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:
THU—FRI 12—6 PM
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
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 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. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or 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.
1985, Japanese / English
Softcover, 166 pages, 20 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
National Museum of Modern Art / Kyoto
$150.00 - Out of stock
Very scarce, striking Japanese catalogue for a major international exhibition on Postmodern design held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1985. Presents 200 pieces of work by 48 designers and architects from Europe, America and Japan. Features the work of Aldo Rossi, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi, Arata Isozaki, Ettore Sottsass, Frank Gehry, Fumihiko Maki, Mario Botta, Masanori Umeda, Matteo Thun, Michael Graves, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Peter Shire, Richard Meier, Robert Venturi, Ron Arad, Daniel Weil, Shiro Kuramata...This book profiles many of these important designers through photographs, biographies and texts. Foreword by Michiaki Kawakita and Kenji Adachi. Introduction by Shinji Kohmoto and an essay on Italian radical and neo-radical design by Alessandro Mendini.
One of the finest and lesser-known volumes produced on postmodern design.
Very Good copy.
1981, Italian
Softcover, 67 pages, 29.5 × 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Electa / Milan
$290.00 - Out of stock
Here it is - the very rare FIRST ever Memphis book, published by Electa in Italy in 1981!
First edition. Wrapped in a fold-out front and back cover design by Marco Zanini, this very early document of Memphis is almost entirely a visual folio of reproductions of the original drawings by Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi, Aldo Cibic, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Shiro Kuramata, Alessandro Mendini, Paola Navone, Peter Shire, Ettore Sottsass, George Sowden, Matteo Thun, Masanori Umeda and Marco Zanini. Along with an early essay by Barbara Radice (in both Italian and English), this catalogue tells the very beginning of the Memphis story through the original drawings of furniture, objects, lighting and patterns compiled from international architects, artists and designers. The story goes that Ettore Sottsass and his core group encouraged international architects and designers to send their concepts and drawings for new designs for domestic furnishings. In viewing their results through this selection of the drawings, it is clear there was a global design revolution happening and Memphis was about to produce prototypes of these designs that would shock and change the world forever.
A rare opportunity to own this important publication of design history.
Note: This book was briefly re-issued in 2009 in a limited edition - this is however the first printing from 1981.
Very Good copy.
1991, English
Hardcover, 60 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Sotheby's / Monaco
$340.00 - In stock -
The incredible and now very collectable hardcover catalogue for the important sale of Karl Lagerfeld's collection of Memphis furniture and objects in 1991. Lagerfeld had built one of the most extensive collections of this extraordinary design group during the early 1980s in order to furnish his new modern apartment in Monte Carlo. In his catalogue introduction where he declares his love at first sight for the Memphis group in 1981, he goes on to call Memphis the "Art Deco of the '80s". When he sold the apartment he decided to sell the collection that furnished it from floor to ceiling. Lavishly illustrated in full-colour with 133 lots, all the main Memphis designers are included - Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, Martine Bedin, Matteo Thun, Marco Zanini, Masanori Umeda, George James Sowden, Peter Shire, Aldo Cibic. The pieces include chairs, tables, cabinets, shelves, lights, teapots, clocks, televisions, etc. Includes texts and quotes from Lagerfeld, Barbara Radice, Ettore Sottsass and Frederique Huygen, and a bibliography. Still one of the most unique, impressive and informative books on Memphis ever published.
Fine, beautifully preserved copy complete with inserted invitation sheet to the Monaco auction with schedule and hotel booking information (in French). Texts in the book are in French, with some English.
1984, Italian
Softcover (loop stitched), 60 pages, 30 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Memphis Milano / Milan
$340.00 - Out of stock
Very rare, early original Memphis Milano trade catalogue from 1984. Beautifully preserved copy of this lavishly illustrated and iconically designed (by Christoph Radl and Sottsass Associati) catalogue presenting furniture pieces, lamps, ceramics, glassware, metalware, and textiles produced between 1981 and 1984 by Ettore Sottsass, Peter Shire, Andrea Branzi, George James Sowden, Hans Hollein, Aldo Cibic, Martine Bedin, Gerard Taylor, Michele De Lucchi, Mattheo Thun, Marco Zanini, Masanori Umeda, Nathalie du Pasquier, Michael Graves.
