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:
OPEN 12—5 THU—FRI
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1971, English
Softcover, 592 pages, 20.32 x 13.34 cm
Published by
New Directions / New York
$40.00 - Out of stock
Death on the Installment Plan is a companion volume to Louis-Ferdinand Celine's earlier novel, Journey to the End of the Night. Published in rapid succession in the middle 1930s, these two books shocked European literature and world consciousness. Nominally fiction but more rightly called "creative confessions," they told of the author's childhood in excoriating Paris slums, of service in the mud wastes of World War I and African jungles. Mixing unmitigated despair with Gargantuan comedy, they also created a new style, in which invective and obscenity were laced with phrases of unforgettable poetry. Celine's influence revolutionized the contemporary approach to fiction. Under a cloud for a period, his work is now acknowledged as the forerunner of today's "black humor."
"He writes like a lunging live wire, crackling and wayward, full of hidden danger."—Alfred Kazin
"It could be said that without Celine there would have been no Henry Miller, no Jack Kerouac, no Charles Bukowski, no Beat poets."—John Banville
"[A] loosely biographical work teeming with disease, misanthropy, and dark comedy."—Adelaide Docx—The New Yorker
Translated with introduction by Ralph Manheim
1998, English / Japanese
Softcover, 128 pages, 30.5 x 22.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Little More / Tokyo
$200.00 - Out of stock
Controversial inaugural (December 1998) issue of Richardson magazine, the short-lived cult 1990's art/sex magazine published by Little More in Japan, edited by Andrew Richardson (of Richardson label, fashion stylist w. Supreme, CK, Valentino, etc.) and art direction by Laura Genninger of STUDIO 191 (designer of AnOther Magazine, etc.). Navigating the murky boundaries between art and obscenity, an honourable pursuit in Japan, this first issue features the double-cover (censored and non-censored) of adult film star Jenna Jameson shot by Glen Luchford, along with J.J. photo feature and interview, Richard Prince’s “Spiritual America” text and photography/artworks inc. the infamous 11-year-old Brooke Shields piece, "Be Broken" erotic artwork gallery by Harmony Korine, "Love Letter to Amerika" from Takashi Homma, Terry Richardson photography, "Cunt" fiction by Stewart Home, photos by French cinematographer (Gummo, Ulysse, Boy Meets Girl, etc.) Jean-Yves Escoffier, Japanese V-Cinema and pink star Nao Saejima, Stewart Home on Cosey Fanni Tutti, many works of photography and text by American photojournalist and writer Erika Langley, erotic photography by skater Ed Templeton of photographer and wife Deanna Templeton, vintage erotica collection by photographer Bela Borsodi, poetry and more! Riddled with bans and confiscations due to explicit un-censored imagery by Japanese censorship standards.
Texts in both English and Japanese.
Very Good copy.
1995, English
Softcover + 7" Flexi Disc (Sonosheet), unpaginated, 21 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Primary Information / New York
$400.00 - In stock -
Rare very first (black and gold) 1995 edition, hand-assembled and limited to 800 copies!
Destroy All Monsters started out as an anti-rock band: four midwestern art students — Jim Shaw, Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, and Niagara — with a mission to subvert the airwaves. Between 1975 and 1979, they produced six issues of DAM Magazine, a barrage of Kelley's perverse cartoons, Shaw and Loren's wild Xeroxed collages, and shots of the band; Niagara did a lot of the cover designs, and everything was crudely printed on cheap paper. "The images that drove us were the strange combinations of film noir, monster movies, psychedelia, thrift-shop values, and the relentless anarchy of an over-stimulated pop culture", recalls Cary Loren. This compilation is the definitive DAM document: hundreds of drawings, photos, Xeroxed artwork, collages, reviews, profiles, and personal manifestos, many works unpublished and unseen before — plus a flexi-record bound into the book (first printing and first pressing of this 1975 recording).
A total of three editions of “Geisha This” were produced and all are out-of-print. Each version was printed in different colours, with a different metallic cover and hand collated in a different sequence, containing new and different contents.
This version (the very first edition), has a cover design by Niagara printed in GOLD metallic ink on BLACK cardboard cover stock. The entire first printing was 800 copies, strikingly printed with dozen’s of multicoloured inks (fluros, metallics), silk-screened and spray-painted pages, with many paper stocks, all hand-assembled, printed, designed and edited by Cary Loren, with artwork and texts by Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Loren and Niagara.
