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.
1959, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 16 pages, 20.5 x 10.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
The Arts Council / London
$55.00 - Out of stock
Lovely rare 1959 catalogue produced on the occasion of the Kurt Schwitters exhibition held by The Arts Council in London. It was in England that the modest and gentle Schwitters spent his last 7 years before he passed away in 1948. Illustrated with a selection of his constructions and collages, his MERZ works, accompanied by an introduction by art historian Alan Bowness, a full catalogue of works and a biographical note, all spread across multiple paper and tissue stocks, exquisitely letter-pressed and printed by Graphis Press in London.
Kurt (Hermann Eduard Karl Julius) Schwitters (1887—1948) was a German artist, one of the great masters of 20th century art. Associated with Der Sturm in Germany, the Dadaists, Constructivists, and Surrealists, Schwitters was a pioneer of abstract art. Working across the fields of poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography, and what came to be known as installation art., he developed his own kind of Modern Art, called MERZ.
Near Fine copy.
1971, English
Softcover, folded card, 46 x 20 cm (unfolded)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Staempfli / New York
$25.00 - In stock -
Rare folding card invitation/catalogue published on the occasion of the two-artist exhibition of Belgian painter Paul Delvaux (1897—1994) and German painter and graphic artist Paul Wunderlich (1927—2010) at Staempfli, New York, February 16—March 20, 1971. Offset printed in Switzerland, the catalogue features a colour reproduction of each artist's work in oil on canvas on the subject of the fantastic nude, with full exhibition catalogue on verso. The exhibition comprised a large number of works in oil on canvas by each artist, the earliest of which by Delvaux from 1943.
Good copy, light wear/marking.
1977, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 12 pages, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jiyugaoka Gallery / Tokyo
$120.00 - Out of stock
Very rare Japanese Japanese catalogue of Lucio Fontana's work published on the occasion of an exhibition at Jiyugaoka Gallery, Tokyo, in 1977. Cataloguing 27 works (canvas, metal, paper, litho, vinyl collage) all illustrated in b/w, accompanied by introductory text (in Japanese), biography, bibliography and list of exhibitions.
Good copy with crease to cover (running parallel to spine — looks like it was published this way to fold open), light wear, light tanning, light cover marking.
1979, English
Softcover, 174 pages, 20.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Dolceamore Publishing / Carlton
$50.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of Australian performance artist Lin Van Hek's first 1979 collection of writings and short stories, The Slain Lamb Stories, published independently by Dolceamore Publishing in Carlton. Ten stories accompanied by photographs by photographer Jacqueline Mitelman and film-maker Monique Schwarz.
"Her precise bold style does not compromise. Her collaboration between reality and fantasy possess the bracing clarity of the woman who both involved and informed, stands alone."—Reina Nervi Underground, Writers Guild Germany
Lin Van Hek (aka Lyn van Hecke, Linn Van Hek, born Lyn Whitehead) is an Australian writer, singer, painter, designer and performance artist. Born in Melbourne, Van Hek lived in India (working in hospitals) and Belgium, studied painting in France, writing and performing there until the early 1970s when she returned to Australia. She was a vice-president of the Society of Women Writers and co-founder of the literary-music group Difficult Women, that began with a series of feminist literary salons van Hek held in the 1980s. Van Hek has acted in films, including the 1987 thriller "With Time to Kill", and with Joe Dolce, wrote and sang the song 'Intimacy' in the 1984 film The Terminator. Van Hek was also the lead singer with the 1980s electro-dance band Skin the Wig. The Lilian character in Helen Garner's Monkey Grip is said to be based on Van Hek. Lin is also a respected fashion designer, with her own label, Lin Van Hek Design, working in collaboration with women entrepreneurs in the mountain villages of North Vietnam since 1994.
