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
Art
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World Food Books Gift Voucher
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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.
2002, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket) in slipcase, 600 pages, 25 x 19 cm
Signed and numbered edition of 300,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Getsuyosha / Tokyo
$580.00 - In stock -
"There is no place for which words such as "melting pot" or "purgatory" are more suited than the town of Shinjuku...."—Daido Moriyama
Signed and numbered very first, limited edition, first Japanese printing of Daido Moriyama's 'Shinjuku', his collection of stark b/w, full-bleed photographs shot in Tokyo's shinjuku district, one of the photographer's most famous, and published in this incredible 600 page volume in 2002 by Getsuyosha, Tokyo. Re-printed in many various editions, this is the true 2002 first premium print-run of only 300 copies and published in Japan. This special edition was followed by the regular Japanese edition w/o slipcase/sign, then followed by the Nazraeli Press US re-print of 500 copies mimicking this edition that is often considered the first appearance. Numbered on the slipcase (this copy being no. "51 / 300") and signed by Daido Moriyama with his characteristic silver ink to the first photographic endpaper, this copy also includes the preserved fold-out poster / booklet insert (50 x 36 cm) with text by Moriyama in Japanese and English. One of his finest.
"The current town of Shinjuku shows sign of becoming a near future city. The real and virtual, pleasure and pathos are entangled night and day, and this becomes a huge stadium where the gathering crowds wander, holding their raggle taggle desires. There is no place for which words such as "melting pot" or "purgatory" are more suited than the town of Shinjuku.... When we try lining up in a row cheap words stained with finger marks such as chaos, deluge, greed, vulgarity, vice, indecency, etc., every single one of them epitomizes Shinjuku, and I unintentionally start laughing. This is also an impressive point, as no matter how or where you search in the world, you wouldn't be able to find a city that is this weird. From the eastern JR train line, in other word this side where it seems like a stew in simmering and boiling, to the phantom landscape of high rise buildings that seem like a mirage over the west side, Shinjuku vividly exhibits all the shadiness, toughness, and considerable disconsolateness that a city has, like a truly unfathomable mathematical functional relationship, like a modern Babylon. I and Shinjuku, as well as my attraction to it and shooting photos of it, must have some kind of similar character somewhere."—Daido Moriyama
Very Good copy in Good slipcase. Well preserved book in DJ, with a single spine crease, binding solid, crisp book. Slipcase with light wear and marking, closed splitting.
1999, English
Softcover, unpaginated, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Hermès / Paris
$150.00 - Out of stock
Very rare English edition of the iconic in-house magazine of the French fashion house, Hermès, highlighting the Fall-Winter 1999-2000 collection designed by Martin Margiela. This very special early MM/Hermès photo collection is comprised of portraits of women in Hermès photographed by Mark Borthwick, Joanna Van Mulder, Tim Richmond, Luc Perenom, and others.
Very Good copy with light corner creases.
1990, English
Softcover, 362 pages, 21.6 x 24 cm
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$35.00 - In stock -
"Apocalypse Culture is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our times. An extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the twentieth century."—J.G. Ballard
Two thousand years have passed since the death of Christ and the world is going mad. Nihilist prophets, born-again pornographers, transcendental schizophrenics and just plain folks are united in their belief in an imminent global catastrophe. What are the forces lurking behind this mass delirium?
APOCALYPSE CULTURE is a startling, absorbing and exhaustive tour through the nether regions of today’s psychotic brainscape.
First published in 1987, APOCALYPSE CULTURE immediately touched a nerve. Alternately excoriated and lauded as “epochal”, “the most important book of the decade,” APOCALYPSE CULTURE had begun to articulate what many inwardly sensed — the-fear inspired irrationalism and faith, the clash of irreconcilable forces, and the ever-looming specter of fin de race. In its present incarnation for Feral House, APOCALYPSE CULTURE has significantly increased in size, taking on new perspectives on our current crisis, with pertinent revisions of many articles from the original edition.—burb from this expanded and revised 1990 edition.
As New.
