to himself as a Realist artist. Modern life in nineteenth-century Paris provided Degas with a repertoire of motifs he explored with endless variation: from scenes of work and industry to ballet and the theatre, racecourses and boudoirs. The works he created over more than fifty years embrace painting, drawing, printmaking, monotypes, sculpture and photography and have had an immense impact on modern and contemporary art.
This exquisite and authoritative publication includes the finest recent scholarship by world-renowned Degas expert Henri Loyrette and brings together more than 200 works from a vast number of public and private collections worldwide. Degas: A New Vision offers a fresh and dynamic reappraisal of the artist's mature years when his artistic process became a subject in itself, as he worked and reworked compositions in a fluid manner.
Very Good copy, out-of-print.
1974, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 288 pages, 33 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$75.00 - In stock -
First hardcover UK edition of this comprehensive volume, published in 1974. Degas: The Complete Etchings, Lithographs and Monotypes collects and beautifully reproduces almost 300 graphic works by one of most celebrated French Impressionists, Degas, compiled and accompanied by text from Jean Adhémar and Françoise Cachin, along with a foreword by John Rewald. An important reference on the artist.
Very Good copy in original dust jacket, preserved under mylar wrap.
1981, English
Softcover, 80 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Scala / Florence
$25.00 - In stock -
Raphael Sanzio was born in Urbino on 6th April 1483. Around the beginning of the 16th Century Raphael met Pietro Perugino, who influenced his painting perhaps more than any other painter: Peruginesque motifs can be identified in one of Raphael's earliest works, the altarpiece for the Church of Sant'Agostino in Citta di Castello, on which he collaborated with Evangelista da Pian di Meleto. From 1509 he was in Rome, where his first major undertaking was the decoration of the Stanza della Segnatura, commissioned by Pope Julius II. In Raphael, a monographic study published in Florence in 1981, Bruno Santi examines the works produced by this painter throughout his life, from his beginnings in Urbino, to his period in Florence, and his time in Rome. Raphael's work on the Stanza della Signatura is examined in some detail.
Good copy with crease to cover, light wear.
1988, English / German
Hardcover (w. dust jacket in slipcase) / Softcover, 320 + 256 pages, 23 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
DuMont / Köln
$70.00 - Out of stock
Heavy bi-lingual 2 volume catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition "The BiNational, American Art of the Late 80s / German Art of the Late 80s" that traveled between the Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Sept 23 — Nov 27, 1988 and Städtische Kunsthalle, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf 10 Dec 1988 — 22 Jan, 1989. A major survey of contemporary art from both nations, the two catalogues (one for the American artists, the other for the German) are heavily illustrated throughout in colour and b/w with examples of all artists work, alongside texts in English and German by Trevor Fairbrother, David Joselit, and Elizabeth Sussman, with artist interviews, biographies and much more.
Includes Christopher Wool, Constance DeJong, Robert Gober, Mike Kelley, Georg Herold, Rosemarie Trockel, Werner Büttner, Peter Halley, Andreas Slominski, Tishan Hsu, Jeff Koons, Thomas Ruff, Imi Knoebel, Annette Lemieux, Jorg Immendarff, David McDermott and Peter McGough, Tony Oursler, Stephen Prina, Richard Prince, Tim Rollins + K.O.S., Albert Oehlen, Lorna Simpson, Haim Steinbach, Katherina Fritsch, Philip Taaffe, James Welling, and many more.
Please note: German artist volume in Hardcover (w. dust jacket and publisher's slipcase); American volume in softcover. Both Good-Very Good copies, only light wear, age.
2019, English / German
Softcover, 64 pages, 23 x 30 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$90.00 - Out of stock
Grey pictures by Richter from the years 1965 to 1974 as well as Spiegel, Grau / Mirror, Grey from 1991 are juxtaposed with photos by Michael Schmidt of Waffenruhe (1985–1987) and Berlin Wedding (1976–1978). An exploration of the colour grey through both artists work.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Gerhard Richter and Michael Schmidt at Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne (1 December 2018 – 8 March 2019).
English and German text.
2020, English
Hardcover, 400 pages, 24 x 29.6 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$110.00 - Out of stock
An enormous and definitive hardcover appraisal of Michael Schmidt, Berlin’s greatest chronicler in the postwar period.
Author of now-classic photobooks such as Waffenruhe and Berlin-Wedding, Berlin-based photographer Michael Schmidt (1945-2014) was acclaimed in his lifetime for his black-and-white, documentary-style depictions of his native city. This is the first full appraisal of his work, featuring numerous images of working material such as work prints or book dummies, as well as archival material—invitation cards, posters and exhibition views. Essays by Ute Eskildsen, Janos Frecot, Peter Galassi, Heinz Liesbrock and Thomas Weski, who worked closely with Schmidt on various projects during his lifetime, complement these materials.