A wonderful collector's item.
Very Good copy, bright and clean throughout.
1981, Italian
Softcover (staple-bound), 12 pages, 30 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Memphis Milano / Milan
$650.00 - Out of stock
The first sales catalog from the Memphis design collective. Heavily illustrated in black and white with descriptions of the products in italian. Features many landmark pieces from the Memphis group, including Masanori Umeda's Tawaraya (Boxing Ring), Ettore Sottsass' Carlton sideboard, Michele De Lucchi's Oceanic lamp, amongst many others. A stunning collection from the first year of the group s formation. In very good or better condition, the staple binding is in tact and strong, thick newsprint pages crisp and only very mild toning to the covers. Blind stamped "From the Library of Jim Walrod" to the upper right corner of the first page. Memphis s.r.l., 1981. Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition.
Very rare, first sales catalogue from Memphis Milano, printed in 1981, the first year of their formation. Beautifully preserved copy of this heavily illustrated trade catalogue designed by Sottsass Associati presenting groundbreaking furniture pieces, lamps, ceramics, glassware, metalware, and textiles produced for the debut collection from this remarkable cast of international designers : Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi Aldo Cibic, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Terry Jones, Shiro Kuramata, Javier Mariscal, Alessandro Mendini, Paola Navone, Luigi Serafini, Peter Shire, Ettore Sottsass, George James Sowden, Studio Alchymia, Bruno Gregori, Matteo Thun, Masanori Umeda, Marco Zanini.
A wonderful collector's item.
Very Good copy, some light rust to staples and tanning to edges.
1985, English
Hardcover (w. dust-jacket), 208 pages, 21 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$180.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 printing of the hardcover edition of "MEMPHIS: Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design", by Barbara Radice - arguably the greatest reference book on the work of the Italian Design group Memphis.
Written by Radice, a founding member of the Memphis group (and author of "Ettore Sottsass: A Critical Biography"), and documenting in stunning photography and reproduction the vast array of design work that this group produced across furniture, lighting, interiors, architecture, textiles, glassware, etc., this really feels like THE official Memphis book, embodying their spirit and design aesthetic in book form.
Founded in 1981, the international group of architects and designers, Memphis, shook the design world to its foundations. Based in Italy and led by Ettore Sottsass, it overturned and re-shaped the pre-suppositions on which the production of so-called Modern Design is based. It became the almost mythical symbol of the New Design. Laughing out loud at our culture and at itself, Memphis pulled out all stops when it came to colour, pattern, decoration and ornamentation. It sets out to contribute to the continuing dialogue on pop culture, the avant-garde and design.
This book features the work of Ettore Sottsass, George Sowden, Masanori Umeda, Shiro Kuramata, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Peter Shire, Michele de Lucchi, Matteo Thun, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi, Gerard Taylor, Michael Graves, Aldo Cibic, George James Sowden, Arquitectonica, Hans Hollein, Marco Zanini, Javier Mariscal, Thomas Bley, Martine Bedin, etc.
Contents are: Introduction; Memphis; Plastic Laminate; Materials; Decoration; Color; The Memphis Idea; The Design; Memphis and Fashion.
Highly recommended.
Very Good preserved in original dust jacket. Very Good-Fine throughout.
1991, English
Softcover, 144 pages, 25.5 x 20.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$45.00 - Out of stock
"The ceramic teapots made by Peter Shire straddle the line distinguishing functional objects and pure sculpture... Shire's teapots were an important element in the development of the Milan design movement MEMPHIS in the early 1980's, and continue to be shown in galleries and museums in the United States and throughout the world."
This book was the first comprehensive monograph on the work of Los Angeles ceramicist Peter Shire. Published by Rizzoli in New York, this publication features writings by Ettore Sottsass, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, and Norman M. Klein. Profusely illustrated with Shire's ceramics and drawings throughout.
Very Good copy.
1984, Dutch
Softcover, 72 pages,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Kruithuis / 'S-Hertogenbosch
$130.00 - Out of stock
First edition. Very rarely seen 1984 Memphis museum catalog published on the occasion of one the first major museum displays of the work of Memphis Milano during the height of the design collective's power and influence, staged in the Netherlands. Profusely illustrated in black and white and colour with their designs across furniture, lighting, ceramic, glass, etc. with a historical essay tracing the background, inspiration and context of Memphis and radical Italian design by Peter van Kester and Ghislain Kieft (text in Dutch).