Very Good copy
1969, French
Hardcover (cloth bound), 106 pages, 21 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Éditions Denoël / Paris
$120.00 - Out of stock
First Edition of the catalogue raisonné of the engraved work of German Surrealist Hans Bellmer, published in 1969 by Éditions Denoël, Paris. Wrapped in the publisher's debossed black covers featuring Bellmer's Céphalopode of 1965, this handsome volume opens with "Morale of Engraving", a four page introduction by author Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues (in French). The rest of the book is made up of 141 reproduced engraved works of Bellmer, including his exquisite works complimenting Georges Bataille, Marquis de Sade, Joyce Mansour, Louis Aragon, Charles Baudelaire, and others, followed by a 7 page catalogue raisonné index, including work title, date, process and technique, dimensions, printing justifications, editors and other details. An essential title in any Bellmer collection and important reference.
Good copy, tanning and some marks to board/page edges with age.
2016, English
Hardcover, 336 pages, 27 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Metropolitan Museum of Art / New York
$340.00 - In stock -
This groundbreaking, award-winning book, long out-of-print, presents a multidisciplinary analysis that illuminates the making, meaning, and reception of the unfinished in art, from the Renaissance to the present day.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, at The Met, New York, March18—September 4, 2016. Edited by Kelly Baum, Andrea Bayer, and Sheena Wagstaff with further essays by Carmen C. Bambach, Thomas Beard, David Bomford, David Blayney Brown, Nicholas Cullinan, Michael Gallagher, Asher Ethan Miller, Nadine M. Orenstein, Diana Widmaier Picasso, Susan Stewart, and Nico Van Hout.
This exhibition addresses a subject critical to artistic practice: the question of when a work of art is finished. Beginning with the Renaissance masters, this scholarly and innovative exhibition examines the term "unfinished" in its broadest possible sense, including works left incomplete by their makers, which often give insight into the process of their creation, but also those that partake of a non finito—intentionally unfinished—aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended. Unfinished features more than 200 works, created in a variety of media, by artists ranging from Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, and Cezanne to Picasso, Warhol, Twombly, Freud, Richter, and Nauman. Essays and case studies by major contemporary scholars address this key concept from the perspective of both the creator and the viewer, probing the impact that this long artistic trajectory which can be traced back to the first century has had on modern and contemporary art. The book explores the degrees to which instances of incompleteness were accidental or intentional, experimental or conceptual. Also included are illuminating interviews with contemporary artists, including Tuymans, Celmins, and Marden, and parallel considerations of the unfinished in literature and film. The result is a multidisciplinary approach and thought-provoking analysis that provide valuable insight into the making, meaning, and critical reception of the unfinished in art.
Very Good copy, only light wear/marks to boards.
1971, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 104 pages, 20.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Secker & Warburg / London
$320.00 - In stock -
Rare first English hardcover edition of Yukio Mishima's Sun and Steel, a masterpiece of modern Japanese literature, translated by John Bester, and published by Secker & Warburg, London, in 1971. With the iconic book jacket designed by Yukio Mishima.
In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known-and controversial-writers created what might be termed a new literary form. Sun and Steel: Art, Action and Ritual Death (Japanese: 太陽と鉄, Hepburn: Taiyō to Tetsu) is an autobiographical essay, a memoir of the author's relationship to his body. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end fits into none of them.
At one level, it may be read as an account of how a puny, bookish boy discovered the importance of his own physical being; the "sun and steel" of the title are themselves symbols respectively of the cult of the open air and the weights used in bodybuilding. At another level, it is a discussion by a major novelist of the relation between action and art, and his own highly polished art in particular. More personally, it is an account of one individual's search for identity and self-integration. Or again, the work could be seen as a demonstration of how an intensely individual preoccupation can be developed into a profound philosophy of life.
All these elements are woven together by Mishima's complex yet polished and supple style. The confession and the self-analysis, the philosophy and the poetry combine in the end to create something that is in itself perfect and self-sufficient. It is a piece of literature that is as carefully fashioned as Mishima's novels, and at the same time provides an indispensable key to the understanding of them as art.
The road Mishima took to salvation is a highly personal one. Yet here, ultimately, one detects the unmistakable tones of a self transcending the particular and attaining to a poetic vision of the universal. The book is therefore a moving document, and is highly significant as a pointer to the future development of one of the most interesting novelists of modern times.
