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
SAT 12—4 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
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.
2009, English
Softcover (w. plastic dust jacket and 15 artist postcards), 200 pages, 33 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis / Missouri
$300.00 - Out of stock
Our story begins in Ancient Greece with Socrates announcing, “I know that I know nothing.” Clearly, confusion has always been at the heart of wisdom.
Curated by Anthony Huberman at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in 2009, the group exhibition and catalogue For the Blind Man in the Dark Room Looking for the Black Cat That Isn't There explores the speculative nature of knowledge and insists on the importance of curiosity and the things we don't understand. Arranged around the premise that the world—and art—is not a code that needs cracking, the works in the exhibition center on the fruitfulness of not-knowing, un-learning, and productive confusion. David Hullfish Bailey, Marcel Broodthaers, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Fischli & Weiss, Rachel Harrison, Giorgio Morandi, Matt Mullican, Rosalind Nashashibi & Lucy Skaer, Frances Stark, Rosemarie Trockel and others present explanations that playfully don't explain. Dedicated to the inquisitive mind, For The Blind Man celebrates our ability to get lost and the stories we use to find our way in the dark. The book is edited, arranged and designed by London-based writer Will Holder and includes a new essay by curator Anthony Huberman.
Featuring: Anonymous, Dave Hullfish Bailey, Marcel Broodthaers, Sarah Crowner, Mariana Castillo Deball, Eric Duyckaerts, Ayşe Erkmen, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Rachel Harrison, Giorgio Morandi, Matt Mullican, Bruno Munari, Nashashibi/Skaer, Falke Pisano, Jimmy Raskin, Frances Stark, Rosemarie Trockel, Patrick van Caeckenbergh, and David William.
Rare first edition of this incredible catalogue, over-sized and complete in plastic jacket and original issue 15 large artist postcards included. Very Good—Fine copy with some light tanning only.
2016, English
Hardcover, 280 pages, 31.6 x 3.1 x 26 cm
Published by
Prestel / Munich
$120.00 - Out of stock
The resurgent interest in contemporary painting in recent years has coincided with an explosion of new digital media and technologies. Contrary to canonical accounts premised on medium-specificity, painting’s most advanced positions since the 1960s have developed in productive friction with contemporaneous forms of mass media and culture. From the rise of television and computers to the Internet revolution, painting has assimilated precisely those cultural and technological developments that were held responsible for its presumed “death.” Moving far beyond its technical definition as “oil on canvas,” painting during the information age has consistently offered a site for negotiating the challenges of a mediated life-world.
Featuring over 230 works by 107 artists, Painting 2.0 is one of the largest and most comprehensive exhibitions of contemporary painting in recent years.
Artists include:
Kai Althoff, Ei Arakawa/Shimon Minamikawa, Monika Baer, Nairy Baghramian, Georg Baselitz, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lynda Benglis, Sadie Benning, Judith Bernstein, Joseph Beuys, Ashley Bickerton, Cosima von Bonin, KAYA (Debo Eilers & Kerstin Brätsch), Günter Brus, Daniel Buren, Merlin Carpenter, Leidy Churchman, William Copley, René Daniëls, Guy Debord/Asger Jorn, Carroll Dunham, Mary Beth Edelson, Thomas Eggerer, Michaela Eichwald, Nicole Eisenman, Jana Euler, Louise Fishman, Andrea Fraser, Isa Genzken, Mary Grigoriadis, Philip Guston, Wade Guyton, Guyton/Walker, Raymond Hains, Harmony Hammond, David Hammons, Keith Haring, Rachel Harrison, Mary Heilmann, Eva Hesse, Charline von Heyl, Ull Hohn, Jacqueline Humphries, Jörg Immendorff, Jasper Johns, Joan Jonas, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Yves Klein, Jutta Koether, Michael Krebber, Manfred Kuttner, Maria Lassnig, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Lee Lozano, Konrad Lueg, Michel Majerus, Piero Manzoni, Kerry James Marshall, Hans-Jörg Mayer, John Miller, Joan Mitchell, Ree Morton, Ulrike Müller, Matt Mullican, Elisabeth Murray, Cady Noland, Hilka Nordhausen, Albert Oehlen, Laura Owens, Steven Parrino, Ed Paschke, Howardena Pindell, Sigmar Polke, Seth Price, Stephen Prina, R.H. Quaytman, Robert Rauschenberg, David Reed, Gerhard Richter, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle, Mario Schifano, Amy Sillman, Sylvia Sleigh, Josh Smith, Joan Snyder, Reena Spaulings, Nancy Spero, Gruppe SPUR, Frank Stella, Walter Swennen, Paul Thek, Rosemarie Trockel, Cy Twombly, Jacques de la Villeglé, Kelley Walker, Andy Warhol, Sue Williams, Karl Wirsum, Martin Wong, Christopher Wool, Heimo Zobernig, u.a.