Cover design by Nathalie du Pasquier.
Very Good.
2007, English
Softcover (spiral bound), 28 pages (colour and b&w ill.), 280 x 210 mm
Published by
Frank Lloyd Gallery / Los Angeles
$55.00 - Out of stock
This spiral-bound twenty-eight page catalogue was published to accompany Peter Shire's solo exhibition at the Frank Lloyd Gallery October 20 through November 24, 2007. The catalogue includes sixteen colour plates of Shire's playful, sculptural chairs, as well as an introduction and artist interview conducted by Frank Lloyd.
2005, English
Softcover, 40 pages (colour and b&w ill.), 280 x 210 mm
Published by
Chouinard Foundation / South Pasadena
$55.00 - Out of stock
Publication to accompany the exhibition "Teapots of Steel" by Los Angeles artist Peter Shire, curated by Gary Wong for Chouinard Foundation in South Pasadena, 2005. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and black and white of rarely seen sculptural works and drawings by Shire.
2006, English
Softcover, 54 pages (colour and b&w ill.), 280 x 210 mm
Published by
Tobey C. Moss Gallery / Los Angeles
$35.00 - Out of stock
Catalogue from the exhibition "Fantasies Imaginings Drawings Sculpture" at Tobey C Moss Gallery, Los Angeles 2006. Profusely illustrated throughout with rarely seen large-scale public works, facades, sculptures, drawings and paintings by Shire.
1986, English / Italian
Softcover (leporello-folded poster), 14 pages, 34 x 89 cm (full-spread)
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Memphis Milano / Milan
$80.00 - Out of stock
Original Memphis Milano leporello fold-out poster/catalogue from around 1986, showcasing all the iconic chairs, tables, lamps, lights, shelves, ceramic and porcelain wares, glass ware, tapestries, and much more by Ettore Sottsass, Michele de Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Andrea Branzi, Marco Zanini, Aldo Cibic, George J. Sowden, Martine Bedin, Peter Shire, Matteo Thun, Gerard Taylor, Shiro Kuramata, Michael Graves, Javier Mariscal, Maria Sanchez, Arquitectonica, Masanori Umeda and more. All listed across 14 pages with colour photography and titles/specs for each piece - all texts in English and Italian. Works spanning all of the 1980s for Memphis.
2016, English
Softcover, 550 pages, 21 × 28 cm
Published by
Novembre / Lausanne
$46.00 - Out of stock
Huge new issue, almost twice the size of the last!
Novembre 10: Charlotte Day-Reiss, Clément Delépine, Nik Kosmas, Peter Kwang, Tim Steer, Donna Huanca, Jamie Adams, Marques ' Almeida, Anna Uddenberg, Moses Guantlett Cheng, Chanel, Céline, DIS, Chris Kraus, Christian Dior, Vivienne Westwood, Bjarne Melgaard, J.W. Anderson, Dries van Noten, Jeannette Mundt, Jessie Wine, Nick Knight, Orion Martin, Peter Shire, Louisa Gagliardi, Proenza Schouler, and so many more….
Under the candid caption “arts and fashion in Switzerland and the world”, Novembre activates intergenerational discussions, producing international content that explores the critical stakes inherent to the Swiss identity: its neutrality notably fortifies its supposed integrity and inviolability, whilst placing the Confederation in an extremely productive and influential position within the arts on a global level.
Through the organic association of fashion, design and art, Novembre highlights the products which proliferate in schools, studios, galleries, showrooms, institutions, trade shows, fairs, hotels and bank lobbies and living rooms – addressing issues of integration, independence, equality, and exchange.
Novembre is currently published and independently by Florence Tétier (Paris), Florian Joye (Lausanne), and Jeanne-Salomé Rochat (Berlin), who united after their graduation from ECAL University of Arts, Switzerland.
1985, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 21 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$160.00 - Out of stock
Softcover English edition of "MEMPHIS: Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design", by Barbara Radice - arguably the greatest reference book on the work of the Italian Design group MEMPHIS.