"One of the twentieth century's outstanding statements of literary and personal purpose."—Library Journal
"Had we [read this before his suicide], the extravagant events surrounding his death would have been more readily comprehensible."—Sunday Times
YUKIO MISHIMA, one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
The Translator, JOHN BESTER, born and educated in England, is one of the foremost translators of Japanese fiction. Among his translations are Masuji Ibuse's Black Rain, Kenzaburo Oe's The Silent Cry, Fumiko Enchi's The Waiting Years, and Junnosuke Yoshiyuki's The Dark Room. He received the 1990 Noma Award for the Translation.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket. Light tanning, spots and edge wear. Well preserved copy.
1970, English
Softcover, 104 pages, 22.86 x 15.24 cm
Reprint,
Published by
Lightning Source / Tennessee
$42.00 - Out of stock
Bootleg style official reprint of the first 1970 English softcover edition of Yukio Mishima's Sun and Steel, a masterpiece of modern Japanese literature.
In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known-and controversial-writers created what might be termed a new literary form. Sun and Steel: Art, Action and Ritual Death (Japanese: 太陽と鉄, Hepburn: Taiyō to Tetsu) is an autobiographical essay, a memoir of the author's relationship to his body. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end fits into none of them.
At one level, it may be read as an account of how a puny, bookish boy discovered the importance of his own physical being; the "sun and steel" of the title are themselves symbols respectively of the cult of the open air and the weights used in bodybuilding. At another level, it is a discussion by a major novelist of the relation between action and art, and his own highly polished art in particular. More personally, it is an account of one individual's search for identity and self-integration. Or again, the work could be seen as a demonstration of how an intensely individual preoccupation can be developed into a profound philosophy of life.
All these elements are woven together by Mishima's complex yet polished and supple style. The confession and the self-analysis, the philosophy and the poetry combine in the end to create something that is in itself perfect and self-sufficient. It is a piece of literature that is as carefully fashioned as Mishima's novels, and at the same time provides an indispensable key to the understanding of them as art.
The road Mishima took to salvation is a highly personal one. Yet here, ultimately, one detects the unmistakable tones of a self transcending the particular and attaining to a poetic vision of the universal. The book is therefore a moving document, and is highly significant as a pointer to the future development of one of the most interesting novelists of modern times.
"One of the twentieth century's outstanding statements of literary and personal purpose." -Library Journal"Necessary reading." -Times Literary Supplement"Had we [read this before his suicide], the extravagant events surrounding his death would have been more readily comprehensible." -Sunday Times"A key to the novelist's behavior." -Sunday Telegraph
YUKIO MISHIMA, one of the most spectacularly gifted writers in modern Japan, was born into a samurai family in 1925. Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai ("Shield Society"), an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Mishima's work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. In November 1970 he and his Tatenokai forced their way into a Self-Defense Force headquarters in Tokyo, where Mishima, after reading out a proclamation, committed ritual suicide with a young follower in the commanding officer's room. On the morning of his death, the last volume of Mishima's tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (The Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel) was delivered to his publisher.
The Translator, JOHN BESTER, born and educated in England, is one of the foremost translators of Japanese fiction. Among his translations are Masuji Ibuse's Black Rain, Kenzaburo Oe's The Silent Cry, Fumiko Enchi's The Waiting Years, and Junnosuke Yoshiyuki's The Dark Room. He received the 1990 Noma Award for the Translation.
1978, Italian / French
Softcover, 230 pages, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Mazzotta / Milan
$50.00 - Out of stock
First 1978 Mazzotta edition of this absolute classic of Surrealist collage by Max Ernst, first published in 1934. If the collage technique has become an art, it owes it to a work like this book and of course to Max Ernst, one of the masters of collage and incomparable Surrealist painter. Western art has always tried to tear apart the straitjackets of the imprisoned body with one hand: but no one has succeeded in this insurrection like Max Ernst in the novel-collages he invented and brought to climax between 1929 and 1934. These are images accompanied by rapturous captions and cropped from the illustrations of serial novels from the 19th and early 20th centuries, full of sensual and innocent girls undermined by dark pupils of Sade, and messieurs in black suits and spats who hide shameful foibles, while in the background "the city full of dreams" by Baudelaire trembles and again "the specter lures the passer-by in broad daylight". A dreamlike staging inherited from the feuilletons, therefore, but which Ernst, with his montage made up of mysterious juxtapositions and obscure cuts, the exaltation of chance and the thrill of analogy, with his slow-motion cinema and his comic strip for adults only, has been able to transform into the banner of the perennial revolt of desire.