2010, English
Softcover, 542 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 cm
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$59.00 - Out of stock
Thee Apocryphal Sciptures ov Genesis Breyer P-Orrige and Thee Third Mind ov Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY) will be remembered for its crucial influence on youth culture throughout the 1980s, popularizing tattooing, body piercing, "acid house" raves, and other ahead-of-the-curve cultic flirtations and investigations. Its leader was Genesis P-Orridge, co-founder of Psychick TV and Throbbing Gristle, the band that created the industrial music genre.
The limited signed cloth edition of Thee Psychick Bible quickly sold out, creating demand for any edition of this 544-page book, here available in the deluxe paperback edition with flaps and quality paperstock.
According to author Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, "this is the most profound new manual on practical magick, taking it from its Crowleyan empowerment of the Individual to a next level of realization to evolve our species."
1998, Japanese
Softcover (staple bound), 80 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Street Editorial Office / Tokyo
$90.00 - Out of stock
Rare very early issue of FRUiTS, the Legendary Japanese Street Style Magazine. Founded in 1997 by photographer and publisher of STREET magazine, Shoichi Aoki, the photographer spent two decades documenting Tokyo’s cool kids and the constantly evolving experimental styles that blossomed on the curbs of the youthful Harajuku district, until after 20 years and 233 issues Aoki ceased publication, declaring there were “no more fashionable kids to photograph”. Harajuku is now a moribund, globalised shadow of the parade of self-expression it once was, and FRUiTS has become an even more essential time-capsule of a cultural phenomenon like no other. Made up entirely of full-bleed photographs by Aoki exclusively documenting the kaleidoscope of playful and devoted fashions of the Harajuku girls, and guys, each issue of FRUiTS was the antithesis of high fashion luxury. The magazine primarily focused on individual styles found outside the fashion-industry mainstream, as well as subcultures specific to Japan, such as lolita and ganguro, and local interpretations of larger subcultures like punk, rave and goth. Made for the local market only, FRUiTS became a treasure in the West and an enormous influence on alternative culture the world over. Like Aoki's STREET, FRUiTS has become an essential style goldmine, creating a immensely valuable photographic document of the times like no other magazine of our times.
Good copy with some edge wear and a closed tear to cover/masthead.
1998, Japanese
Softcover (staple bound), 80 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Street Editorial Office / Tokyo
$90.00 - Out of stock
Rare very early issue of FRUiTS, the Legendary Japanese Street Style Magazine. Founded in 1997 by photographer and publisher of STREET magazine, Shoichi Aoki, the photographer spent two decades documenting Tokyo’s cool kids and the constantly evolving experimental styles that blossomed on the curbs of the youthful Harajuku district, until after 20 years and 233 issues Aoki ceased publication, declaring there were “no more fashionable kids to photograph”. Harajuku is now a moribund, globalised shadow of the parade of self-expression it once was, and FRUiTS has become an even more essential time-capsule of a cultural phenomenon like no other. Made up entirely of full-bleed photographs by Aoki exclusively documenting the kaleidoscope of playful and devoted fashions of the Harajuku girls, and guys, each issue of FRUiTS was the antithesis of high fashion luxury. The magazine primarily focused on individual styles found outside the fashion-industry mainstream, as well as subcultures specific to Japan, such as lolita and ganguro, and local interpretations of larger subcultures like punk, rave and goth. Made for the local market only, FRUiTS became a treasure in the West and an enormous influence on alternative culture the world over. Like Aoki's STREET, FRUiTS has become an essential style goldmine, creating a immensely valuable photographic document of the times like no other magazine of our times.
Good copy with some edge wear.
2020, English
Hardcover, 200 pages, 26.7 x 33 cm
Published by
Hauser & Wirth / Zurich
$120.00 - Out of stock
Featuring paintings from series that span from 1994 through 2009, this volume traces Mike Kelley's (1954–2012) engagement with the medium through bodies of work including The Thirteen Seasons (Heavy on the Winter), a series of oval-shaped paintings on wood; Timeless Painting, which marked Kelley's distinct return to painting in colour, and which he described as "mannerist take-offs on Hans Hofmann's compositional theory of ‘push and pull'"; and the Horizontal Tracking Shots series.
2003, English / Dutch
Hardcover, 228 pages, 26 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
MoMu / Antwerp
Ludion / Brussels
Ludion / Ghent
$150.00 - Out of stock
Seldom seen first limited edition copy of the hardcover catalogue, Patronen / Patterns, published in 2003 on the occasion of the unique exhibition on pattern-making curated by Kaat Debo at MoMu - ModeMuseum Antwerp, 24.04.2003—10.08.2003 — almost immediately out-of-print. Showcasing the work of Haider Ackermann, Azzedine Alaïa, Balenciaga, Véronique Branquinho, Pierre Cardin, Hussein Chalayan, Courrèges, Ann Demeulemeester, Dior Haute Couture, Sevin Doering, Angelo Figus, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Romeo Gigli, Hubert de Givenchy, Christian Lacroix, Martin Margiela, Issey Miyake, Josephus Thimister, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Van Saene, A.F. Vandevorst, Patrick Van Ommeslaeghe, Madeleine Vionnet, Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto, and Yves Saint Laurent, along with the photographic work of artist Nicole Tran Ba Vang, this lavishly illustrated and well-researched volume gives rare insight into this fundamental, largely un-documented aspect of contemporary fashion design, illuminating the new avant-garde alongside the history of dress-making, most importantly reproducing the actual pattern designs of many of the featured designers.
"The pattern is traditionally seen as a technical drawing and therefore, in a museum context, only interesting for research or study. With regard to both purchasing and exhibition policies, fashion museums focus mainly on the end product – the garment – and in so doing rarely exhibit the pattern, let alone acquire or purchase it. "Patterns" aims to explore both the technical and the artistic and cultural philosophy aspects of a clothing pattern."
Includes bi-lingual texts in English/Dutch by Kaat Debo, Dirk Lauwaert, Linda Loppa, Frieda Sorber, Christoph De Boeck, Neeltje ten Westenend, Karin De Coster, and more.
Average—Good copy. Cloth covers well-worn with marks, general age/tanning to book extremities, some (erasable) pencil underlining to text by previous owner. No dust jacket (as issued).
2002, Japanese
Softcover, 29.4 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
relax / Tokyo
$70.00 - Out of stock
December 2002 issue of 'Relax' magazine from Tokyo, with cover feature on Japanese fashion label "Undercover". Includes fifteen pages of behind-the-scenes photos of designer Jun Takahashi and friends/colleagues in preparation for Undercover's 'Scab' runway show in Paris, 2002. Also has a rare interview with Jun, in Japanese. This issue also features Mark Gonzalez, Nike "Reconstruct", Steel drumming, and much more.
Relax was an iconic Japanese style magazine that primarily ran throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, becoming an important reference source for trends in graphic design, urban fashion, music, and lifestyle, both in and out of Japan.
Fine copy.
1995, English / Japanese
Hardcover (w. obi strip), 80 pages, 21.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
Pan-Exotica / Tokyo
$140.00 - In stock -
First 1995 hardcover edition of Hans Bellmer's surrealist masterpiece, The Doll, a beautiful photo book published only in Japan, comprised entirely of all of the known photographic images of "La Poupee" — Hans Bellmer's articulated, anatomically amorphous Surrealist doll, reconfigured and captured through Bellmer's intimate hand-painted photographic images. "La Poupee" acquired iconic status as perhaps the purest exemplification of the Surrealist ideal of "convulsive beauty." Bellmer constructed his first doll in the early 1930s. André Breton and Paul Eluard described it as "the first and only Surrealist object with a universal, provocative power". Wordless, this lovely volume is photographs-only, reproduced in colour and black and white. Designed by Jun Takechi.
German artist Hans Bellmer (1902—1975) was one of the most subversive artists associated with Surrealism, famous—notorious, even—for his erotic engravings, objects and photographs. Many of Bellmer's works were inspired by the literary works of Comte de Lautréamont and Georges Bataille, amongst others.
VG—Fine copy with obi.
1978, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 21.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
$160.00 - Out of stock
"Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!"―Friedrich Nietzsche
Rare copy of this remarkable issue of the original Semiotext(e) journal, published and edited by Sylvère Lotringer between 1974—1985, with later book-length issues appearing in the 1990s. This key issue, Nietzche's Return, "... Nietzsche, the thinker without disciples, par excellence", featuring major contributions by Georges Bataille, John Cage, Daniel Charles, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, François Fourquet, Lee Hildreth, Denis Hollier, Kenneth King, Pierre Klossowski, James Leigh, Sylvère Lotringer, Jean-François Lyotard, Roger McKeon, Daniel Moshenberg, John Rajchman, et al.