Written by Radice, a founding member of the Memphis group (and author of "Ettore Sottsass: A Critical Biography"), and documenting in stunning photography and reproduction the vast array of design work that this group produced across furniture, lighting, interiors, architecture, textiles, glassware, etc., this feels almost like THE official Memphis book, embodying their spirit and design aesthetic in book form.
Founded in 1981, the international group of architects and designers, Memphis, shook the design world to its foundations. Based in Italy and led by Ettore Sottsass, it overturned and re-shaped the pre-suppositions on which the production of so-called Modern Design is based. It became the almost mythical symbol of the New Design. Laughing out loud at our culture and at itself, Memphis pulled out all stops when it came to colour, pattern, decoration and ornamentation. It sets out to contribute to the continuing dialogue on pop culture, the avant-garde and design.
This book features the work of Ettore Sottsass, George Sowden, Masanori Umeda, Shiro Kuramata, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Peter Shire, Michele de Lucchi, Matteo Thun, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi, Gerard Taylor, Michael Graves, Aldo Cibic, George James Sowden, Arquitectonica, Hans Hollein, Marco Zanini, Javier Mariscal, Thomas Bley, Martine Bedin, etc.
Contents are: Introduction; Memphis; Plastic Laminate; Materials; Decoration; Color; The Memphis Idea; The Design; Memphis and Fashion.
Highly recommended.
1989, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 325 pages (619 colour and b/w ill.), 23 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / As New*,
Published by
Prestel / Munich
$70.00 - Out of stock
Published by Prestel Munich, in 1989, this wonderful, richly illustrated and stylishly designed book covers the entire range of design in the late 1980's and it's predecessors. With sections dedicated to themes and subjects such as Exemplars; High Tech; Trans High Tech; Alchimia/Memphis; Post-Modernism; Minimalism; Archetypes; plus dense profile chapters on Dieter Rams, Stefan Wewerka and Holger Scheel; and essay sections from Matteo Thun ("Neo-Baroque Yardsticks"; "Micro-Architecture"; "Banal Design"), Volker Albus ("Rolex and Manhattan: Skyscraper Symbolism in Advertising") and Jochen Gros ("Small but Sophisticated: Microelectronics and Design"). Featuring fantastic photo-documentation and archival imagery of some of the finest and most radical design-objects of the period, including work by Frank Gehry, Hans Hollien, Michael Graves, Robert Venturi, Norbert Berghof, Aldo Rossi, Zeus, Shiro Kuramata, Philippe Starck, Dakota Jackson, Stanley Tigerman, Marcus Brotsch, Jorg Hieronymous, Michael Matuschka, Stefan Ambrozus, Michele De Lucchi, Ettore Sottsass, Ron Arad, Gaetano Pesce, George J. Sowden, Peter Shire, Martine Bedin, Carla Ceccariglia, Alessandro Mendini, Bruno Gregori, Ingo Maurer, Till Lesser, Gerard Kuijpers, Mario Botta, Jean-Marc da Costa, Piero Vendruscolo, Heide Warlamis, Robert A.M. Stern, Robert and Trix Hausmann, Stanley Tigerman, Margaret McCurry, Steven Holl, Danilo Silvestrin, Dieter Rams, Stefan Wewerka, Daniel Weil, Holger Scheel, Matteo Thun, SITE, and so many more, this generous publication is a must for any enthusiast of design from this period.
Edited by Volker Fischer, deputy director of the German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt.
2014, English
Softcover, 88 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 210 x 290 mm
Published by
David Kordansky Gallery / Los Angeles
Rainoff / Sydney / New York
$40.00 - Out of stock
GRAPEVINE~ documents an exhibition curated by artist Ricky Swallow at David Kordansky Gallery during the summer of 2013. It focuses on the work of five California-based artists who redefined the use of clay in contemporary art, and includes images of works created over a period of more than 50 years. Ceramic sculptures by Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Michael Frimkess, John Mason, Ron Nagle, and Peter Shire exemplify the ways in which the medium underwent dramatic changes after World War II. Also included are select works by other artists influential in this dialogue, such as Ken Price and Peter Voulkos. An essay by Swallow explores the movement's idiosyncrasies and cross-currents, as well as its influence on subsequent generations of artists.