Very Good copy of the first edition in black, a stunning document, complete with the brand new Flexi Disc (Sonosheet) in its first pressing.
1993, English
Softcover, 256 pages, 24 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Whitney Museum / New York
Harry N. Abrams / New York
$300.00 - Out of stock
Still, and will probably always be, the best book on Mike Kelley. First edition, now very collectible. This definitive survey was published in 1993 in conjunction with "Mike Kelley", a travelling exhibition held at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, throughout 1994. Mike Kelley, one of the leading Californian artists of the 1990s, was a proponent of abject or pathetic art, an anti-aesthetic, anti-heroic movement, which criticized social and artistic issues through banality and humour. Exploring the work of this great and controversial performance artist and sculptor at the mid-way point in his career, this dense book presents thirteen essays, plus an introduction, discussing Kelley's projects, performances, and the ideas and diverse influences that motivate his work - contemporary art, rock and roll, social commentary and pop culture. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and black and white, with texts by Elizabeth Sussman, David Marsh, Richard Armstrong, Timothy Martin, Howard Singerman, Colin Gardner, Dennis Cooper & Casey McKinney, John Miller, Ralph Rugoff, Kim Gordon, Howard N. Fox, Diedrich Diederichsen, Jutta Koether, Martin Prinzhorn, Paul Schimmel, John G. Hanhardt. No less! Includes a bibliography and exhibition history. Catalogue designed by Lorraine Wild and ReVerb.
Highly recommended.
Very Good copy, tightly bound, no spine creases. Light cover edge wear.
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
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.
2006, English
Hardcover (debossed faux leather bound + 7"), 26 x 23 cm
600 numbered copies,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Hysteric Glamour / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
Published in 2006 by fashion brand Hysteric Glamor in a numbered edition of 600 copies, bound in padded debossed faux leather hardcover with a 7" record, "the book is a monograph of my late 1970s photographs of my friends, the avant-garde rock group Destroy All Monsters."—Sue Rynski, Detroit photographer. Described by legendary critic Lester Bangs as "anti-rock", Destroy All Monsters was an influential Detroit rock band formed in 1973 by University of Michigan art students Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, legendary femme fatale Niagara, and filmmaker Cary Loren, existing to 1985 with shifting personnel and sporadic performances since. Performing their first concert at a comic book convention in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on New Year's Eve of 1973, the group combined elements of punk, psych, metal and noise rock with a heavy dose of experimentation and performance art, influenced as much by ESP-Disk, Sun Ra and The Velvets, as monster movies and Futurism. The cult group earned a measure of notoriety through their coveted DAM Magazine, also due to members of The Stooges and MC5 joining the band, and Sonic Youth singer/guitarist Thurston Moore compiling a three compact disc set of the group's music in 1994.
"Born in 1954, year of the birth of rock and roll, I grew up immersed in the high energy music of my hometown Detroit. This loud, physical, emotional music took hold and became a part of me."—Sue Rynski
A stunning book published by Hysteric Glamor director Nobuhiko Kitamura, with editorial direction by : Osamu Wataya, Michitaka Ota (Sokyusha), and Koichi Hara. 7" includes the tracks "Rocking the Cradle" and "Little Boyfriend" by Destroy All Monsters.
Near Fine copy.
2003, English / Japanese
Softcover (die-cut, embossed stiff slipcase w. internal illustrated card fold-out sleeve), 92 pages, 22 x 30 cm
Signed by artist,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
$450.00 - In stock -
First, deluxe edition of this rare Hajime Sorayama book published by Treville especially for the exhibition 'Hajime Sorayama - The Exhibition' at Ginza Graphic Gallery in 2003. Now out-of-print and collectible, this extra special copy is also signed by Sorayama himself on the cover "cleavage". Housed in an embossed, die-cut corset slipcase, with an illustrated, fold-out "pin-up" doubled-sided internal sleeve, both made from stiff card, this catalogue is profusely illustrated throughout with Japanese airbrush master Hajime Sorayama's erotic, futuristic, hyper-realistic illustrations with a heavy emphasis on latex and bondage mistresses. Includes his own commentary throughout (in English and Japanese), plus a special look inside his atelier.
Hajime Sorayama (b. 1947) is a Japanese illustrator famed for his precisely detailed, erotic portrayals of feminine robots and fetish pin-ups, and also well-known for his design work on the original Sony AIBO. He describes his highly detailed style as "superrealism", which he says "deals with the technical issue of how close one can get to one's object."
Very Good copy.
1998, English / Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 100 pages, 37 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Sakuhinsha / Tokyo
$200.00 - Out of stock
Scarce first Japanese hardcover edition of Japanese master of erotic fantasy illustration Hajime Sorayama's absolute classic Torquere (Torture), published in 1998. Following the success of best-seller NAGA, Sorayama's Torquere delves deeper into the darker realm of fantasy fetishism and, as the title suggests, into the world of Sadomasochism. This lavish over-sized volume is illustrated cover-to-cover with Sorayama's most explicit works presented in dramatic, glossy full-colour throughout. Rare in this original hardcover edition.
Hajime Sorayama is revered for his erotic airbrushed illustrations of humanoid robots that explore ideals of femininity and beauty. Drawing on pinup pictures, Sorayama published the first book of his signature “Sexy Robot” series of chromium-plated figures in 1983. Decades later, these striking works have sold for more than $500,000. Sorayama started his career in advertising before freelancing in Hollywood, where he helped to produce visuals for sci-fi films. His illustrations gained widespread attention in 1995, when Penthouse began featuring them in a monthly column. While Sorayama has enjoyed a particular cult status for his sensual cyborgs —who appear empowered rather than objectified —he has also received mainstream commercial attention. Sony enlisted him to produce the first designs for its robotic dog AIBO, which won the grand prize for Japan’s Good Design Award in 1999. Sorayama has also worked with fashion titans such as Thierry Mugler and Dior on projects that have extended his illustrations into the realm of wearables, sculpture, and performance.
Near Fine copy.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 260 pages, 19 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Data House / Tokyo
$200.00 - Out of stock
Possibly the most fun you can cram into 260-odd pages! A now very collectible volume edited by none other than Japanese master of erotic superrealism, Hajime Sorayama, Pink Department Store is a wild book digest of visual sex — straight out of 1985! A compendium of remarkable erotic imagery packed into this one-stop look-book of kink compiled by Sorayama, all reproduced in full-colour on beautiful warm raw paper stock, designed by Hisao Iguchi. From the Tokyo sex clubs, phone-booths and toilet stalls, Shibari photography to pink film posters, x-rated manga to wildlife fornication, leather daddys to dominatrixes, Pink Department Store is a safari through graphic perversion and joyous visual innuendo. Alongside archival material and international works the book generously features an abundance of works by over 100 contemporary Japanese illustrators and photographers, including Aimei Ozaki, Harumi Yamaguchi, Takashi Nemoto, Yosuke Onishi, Suehiro Maruo, Hajime Sorayama, Mizumaru Anzai, Yokoyama Akira, Keiichi Ota, Akira Ishigaki, Kaoru Ueda, Teruhiko Yumura, Yoshiharu Ebisu, Arata Taga, to name but a few. There is also a directory list to contact them all!
Very Good—NF copy in VG original dust jacket and rarely preserved publisher's obi-strip.
1984, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 142 pages, 26 x 36 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
James Fraser / Sydney
$300.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1984 hardcover edition of one of the greatest Australian photo-books, William Yang's "Sydney Diary."
Absolutely stunning large-format book of Yang's photography from the late 1970s-early 1980s, documenting the Sydney party scene, gay community, and general Australian cultural atmosphere of the period, from the beach to the runway to the disco via the further reaches of sex, drugs (including the incredible "poppers" spread), celebrity and political demonstration. It is a collection of "friendships lost and found, fragile landscapes, modern icons, images of the incessant pursuit of pleasure, of innocence and experience, ecstasy and desire. In the many ways of looking at this work some will find only sensation, a lurid catalogue from a provincial paparazzi. Certainly it has an appeal to the sensations, a visceral power. But to me this book represents much more. It is a unique exploration of the human spirit, a confession from a guilty romantic, a solitary journey through the land of the dispossessed." - Jim Sharman (Introduction)
William Yang (b. 1943, Mareeba, Queensland. Lives and works Sydney, New South Wales) is principally known as a photographer exploring issues of cultural and sexual identity, integrating this practice with writing, performance and film. Starting out as a playwright, Yang turned to photographing parties and social events as a way of making money. His 1977 exhibition, Sydneyphiles, and 1984 book Sydney Diary, recorded the emergent gay community and Sydney party scene of the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s, Yang began to explore his Chinese heritage, and his photographic themes expanded to include landscapes and the Chinese in Australia. Yang began performing monologues with slide projections in theatres in 1989, integrating his skills as a writer and a visual artist. These slide shows were recognised as a unique form of performance theatre and have since become his preferred way of showing his work. Yang has toured Australia and the world with shows such as Sadness, Friends of Dorothy, The North, Blood Links and Shadows.
Very Good copy of the now very rare Australian photo-book, in original illustrated dust jacket (VG, with some tanning).
1985 / 1993, Japanese
Softcover (w. acetate dust jacket and obi), 128 pages, 33 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bijutsu Shuppan-sha / Japan
$170.00 - Out of stock
Revised 1993 edition of the incredible book of Japanese doll artist Simon Yotsuya, Doll Love / L'amour des Poupées, shot by Kishin Shinoyama, first published in 1985 by Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, Tokyo. This stunning over-sized book is the finest photographic document of Simon's dolls created throughout his career, all dramatically shot by legendary Japanese photographer, and close friend of Yotsuya, Kishin Shinoyama, profusely illustrated in full colour gloss with each doll, including various angles, details, and display cases, accompanied by a section of Japanese texts by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Yoshiaki Tono, Minoruyoshioka, Shuzotakiguchi, and Kunio Iwaya, illustrated in b/w with portraits of Simon Yotsuya in his studio, his drawings and graphic works. Our favourite book on this magical artist.
Simon Yotsuya (b. 1944, Tokyo) started making dolls as a child, visiting exhibitions of dolls, and reads all the books he can find on the subject. In his mid-teens he visited Puppe Kawasaki, a doll maker and animator he greaty admired, devoting himself to the craft and becoming a poor high school student. In the early '60s, while working at a jazz coffee shop in Shinjuku, Yotsuya earned the nickname "Simon" (pronounced “Simone”), after his love for singer Nina Simone. He befriends Kuniyoshi Kaneko (painter) and Junko Koshino (fashion designer) and joins in the arts and literary scene. In 1965, he discovers the work of German Surrealist Hans Bellmer through an article authored by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in the magazine “Shinfujin”, promptly abandoning his previous methods of doll-making to find his way as an artist, incorporating ball-joints into his dolls. Thereafter he becomes an admirer of Surrealism and immerses himself in the controversial Shibusawa's litterary works. In 1965, he also goes to see Tatsumi Hijikata's Butoh Performance for the first time. In the late 60s—early 70s Yotsuya pursued a parallel career to his doll-making as an actor and member of Juro Kara's legendary underground theater company Jokyo Gekijo, Situation Theater, regularly portraying a female doll. He appears in the movie "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief" directed by Nagisa Oshima with the actors of the Situation Theater, but by 1971 he leaves the stage to concentrate on his own work. Simon exhibited at Expo 1970 in Osaka, the Tokyo Biennale in 1974 and by the end of the decade had opened his own doll-making school in Harajuku.
Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), the author of the influential Bellmer article (and novelist, editor, art critic, and translator of Bataille and Marquis de Sade), become a life-long friend of Yotsuya's and his most important advocate, editing the first major book of Yotsuya's work, entitled Pygmalionisme, in 1985. Devastated by Shibusawa's death in 1987, Yotsuya found it impossible to work for nearly two years. He eventually found solace in the Eastern Orthodox Church and was inspired to make a series of angels, which he dedicated to Shibusawa, and straightforward images of Christ. Having carved out his own masterful and unique form of expression, today Yotsuya enjoys international renown as the first ball-jointed doll maker in Japan.
Very Good copy with light edge wear to cover and publisher's jacket.
1985, Japanese
Softcover (w. acetate dust jacket), 128 pages, 33 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bijutsu Shuppan-sha / Japan
$190.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the incredible book of Japanese doll artist Simon Yotsuya, Doll Love / L'amour des Poupées, shot by Kishin Shinoyama, published in 1985 by Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, Tokyo. This stunning over-sized book is the finest photographic document of Simon's dolls created throughout his career, all dramatically shot by legendary Japanese photographer, and close friend of Yotsuya, Kishin Shinoyama, profusely illustrated in full colour gloss with each doll, including various angles, details, and display cases, accompanied by a section of Japanese texts by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Yoshiaki Tono, Minoruyoshioka, Shuzotakiguchi, and Kunio Iwaya, illustrated in b/w with portraits of Simon Yotsuya in his studio, his drawings and graphic works. Our favourite book on this magical artist.