Bi-lingual texts (French/Italian) by Jarry, Schwob, Breton, Eluard...
A masterpiece.
Very Good copy some edge wear, ageing.
2022, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 96 pages, 19 x 26 cm
Signed by artist,
Published by
Pan-Exotica / Tokyo
$90.00 - In stock -
First hardcover edition of Anatomie de l'Art Insolite by Japanese artist Eimi Suzuki, signed by the artist. The long-awaited third collection of gothic-baroque mixed media works by Eimi Suzuki, a contemporary Japanese artist who pursues a new beauty between painting and collage. In addition to creating two-dimensional works that incorporate classical art into the modern era, at once elegant and grotesque\ rich with themes of life, prejudice, and prayer, this collection also includes Suzuki's textiles, metalwork works, and objects documented.
1972, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 20 pages, 29.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
? / Japan
$45.00 - Out of stock
Wonderful, scarce Japanese souvenir photo booklet for Federico Fellini's Roma, a 1972 semi-autobiographical comedy-drama film depicting director Federico Fellini's move from his native Rimini to Rome as a youth. A homage to the city, the only major "character" of the film, Rome is a fluid, often chaotic tapestry of bizarre scenes, Roman lives and events that blend together into a gorgeous visual carnival. From the opening traffic jam into the city under the fascist reign of Mussolini, the film is a procession of raucous and extravagant aspects of both Rome's past and present in joyous, delirious Fellini style. Heavily illustrated throughout with glossy colour and b/w stills from the film, alongside texts in Japanese about the film, cast, and production information.
Good copy with tanning and light wear.
1969, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 24 pages plus fold-out, 29.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
? / Japan
$45.00 - In stock -
Wonderful, scarce Japanese souvenir photo booklet for Federico Fellini's Satyricon, a 1969 Italian fantasy drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini and loosely based on Petronius's work Satyricon, written during the reign of Emperor Nero and set in Imperial Rome. The award-winning film is divided into nine episodes, following Encolpius (Martin Potter) and his friend Ascyltus (Hiram Keller) as they try to win the heart of a young boy named Gitón within a surreal and dreamlike Roman landscape. It received acclaim from international critics, with particular praise toward Fellini's direction and Danilo Donati's vivid production design. Heavily illustrated throughout with glossy colour and b/w stills from the film, alongside texts in Japanese about the film, cast, and production information. Includes four-panel double-sided colour fold-out.
Good copy with light wear.
1994, Japanese
Softcover, 316 pages, 22 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Seidosha / Tokyo
$15.00 - In stock -
Eureka No. 9, published in Japan in 1994, a leading journal of poetry and criticism, this issue dedicated to the world of Italian director Federico Fellini, including texts by/about Pier Paolo Pasolini, Giulietta Masina, Anita Ekberg, Martin Scorsese, Italo Calvino, Alberto Moravia, full Fellini filmography, an essay on Balthus' teachings, plus much more. Contributors include critic Nagaharu Yodogawa, artist Hideaki Kawashima, director Nobuhiko Obayashi (House!), author Hirohide Takeyama, and much more... All in Japanese! Eureka is a heavy text journal, with scattered illustrations and film stills throughout.
Very Good copy, light wear.
2004, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi), 176 pages, 21 x 14.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Seirin Kogeisha / Tokyo
$65.00 - Out of stock
First edition of "Heta-uma" master Takashi Nemoto's wild artbook from 2004, Naming, an unremittingly explicit all-out libidinal gore-fest of experimental manga illustration and collage of the highest degree. Printed throughout in many monochromatic chapters on warm paperstock, Nemoto's horror comedy has real insightful beauty in its madness. Born in Shibuya in 1958, making his debut in Garo magazine in 1981, Nemoto is a devoted figure of the Japanese underground. Due to his pessimistic, satirical stance, and unapologetically squalid subject matter, Nemoto has long been a controversial figure in Japan—clashing violently with mainstream Japanese morals—and is just now receiving some critical success there. Reviewers are finally looking past his gross-out humour to find far-flung influences and connections like Mark Twain, Otto Dix and Andre Masson. The prolific Nemoto also writes, produces video works and events, and re-issues out of print and forgotten records, together with the critic Manabu Yuasa, and the designer Hideo Funabashi, under the name Maboroshi No Meiban Kaihō Dōmei.
Very Good copy w. VG dust jacket and obi.
1969, Japanese
Softcover, 128 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$360.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of the first issue of Angura (Underground Theatre), the "Dramatic Theory Magazine", published in 1969 in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. Strikingly designed by the great Japanese art director Ryōichi Enomoto, this issue's special feature is ‘Anti-Theater’, with contributions by Shūji Terayama, photographer Yoshihiro Tatsuki, artist Jiro Takamatsu, poet Tadaaki Mori, director and cinematographer Sakumi Hagiwara, critic Masaaki Hiraoka, critic Koichi Isoda, actor Shigeomi Satô, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
Very Good copy.
1970, Japanese
Softcover, 300 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$360.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 3, 1970, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With gorgeous graphic design and (Aleister Crowley) cover by graphic designer Heikichi Harata, this issue's special feature is ‘Eros and Theater’, edited by Shūji Terayama and Masahiko Akuta with contributions by Terayama, photographer Hajime Sawatari, writer Taruho Inagaki, director Takahiko Iimura, anthropologist Masao Yamaguchi, playwright Yasunari Takahashi, director and cinematographer Sakumi Hagiwara, film director Nobuhiro Kawanaka, playwright Rio Kishida, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
1972, Japanese
Softcover, 340 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$160.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 5, 1972, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With iconic cover photography by Shūji Terayama, this issue's special feature is ‘City Drama / Human-powered airplane Solomon’, with contributions by Terayama, artsit Jiro Takamatsu, butoh dancer and choreographer Akira Kasai, actress Eiko Kujo, photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, film director Nobuhiro Kawanaka, playwright Yutaka Higashi, film critic Shigechika Sato, musician J. A. Seazer, musician Shigeo Takenaga, musician Norihito Inaba, photographer Hiroshi Yamazaki, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
1973, Japanese
Softcover, 340 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$340.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 6, 1973, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With iconic cover photography by Shūji Terayama, this issue's special feature is ‘New Trends in Overseas Theater’, with contributions by Terayama, musician J. A. Seazer, musician Norihito Inaba, photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, actor Hideaki Sasaki, producer and actress Eiko Kujo, artist Nobuo Sasaki, and many others. Includes in-depth features and interviews on the work of theatre directors Jérôme Savary, Robert Wilson, and Mario Ricci and photo-reports the activities of independent theatre companies around the world, including Teatro Abaco (Rome), Atelje 212 (Belgrade), Teatr Laboratorium (Wrocław), La Mamma Theatre (New York), Forum Theater (Berlin), Odin Teatret (Holstebro), Stichting Mickery Workshop (Antwerp), making it a very valuable resource on the subject. There are also photo reports and scripts on the performances of Tenjō Sajiki, including works performed overseas. Incredible rare performance documents. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
1977, Japanese
Softcover, 64 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 11, 1977, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With iconic cover photography by Shūji Terayama, this issue's special feature is ‘Secret Drama (Absurd Ship)’, with contributions by Terayama, writer Taruho Inagaki, anthropologist Masao Yamaguchi, film director Nobuhiro Kawanaka, playwright Rio Kishida, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
1978, Japanese
Softcover, 80 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 12, 1978, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With iconic cover photography by Shūji Terayama, this issue's special feature is ‘Body Language and the Theatrical Body’, with contributions by Terayama, philosopher Hiroshi Ichikawa, musicologist Fumio Koizumi, film critic Masao Matsuda, illustrator Ryōichi Enomoto, musician J. A. Seazer, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
1979, Japanese
Softcover, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 14, 1979, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With iconic cover photography by Shūji Terayama, this issue's special feature is ‘Drama Lemming / Machine Dramaturgy’, with contributions by Terayama, scenographer Nobutaka Kotake, playwright Rio Kishida, artist Panamarenko, producer Michi Tanaka, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, texts, scripts in Japanese.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
1996, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), unpaginated, 21.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Uplink / Japan
$80.00 - In stock -
Issued in 1997 and long out-of-print, this tremendous little publication collects and reproduces every issue of 天井桟敷 "Ceiling Pier" newspaper, published by Shūji Terayama's experimental theatre troupe Tenjō Sajiki between 1967—1983. Ceiling Pier (a term for the cheap seats in a theatre, furthest from the stage) was the voice-piece for the "Theatre Laboratory" activities of Tenjō Sajiki and their associates, published throughout their entire existence, now all impossibly rare. Lovely document of this printed history, from issue No. 1 May 3, 1967 through to No. 26 March 15, 1983, all pages, all reduced to the size of a jacket pocket. Includes the work of collaborators musician J. A. Seazer, graphic artists Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo, playwright Yutaka Higashi, actress Eiko Kujo, art director Ryōichi Enomoto, illustrator Makoto Wada, playwright Jūrō Kara, and many more. Texts in Japanese.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
Very good with light wear and one fold to cover.