Text: Ricky Swallow
Editors: Alexis Kerin & Stuart Krimko
Photography: Fredrik Nilsen
Design: Sinisa Mackovic & Robert Milne
Typeface: Jubilee GRAPEVINE~ by Fabian Harb
1984, Dutch
Softcover, 80 pages, 21 x 30 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Kruithuis / Den Bosch
$140.00 - Out of stock
Extremely rare, wonderfully designed Dutch catalogue from a survey exhibition on the Italian design group Memphis Milano in the Kruithuis, Den Bosch, in 1984.
Lavishly illustrated with colour and black and white photographs, plus features profiles on each of Memphis' key designers (Ettore Sottsass, Andra Branzi, Shiro Kuramata, George Sowden, Michele de Lucchi, Nathalie du Pasquier, Peter Shire, Matteo Thun, Marco Zanini, Aldo Cibic, Martine Bedin, Gerard Taylor...), and essays by Ghislain Kieft and Peter van Kester.
2012, English
Softcover, 172 pages, ills colour & bw, 23 x 28 cm
Published by
PIN-UP MAGAZINE
$22.00 $10.00 - Out of stock
Pin-Up is a biannual magazine for 'architectural entertainment'.
Issue #13 : JEANNE GANG, PETER SHIRE, OSCAR TUAZON, PHILIPPE MALOUIN, PLUS a 48-page NEW YORK CITY SPECIAL including the fascinating story of the Dia Foundation’s role in a downtown mosque, a week at Paul Rudolph’s Beekman Place penthouse, an exclusive glimpse at the Metropolitan Opera Club, the rise and fall of one of America’s most important fashion designers and his extravagant Fifth Avenue office, the history of the adventure playground in New York City, and a portfolio by young New York architects Leong Leong. Also: A visit to Ricardo Bofill’s Les Espaces d’Abraxas under cover of darkness, an immersion into the nightmarish dream world of Swiss designer H.R. Giger, and a chimeric architectural fantasy rendered in polystyrene and celluloid. Austrian artist Erwin Wurm composes an absurdist architectural reprise, and four design curators present a material portfolio in marble, leather, metal, and wood. Murray Moss gives a behind-the-scenes look at how an unprecedented art and design auction is challenging traditional and disciplinary boundaries, and Dutch designer Jurgen Bey talks about dreams and realities in design education and practice. Also in the issue is an investigation into the resurgent interest in Brutalism, and an examination of the ways in which spaces of political assembly give shape to discourse. Plus a PIN–UP Board showcase featuring architecture for dogs, exciting young Arab architecture practices, Bjarne Melgaard’s Snøhetta-designed house to die in, Shanzhai Biennial, two young Beijing architects’ hardcore inclinations, Jean Prouvé meets Simon Starling, Carlo Scarpa’s legacy with Venetian glass, Richard Neutra, and so much more.
1987, English
Softcover, 64 pages (colour ill. throughout), 280 x 220 mm
Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Seattle Art Museum / Seattle
$10.00 - Out of stock
Published by Seattle Art Museum, this catalogue accompanied the exhibition "Clay Revisions: Plate, Cup, Vase", held at Renwick Gallery in 1988. The show was organized by the Seattle Art Museum and curated by Vicki Halper, the author of this catalogue. It documents work by many of the world's leading ceramists, including Ken Price, Peter Shire, Mary Heilmann, Peter Voulkos, Ron Nagle, Richard Shaw, Robert Arneson, and many more.
2012, English
Hard cover, 176 pages, 210 x 260 mm
Published by
Imperfect Publishing / California
$48.00 - Out of stock
"WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing" was one of the seminal avant-garde publications of the 1970s and early 1980s. It had a quirky, prescient editorial sensibility and was a paradigm-shifting venue for graphic design experimentation. "WET" was a precursor to, and exemplar for, later publications such as "Beach Culture," "Ray Gun," and the like. Talents such as Matt Groening ("The Simpsons") and others published their first work here. This book tells the story of the making of "WET" from its early formation in the Venice Beach creative milieu to its emergence on the international pop-culture scene. This book includes an extended commentary on the process of making "WET," along with images and reprints from the magazine. No mere retrospective, this book offers instructive advice for anyone embarking on a journey of artistic entrepreneurship. Leonard Koren trained as an artist and architect, and writes and consults about design - and aesthetic -related issues. He was the founder and publisher of "WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing."