World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
BOOKSHOP CLOSED FOR BREAK UNTIL NOV 10.
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
ORDERS CAN STILL BE PLACED AND WILL BE PROCESSED AFTER NOV 10.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
Theory / Essay
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World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
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'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
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Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
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Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
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Textiles
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Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
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Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
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.
1975, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 250 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$70.00 - In stock -
October 1975 issue of S&M Collector, the legendary cult pioneering Japanese kinbaku magazine published monthly by Sun Publishing from 1972—1985 and founded by Shin Miyasaka and Toshiyuki Suma. Cover artwork by Haruo Shinozaki. One of the finest examples of SM publishing in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, each issue of S&M Collector included a perfect combination of colour and b/w bondage photo features, illustrated fetish fiction, articles and a heavy selection of the most talented bondage artwork galleries, with contributors including Oniroku Dan, Ran Akiyoshi, Shoji Oki, Yoji Muku, Namio Harukawa, Tadao Chigusa, Mito Akiyoshi, Sanpei Akashi, Juan Maeda, Yoko Ozuma, Toshimi Fuji, Hakuzan Shiraishi, Ran Akiyoshi, Haruo Shinozaki, Akira Minomura, Bill Ward, Osamu Nakahara, and many more. Beautifully designed with printing on many various paper-stocks, finishes, and fold-out spreads.
Very Good copy with some loose but present central pages.
1974, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 250 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$60.00 - In stock -
June 1974 issue of S&M Collector, the legendary cult pioneering Japanese kinbaku magazine published monthly by Sun Publishing from 1972—1985 and founded by Shin Miyasaka and Toshiyuki Suma. Cover artwork by Haruo Shinozaki. One of the finest examples of SM publishing in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, each issue of S&M Collector included a perfect combination of colour and b/w bondage photo features, illustrated fetish fiction, articles and a heavy selection of the most talented bondage artwork galleries, with contributors including Oniroku Dan, Ran Akiyoshi, Shoji Oki, Yoji Muku, Namio Harukawa, Tadao Chigusa, Mito Akiyoshi, Sanpei Akashi, Juan Maeda, Yoko Ozuma, Toshimi Fuji, Hakuzan Shiraishi, Ran Akiyoshi, Haruo Shinozaki, Akira Minomura, Bill Ward, Osamu Nakahara, and many more. Beautifully designed with printing on many various paper-stocks, finishes, and fold-out spreads.
Good copy with some loose but present central pages and disconnected cover.
1974, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 250 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$70.00 - In stock -
February 1974 issue of S&M Collector, the legendary cult pioneering Japanese kinbaku magazine published monthly by Sun Publishing from 1972—1985 and founded by Shin Miyasaka and Toshiyuki Suma. Cover artwork by Haruo Shinozaki. One of the finest examples of SM publishing in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, each issue of S&M Collector included a perfect combination of colour and b/w bondage photo features, illustrated fetish fiction, articles and a heavy selection of the most talented bondage artwork galleries, with contributors including Oniroku Dan, Ran Akiyoshi, Shoji Oki, Yoji Muku, Namio Harukawa, Tadao Chigusa, Mito Akiyoshi, Sanpei Akashi, Juan Maeda, Yoko Ozuma, Toshimi Fuji, Hakuzan Shiraishi, Ran Akiyoshi, Haruo Shinozaki, Akira Minomura, Bill Ward, Osamu Nakahara, and many more. Beautifully designed with printing on many various paper-stocks, finishes, and fold-out spreads.
Very Good copy.
1978, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 250 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$70.00 - In stock -
December 1978 issue of S&M Collector, the legendary cult pioneering Japanese kinbaku magazine published monthly by Sun Publishing from 1972—1985 and founded by Shin Miyasaka and Toshiyuki Suma. Cover artwork by Haruo Shinozaki. One of the finest examples of SM publishing in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, each issue of S&M Collector included a perfect combination of colour and b/w bondage photo features, illustrated fetish fiction, articles and a heavy selection of the most talented bondage artwork galleries, with contributors including Oniroku Dan, Ran Akiyoshi, Shoji Oki, Yoji Muku, Namio Harukawa, Tadao Chigusa, Mito Akiyoshi, Sanpei Akashi, Juan Maeda, Yoko Ozuma, Toshimi Fuji, Hakuzan Shiraishi, Ran Akiyoshi, Haruo Shinozaki, Akira Minomura, Bill Ward, Osamu Nakahara, and many more. Beautifully designed with printing on many various paper-stocks, finishes, and fold-out spreads.