Schmidt was born on 6 October 1945 in East Berlin, five months after the German surrender. His family crossed to West Berlin before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. His earliest series on Berlin, Stadtlandschaft (Urban Landscapes) (1974-75) and Berlin, Stadtbilder (Berlin, Urban Images) (1976-80), established the idiom he would pursue for the rest of his life.
2019, English
Softcover, 63 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Published by
Deakin University / Burwood
$12.00 - Out of stock
Publication to document the exhibition Studio Pottery from the John Nixon Collection, curated by James Lynch at the Deakin University Art Gallery, 31 October – 14 December, 2018.
This exhibition showcased the private collection of Australian artist John Nixon, who over the last fifteen years has acquired a ceramic collection of over 500 pieces by ceramic artists from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s who were working in and around the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The exhibition demonstrates how one person’s passion, knowledge and dedication to an art form has transformed the everyday act of collecting into a cultural treasure. This exhibition is the second in a series of exhibitions especially dedicated to the art of collecting.
This vital document on Australian ceramics presents a selection from the 200 works displayed, installation views (including archival printed materials from the collection), alongside texts and biographies on the artists exhibited.
2021, English
Hardcover, 196 pages, 22.9 x 26.2 cm
Published by
Guggenheim Museum / New York
$99.00 - In stock -
One of the foremost artistic innovators of abstraction in the 20th century, Vasily Kandinsky sought to liberate painting from its ties to the natural world and promote the spiritual in art. This richly illustrated publication looks at Kandinsky anew, through a critical lens, reframing our understanding of this vital figure of European modernism, who was also a prolific aesthetic theorist and writer.
A series of thematic essays considers his engagement with avant-garde artistic communities including the Bauhaus, his relationship to improvisation and music, his travels in Europe and Russia, and the influences behind his self-declared anarchist mode of abstraction, among other topics. Tracing Kandinsky’s life and work through his years in Moscow, several cities in Germany, and Paris, the texts offer striking new insights into an artist whose creative production and style were intimately tied to a sense of place—and displacement—and evolved amid the political and social upheavals catalyzed by the Russian Revolution and World Wars I and II.
Kandinsky’s history is closely linked to that of the Guggenheim Museum. Solomon R. Guggenheim began collecting the artist’s work in 1929; a year later, they met at the Bauhaus, in Dessau. This book features more than half of the museum’s deep holdings of works by Kandinsky, presenting the full arc of his artistic development and career. Included are paintings in oil and oil with sand, reverse-glass paintings, as well as woodcuts, watercolors and drawings on paper. An illustrated chronicle of Kandinsky’s life and career, including selected exhibitions and publications, rounds out the volume.
Edited with text by Tracey Bashkoff, Megan Fontanella. Text by Mark Antliff, Patricia Leighten, George E. Lewis.
2022, English
Hardcover, 350 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Published by
Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm
$65.00 - Out of stock
Long unavailable and highly sought after, Ringbom's classic 1970 volume launched the study of esotericism's influence on abstract art.
For many years, relatively few people knew of spiritualism's impact on the birth of abstract art. But when the Finnish art historian Sixten Ringbom's book The Sounding Cosmos was published in 1970, the writing of history changed forever. Through his research on Wassily Kandinsky, one of the pivotal figures in modern art, Ringbom showed how Theosophy and esoteric teachings were absolutely essential to the development of nonfigurative painting.
This discovery generated great debate at the time, and the book was both celebrated and controversial. Although the original publication is extremely rare and sought after, to this day The Sounding Cosmos is a classic of art history that continues to be discussed--especially in recent years, as the presence of esotericism in modernist art from Hilma af Klint to Mondrian and beyond has been revisited.
The Sounding Cosmos is now being reissued for the first time in this elegant new edition. The richly illustrated original text has been supplemented with a new foreword by Daniel Birnbaum and Julia Voss.
Sixten Ringbom (1935-92) was an influential Finnish art historian. In 1965 he completed a PhD under the great art historian Ernst Gombrich. Ringbom succeeded his father as professor of art history at Åbo Akademi University in 1970, and became the first art historian to explore in depth the connections between early abstract art and occultism. He published prolifically until his death in 1992.
1980/1986, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
LACMA / Los Angeles
$45.00 - Out of stock
Catalogue published to accompany an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1980-1981. Edited by Stephanie Barron and Maurice Tuchman, this groundbreaking, richly illustrated (465 items) book documents "the most comprehensive survey of 1910—1930 Russian avant-garde art ever shown in this country"—Portfolio. Covering painting, sculpture, prints, drawing, books, photographs, costumes and examples of industrial, architectural, and theatrical design, with a special focus on Suprematism and Constructivism, this generous volume contains 19 authoritive and enlightening essays, excellent illustrated reference profiles on each artists, biographies, bibliographies, and a detailed chronology of the period. An essential art history reference, containing the works of Natan Altman, Yurii Annenkov, David Burliuk, Vladimir Burliuk, Marc Chagall, Iiia Chashnik, Vasilii Ermlov, Vera Ermolaeva, Alexandra Exter, Pavel Filanov, Naum Gabo, Natalia Goncharova, Vasilii Kamensky, Vasilii Kandinsky, Ivan Kliun, Gustav Klucis, Petr Konchalovsky, Ivan Kudriashev, Mikhail Larionov, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Pavel Mansurov, Mikhail Matiushin, Konstantin Medunetsky, Petr Miturich, Alexei Morgunov, Vera Nikolskaia, Liubov Popova, Ivan Puni, Alexandr Rodchenko, Olga Rozanova, Georgii Stenberg, Vladimir Stenberg, Varvara Stepanova, Nikolia Suetin, Vladimir Tatlin, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Alexandr Vesnin, K.A. Vialov, Georgii Yakulov.
Good copy, with some general cover wear.
2020, English
Softcover, 126 pages, 14 x 22.2 cm
Ed. of 2500,
Published by
Primary Information / New York
$40.00 - Out of stock
The American composer and writer John Cage, born 1912, and the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, born 1928, have emerged as the leading figures of the bourgeois musical avant-garde. They are ripe for criticism. The grounds for launching an attack against them are twofold: first to isolate them from their respective schools and thus release a number of younger composers from their domination and encourage these to turn their attention to the problems of serving the working people, and second, to puncture the illusion that the bourgeoisie is still capable of producing “geniuses.” —Cornelius Cardew
Originally published in 1974, Stockhausen Serves Imperialism is a collection of essays by the English composer Cornelius Cardew that provides a Marxist critique of two of the more revered avant-garde composers of the post-war era: Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage.
A former assistant to Stockhausen and a champion of Cage in England, Cardew provides a cutting rebuke of the composers’ works and ideological positions, which he saw as reinforcing an imperialist order rather than spotlighting and serving the struggles of the working class. The author also provides constructive criticism of his contemporaries Christian Wolff and Frederic Rzewski for utilizing politically progressive content, yet failing to work in a musical form that would appeal to the proletariat. Cardew’s music does not escape his own scrutiny: the book contains critiques and repudiations of his canonical compositions from the 1960s and early 1970s, Treatise and The Great Learning. After abandoning the avant-garde, Cardew devoted his work to the people’s struggle, creating music in service of his radical politics until his mysterious death in 1981.
Edition of 2500.
2009, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 27 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Black Dog Publishing Ltd / London
$190.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the quickly out-of-print, now rarely seen Krautrock : Cosmic Rock and Its Legacy. One of the greatest books on the subject.
The late 1960s in West Germany was a period of profound breakthroughs, upheavals and reversals. Communes were spreading, protests organised throughout the entire country, the desire to begin everything anew permeating the young. Out of this climate, a music scene exploded that would forever change the face of western rock; at times anarchic, at others mystical, magickal, or utopian, it pushed rock beyond any known limits. Never a genre or a movement per se, Krautrock encompassed a very wild and diverse range of sounds, attitudes, and past musics, from free jazz to Karlheinz Stockhausen, from dada to Fluxus, from German Romanticism to the Mothers of Invention. The musicians operated outside any known categories, breaking new ground and turning their backs to both their country's past and the conventions of Anglo-American rock. Their vision fired the imaginations of generations of musicians after them: Cabaret Voltaire, Brian Eno, Nurse with Wound, PiL, DAF, Einsturzende Neubauten, to only name a few, have all acknowledged their deb to Krautrock's uncompromising ethics and innovative sounds. Profiling diverse key musical groups of the period, including Amon Düül (I & II), Can, Faust, Ash Ra Temple, Gila, Limbus, Walter Wegmüller, Cluster, Popol Vuh, Xhol, Between/Hamel, Guru Guru, Anima, Et Cetera/Wolfgang Dauner, Agitation Free, Harmonia, Embryo, Tangerine Dream, and many more, alongside the key producers (Plank, Dirks, Augustin, Kaiser) and records labels (Brain, Pilz, OHR, Kuckuck, etc.), and also a timeline of the period, this book quickly became a valuable resource. Profusely illustrated with with concert, studio and press photos, posters, record cover art and other rare visual material. Texts by Archie Patterson, Michel Faber, Erik Davis, David Stubbs, David Keenan, Ken Hollings, Brian Morton, Steve Krakow, Mark Pilkington, Gavin Russom, Stephen Thrower, and Ann Shenton make this is an essential compendium to a music whose spirit and ideas still vibrate through contemporary culture today. Quite a must, now rarely seen.
Edited by Nikolaos Kotsopoulos.
Very Good copy.