Simon Yotsuya (b. 1944, Tokyo) started making dolls as a child, visiting exhibitions of dolls, and reads all the books he can find on the subject. In his mid-teens he visited Puppe Kawasaki, a doll maker and animator he greaty admired, devoting himself to the craft and becoming a poor high school student. In the early '60s, while working at a jazz coffee shop in Shinjuku, Yotsuya earned the nickname "Simon" (pronounced “Simone”), after his love for singer Nina Simone. He befriends Kuniyoshi Kaneko (painter) and Junko Koshino (fashion designer) and joins in the arts and literary scene. In 1965, he discovers the work of German Surrealist Hans Bellmer through an article authored by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in the magazine “Shinfujin”, promptly abandoning his previous methods of doll-making to find his way as an artist, incorporating ball-joints into his dolls. Thereafter he becomes an admirer of Surrealism and immerses himself in the controversial Shibusawa's litterary works. In 1965, he also goes to see Tatsumi Hijikata's Butoh Performance for the first time. In the late 60s—early 70s Yotsuya pursued a parallel career to his doll-making as an actor and member of Juro Kara's legendary underground theater company Jokyo Gekijo, Situation Theater, regularly portraying a female doll. He appears in the movie "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief" directed by Nagisa Oshima with the actors of the Situation Theater, but by 1971 he leaves the stage to concentrate on his own work. Simon exhibited at Expo 1970 in Osaka, the Tokyo Biennale in 1974 and by the end of the decade had opened his own doll-making school in Harajuku.
Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), the author of the influential Bellmer article (and novelist, editor, art critic, and translator of Bataille and Marquis de Sade), become a life-long friend of Yotsuya's and his most important advocate, editing the first major book of Yotsuya's work, entitled Pygmalionisme, in 1985. Devastated by Shibusawa's death in 1987, Yotsuya found it impossible to work for nearly two years. He eventually found solace in the Eastern Orthodox Church and was inspired to make a series of angels, which he dedicated to Shibusawa, and straightforward images of Christ. Having carved out his own masterful and unique form of expression, today Yotsuya enjoys international renown as the first ball-jointed doll maker in Japan.
Very Good copy with light edge wear to cover and publisher's jacket.
2023, English
Hardcover (debossed boards w. buckrum spine with cover photo-plate), 160 pages, 20 x 16 cm
2nd Ed.,
Out of print title / as new
Published by
IDEA / London
$140.00 - Out of stock
Talented and influential photographer Davide Sorrenti tragically died in 1997 at the age of just twenty leaving behind him a rich archive documenting nineties downtown New York through his extraordinary photographs, scrapbooks, graffiti drawings, tear sheets and contact sheets. Polaroids 1994-1997 is a book of instantly unforgettable Polaroid photographs taken by Davide Sorrenti between the years of 1994–1997, designed and edited by Francesca Sorrenti.
"Almost 25 years have gone by since his passing and still the love for his persona and his work lives on. While locked down this year, I was looking at his Polaroids and reminiscing about a lifetime gone. I realized that a collection of these moments should be the next book. The second book to uncover the archive of this young man, my son, who produced all these Polaroids, photographs – and the diaries and fashion work – in such a short period of time." (Francesca Sorrenti).
Raw-cut Eskaboard hardback with black buckram spine and debossed print.
As New copy of 2nd edition (1000 copies). All editions out-of-print.
1987, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 98 pages (w. fold-outs), 42 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
$190.00 - Out of stock
First Japanese edition of H.R. Giger's Necronomicon II, the second oversized and visually overwhelming Giger-designed collection that takes us further through the incredible history of one of the most brilliant fantasy artists of the century. Reproducing Giger's award-winning work for the film ALIEN, his paintings, environments, sculptural works, his work for never shot film "The Tourist", collaborations with Blondie's Debbie Harry, his "New York City" series from the late 1970's and much more, all beautifully reproduced in full-colour and black and white, full-bleed spreads, including fold-out pages. Also includes interviews, texts, biography. These Giger folio books have become very desirable, collectable editions in their various printings around the world, the series encompassing the work of one of the world's most unique and influential visionaries of the macabre. This is volume 2 of 2 of "HR Giger's Necronomicon" where Al Azred's legendary magical book of the most wonderful abominations and perversions, "Necronomicon" (made infamous in the pages of HP Lovecraft's "Cthulhu" mythology), becomes a visual reality!