Founded in 1974, Semiotext(e) began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylvère Lotringer at the Columbia University philosophy department. Initially, the magazine was devoted to readings of thinkers like Nietzsche and Saussure. In 1978, Lotringer and his collaborators published a special issue, Schizo-Culture, in the wake of a conference of the same name he had organized two years before at Columbia University. The magazine brought together artists and thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Kathy Acker, John Cage, Michel Foucault, Jack Smith, Martine Barrat and Lee Breuer. Schizo-Culture brought out connections between high theory and underground culture that had not yet been made, and forged the "high/low" aesthetic that remains central to the Semiotext(e) project.
Very Good—Near Fine copy with tanning to the spine, raw paper stock edges. Well preserved copy.
2023, English
Softcover, 600 pages, 21.2 x 15.2 cm
Published by
Strange Attractor / London
$59.00 - In stock -
Core members of the legendary British experimental band Coil tell its story in the present-tense, as events unfold across their twenty-year history.
Between 1983 and 2004 the legendary British experimental band Coil established themselves as shape-shifting doyens of esoteric music whose influence has grown spectacularly in the years since their untimely end. With music that could be dark, queer, and difficult, but often retained a warped pop sensibility, Coil's albums were multi-faceted repositories of esoteric knowledge, lysergic wisdom and acerbic humor. In Everything Keeps Dissolving, core members John Balance and Peter Christopherson tell Coil's story in the present-tense, and from their personal perspectives, as events unfold across their twenty-year history.
Accompanied by their various collaborators, Coil describe the fertile eruption of ideas, inspirations, and stray tangents that informed their lyrical and musical visions-as well as those dead paths and castoff concepts that didn't take root. No only a worm's eye view of Coil, these interviews provide insight into the late twentieth century's evolving British cultural underground as channeled through two of its most astutely mercurial minds.
2024, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
Published by
Bombast / Seattle
$45.00 - In stock -
MAKING CINEPHILIA A THREAT AGAIN!
The long-awaited second issue of the periodical that “saved film culture” [J-M Straub], Bombast, that shape-shifting, mind-bending “Journal of Film and Funnies,” is back with a sophomore edition nigh twice as girthy as the first, a laff-larded -yet -thought-provoking traipse through the posh front parlors and squalid back alleys of the Seventh (and Best) Art. Far cheaper and more edifying than a Cinema Studies degree, a thing of beauty to treasure forever, and still in retina- scorching full color!
CONTRIBUTORS: Nick Pinkerton, Dan Fried, Christopher Norris, Nick Blinko, Mira Sonnleitner, Chase Slaker, David Tarafa, Jonathan Bauerle, Gashly, Jay Giampietro, Mike Kuchar, Wil Long, Rozz Williams, Casey Moore, Demian Johnston, Ben Horak...
Extremely LIMITED copies!
2024, English
Softcover, 80 pages, 17.6 x 11.4 cm
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
$28.00 - In stock -
The stirring speech given by Peter Sloterdijk in Lucerne in October 2022.
From time immemorial, humanity has had to organize their "metabolism with nature." For Marx, the most important factor in this process was labor. When Prometheus, according to the myth, brought fire to earth, another crucial input was added. Fire has been used to cook food and harden tools for hundreds of thousands of years. In this sense, it can be said that all history implies the history of the uses of fire.
But whereas trees could only be burnt once, labor and fire shifted with the discovery of underground deposits of coal and oil. Modern humanity, according to Peter Sloterdijk, can be considered a collective of arsonists who set fire to the underground forests and moors. If Prometheus were to return to earth today, he might regret his gift; after all, what looms is nothing less than Ekpyrosis, the demise of the world in fire. And only a new, energetic pacifism can prevent this catastrophe.
1999, German
Softcover (w. corrugated folder, loose-leaf pages) + audio cd, 30 x 22 cm
Ed. of 100,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Verein Zur Förderung Künstlerischer Konzepte Mit Gesellschaftlicher Relevanz / Wiesbaden
$140.00 - In stock -
Very rare limited edition folio and CD publication published on the occasion of one of the most significant Sound Art festivals in the world, the KLANG-KUNST-FESTIVAL, organised in the German city of Wiesbaden by Helmut Schulze-Reichenberg, Bellevue-Saal, 13 May — 4 July 1999, featuring the work of Alien Productions, Thorsten Goldberg, Christina Kubisch, Akio Suzuki. "An encounter between art and music, between sound and form. Installations will be shown by internationally known artists whose oeuvre has made a significant contribution to the development of sound art; The spectrum ranges from meditative sound spaces to sound sculptures and video installations to works of art that have sound and music as their theme." This elaborate catalogue was published in an edition of 100 copies. Housed in a corrugated envelope, this folio contains a folder of loose-leaf artist's page containing diagrams, drawings, photographs, writings and biographies to accompany each contributing artists, plus CD that reproduces the recordings by the artists involved.
Very Good copy, light wear only.
2001, German
Softcover (w. corrugated folder, loose-leaf pages) + audio cd, 30 x 22 cm
Ed. of 250,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Verein Zur Förderung Künstlerischer Konzepte Mit Gesellschaftlicher Relevanz / Wiesbaden
$100.00 - In stock -
Very rare limited edition folio and CD publication published on the occasion of one of the most significant Sound Art festivals in the world, the KLANG-KUNST-FESTIVAL, organised in the German city of Wiesbaden by Helmut Schulze-Reichenberg, Bellevue-Saal, 10 May — 1 July 2001, featuring the work of Ulrich Eller, Christoph Lahl, Robin Minard, Alexander R. Titz. "An encounter between art and music, between sound and form. Installations will be shown by internationally known artists whose oeuvre has made a significant contribution to the development of sound art; The spectrum ranges from meditative sound spaces to sound sculptures and video installations to works of art that have sound and music as their theme." This elaborate catalogue was published in an edition of 250 copies. Housed in a corrugated envelope, this folio contains a folder of loose-leaf artist's page containing diagrams, drawings, photographs, writings and biographies to accompany each contributing artists, plus CD that reproduces the recordings by the artists involved.
Very Good copy, light wear only.
Sound Art Festival UND III, 2001
10 May – 1 July 2001
Ulrich Eller , Christoph Lahl , Robin Minard ,
Alexander R. Titz
Festival Director: Helmut Schulze-Reichenberg
sold out
Format: CD+Book [?]
Weight: 0.33kg
Label: Verein Zur Forderung Kunstl
4,990 yen
sold out
A live performance from the 2001 Klang-Kunst Festival, a sound art festival in Berlin. An
acoustic installation by four cutting-edge sound art artists: Ulrich Eller, Christoph Lahl, Robin Minard, and Alexander R. Titz.
Comes with a 30 x 21.5 x 1.2cm book of photos and sketches of the installation.
German only.
Limited to 250!
Tracklist
1 - Ulrich Eller Titschen Und Schlagen 12:00
2 - Christoph Lahl OT (Musikmaschinen) 9:15
3 - Robin Minard Monochrome Mix 7:00
4 - Alexander R. Titz Licht Feld 10:20
1996, English
Softcover, 104 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Stadtgalerie / Saarbrücken
$25.00 - In stock -
First 1996 edition catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition of German installation/sound artist Christina Kubisch (b. 1948) at Stadtgalerie, Saarbrücken in 1996. Profusely illustrated in colour and b/w with many accompanying texts in bi-lingual English/German by Bernd Schulz, Wendy Steiner, Helga de la Motte-Haber, Michael Glasmeier, along with a bibliography and biography.
Christina Kubisch is a pioneering German sound artist and composer. Born in Bremen in 1948, she studied painting, composition, and electronic music in Hamburg, Graz, Zurich, and Milan. Her performances, concerts, electromagnetic sound installations, and projects with ultraviolet light incorporate different forms of sound technology and often invite audience participation. Christina has exhibited internationally in both solo and group shows and participated in the Venice Biennale and documenta 8, among many others. The recipient of many international awards, grants, and residencies, including a DAAD working scholarship, a German studio grant from the Senator for Cultural Affairs, the Heidelberg Artists Prize, and the Doual’art artist residency in Cameroon, she is also a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin and has held professorships in Paris, Berlin, Saarbrücken, Vienna, and Oxford.
Very Good copy.