1967, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 310 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Haga Bookstore / Japan
$250.00 - In stock -
Rare and iconic book, Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1967) is a collaboration between legendary Japanese underground theater and film director Shuji Terayama, graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo and photographer/cinematographer Yasuhiro Yoshioka. As a precursor to Terayama's first audacious feature-length film of the same title, from 1971, this beautiful softcover book is filled with collages, photographs, graphics, drawings and texts (in Japanese), housed in an elaborate dust-jacket (with amazing Beatles homage lipstick collage on verso) typical of the bold and vibrant pop design style of Yokoo, establishes Terayama as a multi-talented avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, editor and photographer, and one of the central figures of the runaway movement in 1960s Japan. In the same year as this book was published, Terayama (in collaboration with Tadanori Yokoo and others) formed the Tenjo Sajiki, a major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the prolific group was known for their stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. An amazing and rare early example of their published collaborative work, wrapped in one of Yokoo's most iconic graphic works.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
Good copy with Good dust jacket. General tanning and foxing, with edge wear and surface wear to jacket.
1978 / 1979, Japanese
Softcover, 127 pages + 144 pages, 22.5 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Visual Message / Tokyo
$150.00 - Out of stock
First (1978) and second (1979) issues of Visual Message, the "comprehensive magazine of the visual age", published in Japan for a short period at the end of the 1970s. This explosive inaugural issue, co-edited by graphic designers Ikko Tanaka and Kazuya Uegami, and copywriter Shinya Nishimura and themed "Visual Scandal" is cover-to-cover packed with leading graphic artists, photographers, architects, textile designers, etc. from Japan and overseas including Tadanori Yokoo, Masao Saito, Harumi Yamaguchi, Masamichi Oikawa, Eiko Ishioka, Shigeo Fukuda, Tomi Ungerer, Masayuki Kurokawa, SITE, Tsunehisa Kimura, Tenmei Kano, Raymond Savignac, Katsumi Asaba, Ken Mori, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Folon, Asai Shinpei, Marcel Duchamp, Rene Magritte, Herb Lubalin, Osamu Nagahama, M.C. Escher, Shiro Tatsumi, Hiroki Hayashi, Masayoshi Nakajo, Hiroshi Yoda, Hipgnosis, and many more.
Second 1979 issue of Visual Message is structured around the themes "Before/After" and "Scale" and again is cover-to-cover packed with leading graphic artists, photographers, architects, textile designers, etc. from Japan and overseas including Tadanori Yokoo, Philip Johnson, Hideo Yamashita, Seiji Takada, Takahisa Kamijō, Haruo Takino, Takenobu Igarashi, Akira Yokoyama, Hisaki Hiramatsu, Takamichi Ito, Tomoya Nakano, Shōji Yamagishi, and many more.
V.M. 1. Good copy. Some cover/spine wear/creases/small closed tear to cover edge.
V.M. 2. Very Good copy. Light general wear, bumping.