First Japanese edition, published by Treville, Tokyo, in 1987. Very good copy throughout with Very Good dust jacket. Some edge wear with fragile, oversized edition.
2021, English
Softcover, 300 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Published by
Edition Patrick Frey / Zürich
$175.00 - In stock -
Thanks to his work on the iconic creature for the film Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) – a detailed account of which is given in his Alien Diaries (2013, first edition, Edition Patrick Frey) – H. R. Giger was firmly established in Hollywood’s supernatural horror and science fiction genres. Giger went on to design all the ghosts for Poltergeist II: The Other Side (Brian Gibson, 1986). Unlike his work on Alien on the set at Shepperton Studios in England, Giger collaborated on the movie remotely from Zürich, basing his creatures on Michael Grais and Mark Victor’s screenplay and airmailing the airbrushed designs to Los Angeles.
Due to his absence as well as misunderstandings with the director and the studio and a meagre production budget, the dark inscrutability and amorphous plasticity of Giger’s initial shape-shifting sketches ended up falling flat on celluloid, coming to resemble cheap-looking monsters in a campy B-movie. Giger’s in some cases psychedelic sketches were designed as sequences showing the metamorphosis of a worm-like ghost into a grotesque dwarf that ultimately morphs into a soul-devouring Gorgon-like monster called 'The Great Beast'. Poltergeist II – Drawings 1983–1985 is a facsimile edition of Giger’s original sketchbook, containing 135 of his remarkable drawings as well as drafts of letters expressing doubts and suggestions to director Brian Gibson.
2023, English / German
Hardcover, 240 pages, 35 x 26 cm
Published by
Scheidegger und Spiess / Zürich
$190.00 - In stock -
A unique visual foray into the fantastic worlds of artist H.R. Giger.
The art of H.R. Giger (1940-2014), Swiss-born creator of the legendary monster in Ridley Scott's movie Alien, is currently experiencing a renaissance and is featured in exhibitions as well as in magazines around the globe. This lavish large-format volume offers never-before-seen insights into Giger's private house and garden, both of which are populated by biomechanical sculptures, airbrush paintings, Alien furniture, objects, prints, and self-portraits. French photographer Camille Vivier—best known for her work for Stella McCartney and Cartier—enjoyed exclusive access to the artist's Zurich home and studio for this book, where she worked on her own as well as with models in a series of photo sessions.
Vivier's around 200 photographs form an atmospheric tribute to the arguably most distinguished representative of Fantastic Realism. In addition to images of Giger's studio and his life-size sculptures, Vivier has also documented some hundred objects and artworks, as well as his famous Alien-style garden railroad.
An essay by French publicist Farbrice Paineu places H.R. Giger's art in the wider context of pop culture and the genre of horror movies.
Edited by Beda Achermann.
Text in English and German.
1983, English
Softcover, 204 pages, 22.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Blackwell / Cambridge
Blackwell / Oxford
$25.00 - In stock -
First 1983 edition.
Georg Lukacs was one of the outstanding Marxist theorists of this century. Yet in recent years his work has been out of favour with the Left, which has denounced it as 'humanistic' or 'historicist' and its author as a 'romantic anti-capitalist'.
These essays, written by pupils and former colleagues of Lukacs, mark a significant reassessment of his work and show that it has in the past been too hastily dismissed.
The essays trace the development of Lukacs' thought from his conversion to Marxism to his renunciation of History and Class Consciousness, from his remarkably fertile 'essay period' to the Ontology. They explore the evolution of his work in relation to that of his colleagues and contemporaries, among them Brecht, Bloch and Husserl. They are written from a privileged standpoint — they reflect at every turn the contributors' intimacy with their subject and their affection and respect for a dominant intellect — but they are always critical in their approach, never reverential. Despite the authors' broad commitment to Lukacs' philosophy, his ambiguities are noted without compromise and his inconsistencies deftly exposed.
From the book Lukacs emerges as a thinker whose work is more dynamic, less monolithic, than has often been supposed. A reappraisal of his oeuvre is overdue: for all those who are students of radical philosophy, social theory and aesthetics, this authoritative survey will constitute a timely contribution to Lukacsian scholarship.
Agnes Heller, formerly senior research fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, is now Reader in Sociology at La Trobe University in Australia. Her books include The Theory of Needs in Marx (1975), A Theory of Feelings (1978), Renaissance Man (1979), and A Theory of History (1982).
VG copy.