1994, English
Hardcover, 72 page,s 20.5 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Art Gallery of New South Wales / Sydney
$18.00 - In stock -
Hardcover catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition of Susan Norrie at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1994, profusely illustrated with accompanying texts by Victoria Lynn, Gregory Burke, Ingrid Periz. Includes chronology, catalogue.
Susan Norrie (b. 1953) is Sydney-based artist who has developed a practice which utilises art, documentary and film genres. Her projects are concerned with the environment, human rights and survival. In 2007 she represented Australia at the 52nd Venice Biennale.
Very Good copy, light cover wear.
1971, German
Softcover, 130 pages, 18 x 11.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Diogenes / Zürich
$50.00 - Out of stock
1971 European paperback edition of Tomi Ungerer's controversial cult classic from 1969, Fornicon, originally published as an over-sized folio of Ungerer's stunning line drawings of machine sex. Over one hundred pages of Ungerer's wild fetish contraptions and participants in diagrammatic instructional bondage bliss. One of the finest illustration erotic works of our time, from one of the great European illustrators.
"Black Power/White Power, with its Kama Sutra suggestion of simultaneous fellatio, has an undeniable sexual undercurrent, but Ungerer also addressed the sexual revolution head-on, assimilating the fluid line and stark patterning of Aubrey Beardsley in wildly phallocratic drawings of baroque pleasure devices and mechanical means of penetration. Published as an expensive folio, The Fornicon, these sprightly images—a literal, if perverse, expression of the desire to make love rather than war—provoked a strong negative reaction, effectively suspending Ungerer’s career as a children’s book artist (his works, he says, were banned from libraries) and precipitating his departure from New York..."—NY Books
Published in 1971 in Zürich. The work is wordless, with only an accompanying introductory text in German.
Tomi Ungerer (1931—2019) is an award winning French illustrator and a writer in three languages. He has published over 140 books ranging from much loved children's books to controversial adult work, from the fantastic to the autobiographical. He is known for sharp social satire and witty aphorisms. He is renowned for his iconic Advertising campaigns and political posters against the Vietnam War and Racial Injustice which were representative of the burgeoning political consciousness in New York in the 1960’s. His political engagement has continued to this day in campaigns against Racism and Fascism, for Nuclear disarmament, Ecology and numerous Humanitarian causes.
Very Good copy with some cover wear/creases.
1995, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 192 pages, 24 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
University Art Museum / Berkeley
$120.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover edition of this exquisitely designed volume, published by Bulfinch Press in 1995. Though known primarily for her sculpture, Louise Bourgeois has displayed a lifelong passion for drawing and considers it to be essential to her oeuvre. This exceptional book is the first to combine over fifty years of the artist's drawings with her own observations. Not merely preparatory studies for her sculptures, Bourgeois's drawings are fully realized, independent works of art that rank as some of her most powerful and emotive creations. In the text accompanying the illustrations, Bourgeois, a highly autobiographical artist, describes and explains the sources for each work - and in the process provides fascinating insights into her life and art.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1989, English
Softcover, 384 pages, 22.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
Autonomedia / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
HEBEPHRENIA SF, NO WAVE SF, ALL MEAT SF, UNREAL SF, BAD BRAINS SF, GODGROPE SF, SHITFUCK SF, CRACK SF, FREE DOPE SF, TERRORIST SF, TENTACLESUCKER SF, TRANSCYBERGNOSTIC SF, NO FUTURE SF, ELECTRO-SEIZURE SF...
Rare copy of the first edition of one of the remarkable book issues of the original Semiotext(e) journal — Semiotext(e) SF, the Science Fiction issue, published in 1989, edited by Rudy Rucker, Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey), Robert Anton Wilson and Jim Fleming, and designed by Mike Saenz. Co-published by Autonomedia.