1981, English
Hardcover (library bound), 350 pages, 28 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Schirmer Books / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
Library hardbound copy of the rare Scores: An Anthology of New Music, edited by Roger Johnson and published in 1981. Wonderful, heavy 350 page collection of New Music scores from a wide cross-section of the most innovative "avant-garde" or "experimental" artists of the time, spanning various categories, schools and movements. Includes the work of Pauline Oliveros, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley, Christian Wolff, Steve Reich, Harold Budd, Carole Weber, Philip Corner, Meredith Monk, Charlemagne Palestine, Michael Nyman, Joan La Barbara, Otto Luening, James Tenney, Dick Higgins, Marion Brown, Jana Haimsohn, Jon Gibson, Trevor Wishart, Alison Knowles, Daniel Lentz, Gordon Mumma, Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, and many others. Expansive chapters of scores throughout the anthology include: "Exercises, Rituals, and Meditations"; "Music For Voices"; "Percussion Music"; "Piano Music"; Music for Instruments"; "Electronic Music"; "Music for Mixed Ensembles"; "Music/Theater/Dance Pieces"; accompanied by composer biographies, a directory of publishers, distributors and agents for New Music, Bibliography, and Index.
Nicely preserved library hardbound copy of this usually very fragile softcover book. Light associated library markings not effecting content pages, a generally very tight, clean copy.
2011, German
Hardcover (w. dustjacket), 252 pages, 23 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Prestel / Munich
$50.00 - In stock -
Out-of-print hardcover comprehensive monograph on the Viennese painter Hans Makart, this book presents the work of the artist known as “the magician of colour” in glorious illustrations, set alongside the art of fellow masters.
His name and his style are symbols of an era: Hans Makart. In 1869 the Emperor brought him to Vienna as a history painter, where he quickly became a sought-after painter for the up-and-coming bourgeoisie. His works, which were often perceived as lustful, find their equivalent in the decadence and brought Hans Makart the reputation as a scandal painter, but led to his international fame. His free use of color, which follows Delacroix, as well as the choice of his subjects give his painting a sensuality that is intoxicating in its effect and made him a symbol of a time, the Makart period, through its overwhelming splendor. His interest in the total work of art is expressed in the design of Nicolaus Dumba's study, as well as in his examination of the music of Richard Wagner and the architecture of Gottfried Semper. His influence on the art of the Vienna Secession, e.g. B. on Gustav Klimt, radiated far beyond his early death.
This catalog to an exhibit of Makart’s works includes his legendary room in the Palais Dumba, his monumental paintings, and his controversial and subversive erotic works. The large-scale theatric quality of Makart’s work is evident in the stunning reproductions featured in the book, which allow viewers to appreciate the brilliant palette of his oeuvre.
Agnes Husslein-Arco is Director of the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, Austria. She has published books on Schiele, Mucha, Klimt, Makart and others.
German language. Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1974, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 189 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Barrie & Jenkins / London
$25.00 - In stock -
The Sketches of Turner, R.A., 1802-20 : Genius of the Romantic, published by Barrie & Jenkins, London, 1974, presenting over 400 sketches of J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), including over 100 in colour. Works created in Great Britaain and Continental Europe, with commentary throughout by author Gerald Wilkinson.
Very Good copy with poor dust jacket (creasing and tears, but all present and preserved under mylar wrap)
1978, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 96 pages, 28 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bonfini Press / Switzerland
$48.00 - Out of stock
First English-language edition of this hardcover monographic volume on Belgian painter and printmaker James Ensor (1860 —1949), published by Bonfini Press in Switzerland in 1978 and printed in Italy. Profusely illustrated with Ensor's paintings and graphic works in colour and black and white, accompanied by text by Jacques Jansenns. Includes biography and bibliography.
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (1860 —1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX. While Ensor's early works, such as Russian Music (1881) and The Drunkards (1883), depict realistic scenes in a somber style, his palette subsequently brightened and he favoured increasingly bizarre subject matter. Such paintings as The Scandalized Masks (1883) and Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged Man (1891) feature figures in grotesque masks inspired by the ones sold in his mother's gift shop for Ostend's annual Carnival. Subjects such as carnivals, masks, puppetry, skeletons, and fantastic allegories are dominant in Ensor's mature work. Ensor dressed skeletons up in his studio and arranged them in colourful, enigmatic tableaux on the canvas, and used masks as a theatrical aspect in his still lifes. Attracted by masks' plastic forms, bright colours, and potential for psychological impact, he created a format in which he could paint with complete freedom. James Ensor is considered to be an innovator in 19th-century art. Although he stood apart from other artists of his time, he significantly influenced such 20th-century artists as Paul Klee, George Grosz, Wols, and many expressionist and surrealist painters of the 20th century.
Very Good in VG dust jacket preserved under mylar wrap.