Very Good copy.
1973, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 250 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$70.00 - In stock -
December 1973 issue of S&M Collector, the legendary cult pioneering Japanese kinbaku magazine published monthly by Sun Publishing from 1972—1985 and founded by Shin Miyasaka and Toshiyuki Suma. Cover artwork by Haruo Shinozaki. One of the finest examples of SM publishing in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, each issue of S&M Collector included a perfect combination of colour and b/w bondage photo features, illustrated fetish fiction, articles and a heavy selection of the most talented bondage artwork galleries, with contributors including Oniroku Dan, Ran Akiyoshi, Shoji Oki, Yoji Muku, Namio Harukawa, Tadao Chigusa, Mito Akiyoshi, Sanpei Akashi, Juan Maeda, Yoko Ozuma, Toshimi Fuji, Hakuzan Shiraishi, Ran Akiyoshi, Haruo Shinozaki, Akira Minomura, Bill Ward, Osamu Nakahara, and many more. Beautifully designed with printing on many various paper-stocks, finishes, and fold-out spreads.
Very Good copy with some loose but present central pages.
1974, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 250 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$70.00 - In stock -
December 1974 issue of S&M Collector, the cult pioneering Japanese kinbaku magazine published monthly by Sun Publishing from 1972—1985 and founded by Shin Miyasaka and Toshiyuki Suma. Cover artwork by Haruo Shinozaki. One of the finest examples of SM publishing in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, each issue of S&M Collector included colour and b/w bondage photo features, fetish fiction, articles and incredible artwork, with contributors including Shoji Oki, Yoji Muku, Namio Harukawa, Tadao Chigusa, Mito Akiyoshi, Sanpei Akashi, Juan Maeda, Yoko Ozuma, Toshimi Fuji, Hakuzan Shiraishi, Ran Akiyoshi, Haruo Shinozaki, Osamu Nakahara... This issue includes the work of Tadao Chigusa, Youji Muku (Toyonaka Yumeo), Haruo Shinozaki, Yoko Ozuma, Akira Minumura, Yoji Muku, Shiro Kasama, Takashi Koizumi, Youji Muku, Akira Kito, Makoto Miyama, Juan Maeda, Bill Ward, and many more.
Very Good copy.
1972, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 250 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$70.00 - In stock -
November 1972 issue of S&M Collector, the legendary cult pioneering Japanese kinbaku magazine published monthly by Sun Publishing from 1972—1985 and founded by Shin Miyasaka and Toshiyuki Suma. Cover artwork by Haruo Shinozaki. One of the finest examples of SM publishing in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, each issue of S&M Collector included a perfect combination of colour and b/w bondage photo features, illustrated fetish fiction, articles and a heavy selection of the most talented bondage artwork galleries, with contributors including Oniroku Dan, Ran Akiyoshi, Shoji Oki, Yoji Muku, Namio Harukawa, Tadao Chigusa, Mito Akiyoshi, Sanpei Akashi, Juan Maeda, Yoko Ozuma, Toshimi Fuji, Hakuzan Shiraishi, Ran Akiyoshi, Haruo Shinozaki, Akira Minomura, Bill Ward, Osamu Nakahara, and many more. Beautifully designed with printing on many various paper-stocks, finishes, and fold-out spreads.
Very Good copy.
2023, English
Softcover, 100 pages, 24.5 x 17 cm
Ed. of 600,
Published by
Noise Receptor / Melbourne
$17.00 - In stock -
Noise Receptor Journal Issue no.11 features long-form and detailed interviews with: African Imperial Wizard, Ulvtharm (Mz.412), Cult of Youth, LẼTUM, and James Light (of Agonal Lust, Wounded Son, Finders, Packing Plant etc). Documentation of Linekraft: Hunger for Life Vol.1 (event January 2023), and Clutch showcase (October, 2022). 50 detailed reviews. Cover and 7 pages of artwork by James Light. Edited by Richard Stevenson.
Limited to 600 copies.
2022, English
Softcover, 104 pages, 24.5 x 17 cm
Ed. of 600,
Published by
Noise Receptor / Melbourne
$15.00 - In stock -
Noise Receptor Journal Issue No. 10 features... -: Long-form interviews with: Browning Mummery, Cipher Productions, Dødsmaskin, Geography of Hell, Infinexhuma & Raison D’être, plus 60+ reviews (ambient/ industrial/ experimental / power electronics etc.). Cover artwork by Peter Andersson. Edited by Richard Stevenson.
Limited to 600 copies.
2021, English
Softcover, 98 pages, 21 x 15 cm
Ed. of 600,
Published by
Noise Receptor / Melbourne
$13.00 - In stock -
Noise Receptor Journal Issue no. 9 features long-form interviews with: Contrastate, Die Kombination, Linekraft, Live Bait Recording Foundation, Martin Bladh, Murderous Vision and Nil By Mouth. Original cover artwork and review section artwork by Martin Bladh, accompanying 60 detailed reviews (ambient/industrial/experimental/power electronics etc.). Edited by Richard Stevenson.
Limited to 600 copies.
2020, English
Softcover, 21 x 15 cm
Ed. of 600,
Published by
Noise Receptor / Melbourne
$13.00 - In stock -
Noise Receptor Journal Issue No. 8 features long-form interviews with: Moral Order, Post Scriptvm & Total Black & Nordvargr (30+ year/career spanning interview). Detailed report / photos of the Dominion of Flesh: 5 Years of Cloister Recordings festival. Reviews: 50+ detailed reviews (ambient/ industrial/ experimental / power electronics etc.). Artwork: Original cover artwork + review section artwork by Nordvargr. Edited by Richard Stevenson.
Limited to 600 copies.
1932/2020, English
Softcover, 138 pages, 20.32 x 12.7 cm
Published by
Korsgaard Publishing / US
$40.00 - In stock -
"As I stabbed her throat, the blood gushed from the wound; I drank the blood from the wound and ejaculated. I probably drank too much blood because I vomited."
KORSGAARD PUBLISHING has republished Dr. Karl Berg's timeless classic, THE SADIST. After his arrest, Peter KUrten, the Diisseldorf Vampire, allowed Dr. Berg to dive into his mind. The result was this book. Never before has a serial killer spoken so openly and candidly about his murders, fantasies, and motivations. This book is a must read, but only for those who dare traverse the journey of the darkest of human behaviors.
"Thinking back to all the details is not at all unpleasant. I rather en joy it a.. These explanations, Professor, are only intended for you as a scientist, for I have told you with complete frankness my innermost feelings. Such things are not good for the public."
Foreword by Søren Roest Korsgaard.
1980, German
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 362 pages, 24.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Manfred Pawlak / Herrsching
$80.00 - In stock -
First edition of the deluxe, over-sized 1980 hardcover German re-print of The Philosophy in the Boudoir by Marquis de Sade (1740—1814), illustrated by Sibylle Ruppert (1942—2011), introduction by Guillaume Apollinaire and afterword by Jacques Lacan, published by Manfred Pawlak, Herrsching. German language.
Philosophy In The Boudoir (La philosophie dans le boudoir, 1795), is the most concise, representative text of all the Marquis de Sade's works, containing his notorious doctrine of libertinage expounded in full, coupled with liberal doses of savage, unbridled eroticism, cruelty and violent sexuality. The renegade philosophies put forward here would later rank among the cornerstones of Andre Breton's surrealist manifesto.
Though initially considered a work of pornography, La philosophie dans le boudoir has come to be considered a socio-political drama and perhaps the most representative of the Marquis de Sade's work and philosophy on religion and morality. Dedicated to "voluptuaries of all ages, of every sex", it tells of a young virgin ruthlessly stripped of virtue and schooled in the ways of sexual perversion and libertine philosophy. Continually throughout the work, Sade makes the argument that one must embrace atheism, reject society's beliefs about pleasure and pain, and further makes his argument that if any crime is committed while seeking pleasure, it cannot be condemned.
Very Good copy with VG dust jacket. Tanning to page edges.
1981, English
Softcover, 204 pages, 21 x 13.34 cm
Published by
New Directions / New York
$38.00 - Out of stock
On a crowded bus at midday, Raymond Queneau observes one man accusing another of jostling him deliberately. When a seat is vacated, the first man appropriates it. Later, in another part of town, Queneau sees the man being advised by a friend to sew another button on his overcoat. Exercises in Style retells this unexceptional tale ninety-nine times, employing the sonnet and the alexandrine, “Ze Frrench” and “Cockney.” An “Abusive” chapter heartily deplores the events; “Opera English” lends them grandeur. In 1947, when Exercises in Style first appeared in French, it led to Queneau’s election to the highly prestigious Académie des Goncourt. He once told Barbara Wright that of all of his books, this was the one he most wished to see translated. He rendered her his “heartiest congratulations,” adding: “I have always thought that nothing is untranslatable. Here is new proof. And it is accomplished with all the intended humor. It has not only linguistic knowledge and ingenuity, it also has that.”
Raymond Queneau was a French novelist, poet, critic, editor and co-founder and president of Oulipo, notable for his wit and cynical humour. Born in Le Havre in 1903, Queneau went to Paris when he was 17. In 1924 Queneau met and briefly joined the Surrealists, but never fully shared their penchants for automatic writing or ultra-left politics. Like many surrealists, he entered psychoanalysis—however, not in order to stimulate his creative abilities, but for personal reasons, as with Leiris, Bataille, and Crevel. Now, seeing Queneau's work in retrospect, it seems inevitable. The Surrealists tried to achieve a sort of pure expression from the unconscious, without mediation of the author's self-aware "persona." Queneau's texts, on the contrary, are quite deliberate products of the author's conscious mind, of his memory, and his intentionality. Although Queneau's novels give an impression of enormous spontaneity, they were in fact painstakingly conceived in every small detail.
Re-print of the 1981 edition.
1986, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 18 pages
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Auto Erotik / Wisconsin
$160.00 - Out of stock
Extremely rare publication issued in a limited edition of 69 copies in (about) 1986 in Wisconsin, USA by Kathy Tinsley who was active in the Wisconsin punk and noise scene. Made up of art contributions from Sleep Chamber, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Slave State, K.Tinsley, Coup De Grace, Alain Neefe (Insane Music), Trinity Ov Thee, Lebensborn, Eden 67. As far as we know, no issues followed. Hand numbered in gold marker.
"AUTO EROTIK iz an organization dedicated to thee enhancement ov Eroticism. Our interests lie in thee obscure and thee extreme. AUTO EROTIK PUBLICATION #1 iz a collection ov Erotik Art / Erotik Graphic Images gathered from artists around thee world. Within this publication we have brought together a diverse collection ov Erotika. We find what each individual sees az being Erotik to be ov great interest and intrigue. We hope that thee following pages will arouse your inner passion. With our sincere thanx for your interest in our, for AUTO EROTIK, Kathee"
Very Good copy with some pinching and rubbing to toner on cover.
2002, English
Softcover, 220 pages, 13.5 x 19.5 cm
Published by
Twisted Spoon Press / Prague
$34.00 - Out of stock
Part psychological farce, Ungar tells a dark, ironic tale of chaos overtaking one's meticulously ordered life.
Set in Prague, The Maimed relates the story of a highly neurotic, socially inept bank clerk who is eventually impelled by his widowed landlady into servicing her sexual appetites. At the same time he must witness the steady physical and mental deterioration of his lifelong friend who is suffering from an unnamed disease. Part psychological farce, Ungar tells a dark, ironic tale of chaos overtaking one's meticulously ordered life. One of only two novels Ungar wrote, this translation marks the first time his work has appeared in English. His novellas and short stories are collected in Boys & Murderers.
"... a sexual hell, full of filth, crime and the deepest melancholy—a monomaniacal digression, if you will, but nevertheless the digression of an inwardly pure artistry, which one might hope will mature into a less one-sided view and representation of life and humanity." – Thomas Mann
"... great and terrible, alluring and repulsive—unforgettable, although one would like to forget it and flee the evil sense of oppression it creates." – Stefan Zweig
"The Maimed is a fascinating novel, rich in symbolism, rife with grievous suffering, and permeated with psychological torture ... Kevin Blahut's translation is exceptional given the many nuances that exist in Prague German." – Slavic and East European Journal
translated from the German by Kevin Blahut.
illustrated by Pavel Růt
Hermann Ungar (1893-1929) was a German-speaking Jew from Moravia who was active as a writer in Berlin and Prague in the 1920s. “The most important writer of the decade” were the words the Neue Freie Presse, the leading Viennese newspaper, called Ungar in 1927. This was high praise for a contemporary of Döblin, Kafka, and Musil. Feted in France after the publication of the translation of The Maimed in 1928, Ungar wrote three plays, two novels, and a collection of novellas and short stories, before he died from peritonitis at the age of thirty-six.
2023, English
Hardcover, 256 pages, 31.2 x 25.4 cm
Published by
DelMonico Books / US
The Jay DeFeo Foundation / San Francisco
$145.00 - In stock -
A revelatory trove of innovative photo collages, photograms, photographs and photocopies--many never before published--most reproduced at the size DeFeo printed them
This monograph on the legendary and influential artist Jay DeFeo features over 150 photographic works--many never before published--most reproduced at the size the artist printed them. After the completion of her monumental masterpiece The Rose in 1966, DeFeo moved from the heart of artistic activity in San Francisco to a small house in Marin County, California. There she embarked on a focused and rigorous exploration with the camera. For much of the 1970s, she used the camera as a tool to look and think with, creating a wide range of black-and-white photographs she processed in her darkroom. The artist used experimental photographic techniques to produce extraordinary artworks, alongside documentary images of her studio and paintings in process. Her contact sheets, some of which are reproduced here, are often filled with multiple views of one object, revealing the way DeFeo looked and sketched with the lens. In 1972 she wrote: "My interest in photography has always paralleled my expression as a painter."
Essays by Hilton Als, Judith Delfiner, Corey Keller, Justine Kurland, Dana Miller and Catherine Wagner survey the rich materiality, sculptural layering and illusionistic devices of DeFeo's playful and enigmatic photographic works, illuminating her astonishing range and daring experimentation with the medium.
Jay DeFeo (1929-89) was a Bay Area artist who created an original and provocative body of work, including the iconic painting The Rose (1958-66). In the 1970s and 1980s, DeFeo continued her visionary work in a range of mediums, including works on paper, photography, collage and photocopies. Among many other exhibitions, a retrospective of her work was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2012.
1961, English
Softcover, 186 pages, 13.5 x 17.8 cm
Revised reprint,
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
New Directions / New York
$38.00 - In stock -
One of the most extraordinary events of the late nineteenth century in Paris was the opening on December 11, 1896, at the Théâtre de l'Oeuvre, of Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi. The audience was scandalized by this revolutionary satire, developed from a schoolboy farce, which began with a four-letter word, defied all the traditions of the stage. To some of those who were in the audience on opening night, including W. B. Yeats and the poet and essayist Catulle Mendès, it seemed an event of revolutionary importance, but many were mystified and outraged by the seeming childishness, obscenity, and disrespect of the piece. It is now seen by some to have opened the door for what became known as modernism in the twentieth century. It is a precursor to Dada, Surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd. It is the first of three stylised burlesques in which Jarry satirises power, greed, and their evil practices—in particular the propensity of the complacent bourgeoisie to abuse the authority engendered by success.
Barbara Wright's witty translation of this riotous work is accompanied with drawings by Franciszka Themerson. Two previously untranslated essays in which Jarry explains his theories of the drama have also been included.
2008, English
Softcover, 100 pages, 14 x 22 cm
Published by
Wingspan Classics / California
$28.00 - Out of stock
In 1971 Dr. Theodore Kaczynski rejected modern society and moved to a primitive cabin in the woods of Montana. There, he began building bombs, which he sent to professors and executives to express his disdain for modern society, and to work on his magnum opus, Industrial Society and Its Future, a 1995 anti-technology essay, forever known to the world as the Unabomber Manifesto. The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology, while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The 35,000-word manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society. Responsible for three deaths and more than twenty casualties over two decades, he was finally identified and apprehended when his brother recognized his writing style while reading the "Unabomber Manifesto." The piece, written under the pseudonym FC (Freedom Club) was published in the New York Times after his promise to cease the bombing if a major publication printed it in its entirety. Kaczynski believed that his violence, as direct action when words were insufficient, would draw others to pay attention to his critique. He wanted his ideas to be taken seriously.
The manifesto argues against accepting individual technological advancements as purely positive without accounting for their overall effect, which includes the fall of small-scale living, and the rise of uninhabitable cities. While originally regarded as a thoughtful critique of modern society, with roots in the work of academic authors such as French philosopher Jacques Ellul, British zoologist Desmond Morris, and American psychologist Martin Seligman, Kaczynski's 1996 trial polarized public opinion around the essay, as his court-appointed lawyers tried to justify their insanity defense around characterizing the manifesto as the work of a madman, and the prosecution lawyers rested their case on it being produced by a lucid mind.
While Kaczynski's actions were generally condemned, his manifesto expressed ideas that continue to be generally shared among the American public. A 2017 Rolling Stone article stated that Kaczynski was an early adopter of the concept that: "We give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to conform to society's standards. That, and we're too plugged in. We're letting technology take over our lives, willingly."
2011, English
Softcover, 520 pages, 28 x 22 cm
Published by
WarCry / US
$65.00 - In stock -
Underground: The Animal Liberation Front in the 1990s compiles the rare first 15 issues of Underground, the magazine of the North American Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group. With over 500 pages of A.L.F. news and action reports, this landmark compilation offers the most comprehensive look available on the Animal Liberation Front at the end of the 20th century.
For most of the 1990s, Underground proudly documented the work of the Animal Liberation Front, a clandestine group that carries out illegal raids to rescue animals and sabotage the businesses that profit from their exploitation. A.L.F. activity peaked in the 1990s, and for that decade Underground was the #1 source for A.L.F. news.
Compiled from rare copies of the legendary magazine, this massive collection serves as a powerful animal rights movement history lesson and in-depth look at the Animal Liberation Front.
Underground: The Animal Liberation Front in the 1990s is a vital read for anyone interested in the animal rights movement, and the misunderstood work of those who risk their freedom to save animals.
Included in Underground:
A.L.F. interviews
A.L.F. action reports
Essays by Rod Coronado, Jonathan Paul, and other convicted A.L.F. members
Anonymous "how it was done" accounts of landmark A.L.F. raids
Detailed info on A.L.F. rescue and sabotage tactics
Over 500 pages of Animal Liberation Front history
2019, English
Softcover, 108 pages, 21.6 x 27.9 cm
Published by
WarCry / US
$25.00 - In stock -
Together in one professionally-bound book, for the first time.
The Militant Vegan was a low-production-value, limited-circulation, photocopied publication that ran from 1993 to 1995, and never enjoyed a wide audience. This is the complete collection of the animal liberation zine covering direct action, animal rights activism, and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
To understand The Militant Vegan is to understand the historical context from which it arose: By 1993, the Animal Liberation Front had carried out its most strategic campaign to date, targeting weak points in the fur industry in a multi-state liberation and arson spree called Operation Bite Back. The media was all but silent. There was no internet, so activists outside the small media markets where these raids happened were unaware this campaign was underway, and many of the raids weren’t reported by the media at all. The Animal Liberation Front (again, pre-internet) had little-to-no platforms to which they could disseminate their communiques, rally the movement to join them in taking action, or let the world know of their victories.
It was from this void The Militant Vegan emerged. To quote issue #1, “The Militant Vegan is being released because there has been a media blackout on direct action on behalf of enslaved animals.” Before the internet, animal liberation news could only be spread through photocopied documents like The Militant Vegan, distributed person-to-person, and seen by few. While dominated by re-purposed material (such as ALF primers and newspaper clippings), there is also notable content, ALF history, and other direct-action themed rarities contained in these pages. Some of it never to be found elsewhere. The Militant Vegan published some of the first publicized fur farm addresses - several of which would go on to be raided by activists. A communiqué for the Malecky Mink Farm arson (also part of Operation Bite Back) is a rare piece of ALF history. And even the grainy newspaper article reprints can’t be downplayed, in a time when to not live in an area where an ALF action had occurred was to never know it happened at all - were it not for The Militant Vegan.
In the mid-1990s, reading The Militant Vegan was like a window to a secret history you watched unfold in its pages.
2023, English
Softcover, 528 pages, 21.7 x 16 cm
Revised And Expanded Edition,
Published by
Strange Attractor / London
$69.00 - In stock -
An expanded edition of the seminal exploration of the English esoteric musical underground—with the first biographies of Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound.
This newly expanded edition of England's Hidden Reverse, the classic exploration of the English esoteric musical underground that includes the first, and only, biographies of Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound, is based on exclusive interviews and unprecedented access to all three bands' personal archives. Together, these genre-defying bands and their circles represent the English underground in all its cultural, artistic, and sexual variety. Over four decades, the three intertwined groups have maintained a symbiotic, yet uneasy, relationship with the mainstream of popular culture, even as their music, beliefs, and practices have repelled them from it. Theirs was a clandestine scene whose work accents the many occulted peculiarities of Englishness that flow through generations of outsiders, channeling personalities as diverse as Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, Joe Orton, Shirley Collins, Björk, and Marc Almond. The story of this Hidden Reverse has, necessarily, remained a secret. Until now.
While functioning as an obsessively researched biography of the three interrelated groups EHR also works to track the trajectory of their influences, explicating a reverse current that runs counter to the mainstream.
Written over a period of six years and first published in 2003, the book flits between John Balance and Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson of Coil’s original Threshold House in Chiswick and the old boys’ school they later moved to in Weston-super-Mare to Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound’s goat farm and visionary art environment in Cooloorta in Southern Ireland to the roof of a house in Muswell Hill where David Tibet of Current 93 receives a vision of Noddy crucified in the sky. From there it moves further back and faster; to eye witness accounts of early Whitehouse performances; to the formation of Throbbing Gristle and the birth of industrial music; to the last moments of the visionary painter Charles Sims; to Angus MacLise, ex-of the Velvet Underground, casting his poem Year as a work of elementary magic; to Shirley Collins, AE Housman and Denton Welch’s visions of England in eternity.
This new volume contains almost 100 pages of extra material culled from Furfur, a collection of interviews with musicians and artists whose careers intersected with the bands,' initially published alongside Strange Attractor's first limited edition of the book.
2023, English
Softcover, 252 pages, 27.3 x 20.3 cm
Published by
Blank Forms / New York
$85.00 - In stock -
Curtis Cuffie (1955–2002) was an artist who lived and worked in and around the East Village from the mid-1980s until his untimely death in the early 2000s. He moved to New York from Hartsville, South Carolina, as a teenager and lived unhoused for long stretches of his adult life. Cuffie found local notoriety for the way he adorned the streets of downtown New York, collecting what the city provided, often sifting trash to stage on-the-spot sculptures along the Bowery and Cooper Square. His arrangements took the form of impossibly balanced towers, delicate shrines, and unwieldy processions up to thirty-feet in length installed along the walls, fences, and sidewalks of the Lower East Side. Nearly without fail they were removed by the police, inclement weather, the department of sanitation, or the grounds team at Cooper Union, which would later employ him.
An enduring presence in the East Village, Cuffie staged sprawling tableaux outside the Village Voice offices that were admired by students and venerable artists alike. He was profiled by scene reporters, political writers, and folk-art journalists, all the while exhibiting in the neighborhood’s famed alternative art spaces. While few of his sculptures remain today, a trove of photographs from the 1990s taken by Cuffie and his companion Katy Abel preserve the work he made in the city. This photobook, the first publication about Cuffie, seeks to honor the artist by collecting the efforts of two of his partners: Carol Thompson, who lived with Cuffie from 1996 to 2001 and archived a great number of his 35mm photographs, and Abel, a Cooper Square resident who took hundreds of snapshots of his art. Curtis Cuffie is designed by Julie Peeters, edited by Scott Portnoy and Robert Snowden with Ciarán Finlayson, and additionally includes writing by the artist, Finlayson, and critic Alan Moore, and images taken by Tom Warren and Margaret Morton.
1964, German
Softcover (staple-bound), 12 pages, 22.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Galerie Dieter Brusberg / Hannover
$55.00 - Out of stock
Wonderful, scarce 1964 catalogue published on the occasion of the two-person exhibition between married artist-couple Unica Zürn and Hans Bellmer - "Unica Zürn: Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Radierungen; Hans Bellmer im Studio: Druckgraphik, Zeichnungenheld", held at Galerie Dieter Brusberg, Hannover, April-June 1964. Profusely illustrated throughout with portraits of the artists together alongside biographies, a selection of featured works, plus a fully illustrated catalogue of their exhibited drawings and prints. Texts in German.
Very Good copy, light general wear and tanning.