Includes fiction by Don Webb, Bruce Sterling, Freddie Baer, Bruce Boston, Ernest Hogan, John Shirley, Nick Herbert, Rachael Pollack, Bob McGlynn, Rudy Rucker, Kerry Thornley, William Gibson, Sol Yurick, James Koehnline, J. G. Ballard, Paul Di Fillippo, Sharon Gannon & David Life, Richard Kadrey, Hakim Bey, Ian Watson, Michael Blumlein, Thom Metzger, Lewis Shiner, William S. Burroughs, Daniel Pearlman, Ron Kolm, Greg Gibson, Lorraine Schein, T. L. Parkinson, Marc Laidlaw, Colin Wilson, Robert Sheckley, Denise Angela Shawl, Luke McGuff, Richard Kadrey, Philip Jose Farmer, Hugh Fox, Bart Plantenga, Anonymous, t. winter-damon, Robert Anton Wilson, Ivan Stang, Jacob Rabinowitz, Barrington J. Bayley...
Very Good copy.
1985, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 244 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Methuen Publishing / London
$55.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 Methuen hardcover edition.
The Soft Machine, published in 1985, represents a significant contribution to the study of contemporary literature in the larger cultural and scientific context. David Porush shows how the concepts of cybernetics and artificial intelligence that have sparked our present revolution in computer and information technology have also become the source for images and techniques in our most highly sophisticated literature, postmodern fiction by Barthelme, Barth, Pynchon, Beckett, Burroughs, Vonnegut and others.
With considerable skill, Porush traces the growth of "the metaphor of the machine" as it evolves both technologically and in literature of the twentieth century. He describes the birth of cybernetics, gives one of the clearest accounts for a lay audience of its major concepts and shows the growth of philosophical resistance to the mechanical model for human intelligence and communication which cybernetics promotes, a model that had grown increasingly influential in the previous decade. The Soft Machine shows postmodern fiction synthesizing the inviting metaphors and concepts of cybernetics with the ideals of art, a synthesis that results in what Porush calls "cybernetic fiction" alive to the myths and images of a cybernetic age.
Fine copy in NF dust jacket, light rubbing/wear.
1980, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 36.5 x 25.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ryuko Tsushin / Japan
$80.00 - In stock -
Wonderful early issue of Japan's Studio Voice magazine, with original cover artwork by Aquirax Uno, published in 1980 in the early over-sized, tabloid format established by Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. When it was first launched in 1976, Studio Voice was the Japanese edition of Warhol's Interview, bridging New York and Tokyo culture. The arts, music, fashion, photography, film, literature, model news, style news, reviews... The Japanese Interview, say no more!
Very Good copy, some cover/spine wear.
1992, English / French
Softcover (staple-bound), 64 pages, 24.5 x 19 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Purple Institute / Paris
$580.00 - In stock -
The true beginning of Purple — the very rare first issue of Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm's Purple Prose, published in 1992. Founded as a reaction against the superficial glamour of the 1980’s, Purple Prose embraced the immediate fanzine aesthetics of what became referred to as 1990's anti-fashion, a far cry from what we now identify with Purple Fashion with.
Purple Prose 1, Automne 1992, features contributions by Dike Blair, Andrea Zittel, Joshua Decter, Henry Bond, Daniel Lemer, Jutta Koether, Andrea Zittel, Roddy Bogawa, Jon Moritsugu, Jacques Boyreau, Jan Avgikos, Martin Kippenberger, Patrick Van Caeckenbergh, Edgar Heap of Birds, David Robbins, Jean-Christophe Menu, Vitaly Glabel, Kitten (pre—Free Kitten: Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore's Julia Cafritz), Patrick Bouchitey, Jean-Luc Vilmouth, François Roche, and many more.
Soon after the birth of Purple Prose, Zahm created spin-off publications like Purple Sexe, Purple Fiction and what we now know and love, Purple Fashion. Zahm aimed at fusing together his two worlds, fashion and art, in creating Purple Fashion.
Before entering the world of fashion, Zahm worked as an art critic with widespread recognition for his work as a curator as well as his participation in over 150 exhibitions featuring international contemporary art. In 1994, Zahm and Fleiss curated “The Winter of Love,” a hit show for the Museum of Modern Art in Paris that they later took to P.S.1 in New York. In responding to the superficial glamour of the 1980s, Zahm co-founded Purple Prose magazine. In the introduction of Purple Anthology, Zahm shares why he chose to create Purple Prose:
"We launched Purple Prose in the early 1990s without any means, and without any experience, because we wanted to make a magazine that was radically different. We wanted to support the artists around us that no one else supported, much less talked about. [..] It would be a form of opposition of our own".
Very Good—Near Fine copy, light wear.