1988, English
Softcover, 260 pages, 23.5 x 15 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
John Hopkins University Press / Baltimore
$35.00 - In stock -
1988 edition of Soviet Semiotics : An Anthology, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Daniel P. Lucid.
Fortunetelling by cards and games of chess, cybernetic codes and the rules of social etiquette—in semiotics, the science of signs, all of these are structures whose meanings can be revealed when they are inter-preted according to the conventions of specific "sign systems."
In Soviet Semiotics, Daniel P. Lucid assembles twenty-four pieces, previously inaccessible in English, by leading semioticians of the Moscow and Tartu schools. Writing on general concepts, modeling systems, communication studies, text analysis, art and literature, and the typology of culture, the Soviet semioticians bring a new perspective to Western thinking in these fields. "The ultimate implication of Soviet semiotics," Lucid notes, "is that human beings not only communicate with signs but are in large measure controlled by them. Sign systems regulate human behavior, beginning with the instruction given children and continuing through all the programs introduced into the individual by society."
"Lucid's translation of twenty-four es-says from the Moscow-Tartu School suggests the breadth and range of semiotics.. . . [The essays] illustrate the diversity of Soviet semiotics and the heuristic value of the method in making sense of cultural events."—Richard W. Bailey, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
"Suggest[s] the tremendous implications semiotics and semiotic approaches may have for such diverse disciplines as anthropology, psychology, history, philosophy, sociology, literary analysis, or art criticism."—Gerald Prince
VG copy.
1995/1996, English
Hardcover, 64 pages with pop-up installation spread, 32 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Dia Art Foundation / New York
$50.00 - In stock -
First 1995/6 edition of Jessica Stockholder's catalogue/artist's book "Your Skin in This Weather Bourne-Eye Threads", published on the occasion of the exhibition Jessica Stockholder: Your Skin in this Weather Bourne Eye-Threads and Swollen PerfumeOctober 5, 1995—June 23, 1996, Dia Chelsea, New York. Documenting an installation by Jessica Stockholder, with essays by Lynne Cooke and Jessica Stockholder, a story by Lynne Tillman, and a poem by Ann Lauterbach. Richly illustrated, including a pop-up collage by Stockholder.
Edited by Lynne Cooke and Karen Kelly. Contributions by Jessica Stockholder, Lynne Cooke, Lynne Tillman, and Ann Lauterbach.
1981, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 194 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
John Hopkins University Press / Baltimore
$20.00 - In stock -
First 1981 hardcover edition.
The problem of representation is at the heart of the intellectual ferment experienced in recent years by many different fields of inquiry. The essays in Allegory and Representation confront head on the erosion of the ground rules for representation—the principles upon which a set of stable correspondences are posited between image and object, symbol and reality, sign and referent.
The contributors to this volume reflect an unusual diversity of disciplines, from English, French, American, Slavic, and Italian literature to the history of art. Yet they all confront, through their local and particularized studies, a common problem. Paul de Man and Joel Fineman characterize allegory (and, more generally, representation) as a paradox built upon its own undoing. Robert M. Durling and Michael Fried both discuss the use of the artist's own body within a work of art to achieve a fusion of representation with that which is represented. Hugh Kenner and Leo Bersani each contrast opposing modes of representation—for Kenner, a "poetics of sunlight" and a "poetics of the cave"; for Bersani, an art that drives violently toward narrative closure and an art that remains open and unfinished. Michael Holquist redefines the problem in political terms and explores representation in the writings and career of Mikhail Bakhtin.
Taken together, these essays reveal what may be called the cunning of representation: the resiliency, brilliance, resourcefulness with which artistic prac tice has responded to the artist's perennial craving to reveal truth and reality and to the nagging dread that they lie just barely out of reach.
Allegory and Representation, the fifth collection of papers from the English Institute to be published by Johns Hopkins, con tinues the Institute's tradition of pioneer ing fresh approaches to the study of litera ture. It will be of interest to both students ind scholars working in the field, as well as to anyone concerned with the theory and dynamics of art.
Stephen J. Greenblatt is professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, His most recent book is Renaissance Self Fashioning From More to Shakespeare
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1994, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 27 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
University of Minnesota Press / Minnesota
$35.00 - In stock -
First 1994 edition published by University of Minnesota Press.
Focusing on feminist theorists such as Hélène Cixous, Teresa de Lauretis, Julia Kristeva, and Monique Wittig in conjunction with Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia, and chronotope, the authors offer close readings of texts from a wide range of multicultural genres, including nature writing, sermon composition, nineteenth-century British women’s fiction, the contemporary romance novel, Irish and French lyric poetry, and Latin American film.
Focusing on feminist theorists such as Hélène Cixous, Teresa de Lauretis, Julia Kristeva, and Monique Wittig in conjunction with Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia, and chronotope, the authors offer close readings of texts from a wide range of multicultural genres, including nature writing, sermon composition, nineteenth-century British women’s fiction, the contemporary romance novel, Irish and French lyric poetry, and Latin American film.
Very Good copy.
1980, English
Softcover, 304 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cornell University Press / New York
$35.00 - Out of stock
First English edition published in 1980 by Cornell.
"This collection of Kojeve's thoughts about Hegel constitutes one of the few important philosophical books of the twentieth century-a book, knowledge of which is requisite to the full awareness of our situation and to the grasp of the most modern perspective on the eternal questions of philosophy."—Allan Bloom (from the Introduction)
During the years 1933—1939, the Russian-born and German-educated Marxist political philosopher Alexandre Kojève (1902—1968) brilliantly explicated—through a series of lectures—the philosophy of Hegel as it was developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This collection of lectures—originally compiled by Raymond Queneau and edited for its English-language translation by Allan Bloom—shows the intensity of Kojeve's study and thought and the depth of his insight into Hegel's Phenomenology. More important—for Kojeve was above all a philosopher and not an ideologue—this profound and venturesome work on Hegel will expose the readers to the excitement of discovering a great mind in all its force and power.
Very Good copy.
1991, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 214 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Harvard University Press / Cambridge
$45.00 - Out of stock
Scarce first 1991 hardcover English edition of "Coming to Writing" and Other Essays by Hélène Cixous, published by Harvard.
"Hélène Cixous is today, in my view, the greatest writer in what I will call my language, the French language if you like. And I am weighing my words as I say that. For a great writer must be a poet-thinker, very much a poet and a very thinking poet."—Jacques Derrida
This collection presents six essays by one of France’s most remarkable contemporary authors. A notoriously playful stylist, here Hélène Cixous explores how the problematics of the sexes—viewed as a paradigm for all difference, which is the organizing principle behind identity and meaning—manifest themselves, write themselves, in texts. These superb translations do full justice to Cixous’s prose, to its songlike flow and allusive brilliance.
Translated by Sarah Cornell, Ann Liddle, and Susan Sellers. Edited and translated by Deborah Jenson.
Very Good copy.
1992, English
Softcover, 300 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Indiana University Press / Indiana
$25.00 - In stock -
January 1992 issue of Camera Obscura (No. 28), the Journal of Feminism and Film Theory published by Indiana University Press. This issue with the theme of "Imaging Technologies, Inscribing Science", with special issue editors Paula A. Treichler and Lisa Cartwright.
Edited by Elisabeth Lyon, Constance Penley, Lynn Spigel, Sharon Willis, with advisory editors Bertrand Augst, Elizabeth Cowie, Mary Ann Doane, Laura Mulvey, Linda Orr, Susan Suleiman, and managing editor Gary Laderman.
camera obscura
A Journal of Feminism and Film Theory/28
Imaging Technologies, Inscribing Science
Special Issue Editors: Paula A. Treichler and Lisa Cartwright
5 Introduction by Paula A. Treichler and Lisa Cartwright
Beyond Cosmo: AIDS, Identity, and Inscriptions of Gender by Paula A. Treichler; Local and Global: AIDS Activism and Feminist Theory by Katie King; Gallo, Montagnier, and the Debate Over HIV: A Narrative Analysis by Jamie Feldman; WAVE in the Media Environment: Camcorder Activism and the Making of HIV TV by Alexandra Juhasz; WAVE in the Media Environment: Camcorder Activism in AIDS; Education by Juanita Mohammed; The Politics of Breast Cancer by Alisa Solomon; Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance by Carol Stabile; On the Cutting Edge: Cosmetic Surgery and the Technological Production of the Gendered Body by Anne Balsamo; Spectatorial Embodiments: Anatomies of the Visible and the Female Bodyscape by Giuliana Bruno; Those Who Squat and Those Who Sit: The Iconography of Race in the 1895 Films of Félix-Louis Regnault by Fatimah Tobing Rony; plus reviews and much more.
Very Good copy.