2011 / 2015, English
Softcover, 78 pages, 14.8 x 21 cm
Published by
Urbanomic / Cornwall
$28.00 - Out of stock
Why has the concept of contingency taken on a marked importance both in contemporary philosophy and in contemporary art practice? And if this simultaneity derives from parallel problems met within the two different fields, what are their common roots? Beyond acknowledging the contingent nature of tradition, institutions, and practices, recent speculative philosophies of 'absolute contingency' demand a radical revision of the ways in which we conceive of our interaction with unknowable materialities, and pose a challenge to both probabilistic management and process-driven affirmation of contingency.The book documents the event held at Thomas Dane Gallery in February of 2011 that coincided with the show entitled New York to London and Back. The show featured work by Kristen Alvanson, Hans Bellmer, Liz Deschenes, Thomas Eggerer, Rachel Harrison, Gareth James, Alison Knowles, Sam Lewitt, Scott Lyall, R. H. Quaytman, Eileen Quinlan, Raha Raissnia, Jimmy Raskin, Blake Rayne, Pamela Rosenkranz, Pieter Schoolwerth, Amy Sillman and Cheyney Thompson.
In an unprecedented overlapping of the contexts of philosophical, financial, and art worlds, The Medium of Contingency event brought together in discussion Robin Mackay, Reza Negarestani, Elie Ayache, Matthew Poole, Miguel Abreu and Scott Lyall. This publication includes presentations by each of the participants and an edited transcript of the discussion.
Contents
ROBIN MACKAY - Introduction: Three Figures of Contingency
REZA NEGARESTANI - Contingency and Complicity
ELIE AYACHE - In The Middle of The Event
MATTHEW POOLE - Art, Human Capital, and the Medium of Contingency
MIGUEL ABREU, ELIE AYACHE, SCOTT LYALL, ROBIN MACKAY, REZA NEGARESTANI, MATTHEW POOLE - Discussion
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
NEW YORK TO LONDON AND BACK: LIST OF WORKS
2018, English / German
Softcover, 176 pages, 21.5 x 27 cm
Published by
Mumok / Vienna
Walther König / Köln
$49.00 - Out of stock
Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann do not see their collection as just private property or a prestige object, but rather as an item of cultural value that needs exchange with the public. Their collection has been constantly growing since the late 1970s, and it provides an incomparable view of the development of contemporary art from the 1980s onward. This is a progressive statement on behalf of contemporary art that is anchored in social issues and sees itself as a form of communication. The rationale behind the collection, which is held in Herzogenrath near Aachen and in Berlin, is both creative and productive, and the two collectors’ practice can be described as a particularly free-spirited form of cultural production. The act of collecting is realized less in the processes of keeping and completing artworks and is instead understood mainly as an invitation to participate in the public production of connections. This very pragmatic and hands-on approach is manifested in sensual and unconventional gestures of presenting, including the principle of “comparative seeing.” In this sense, the Class Reunion exhibition, the title of which refers to a 2008 installation of the same name by Berlin artist Nairy Baghramian, will unravel an exciting, humorous, and surprising dialogue between the diverse artistic positions in the collection, establishing unexpected points of contact. One focus in this is on Viennese influences on this international collection and its networks.
This book has been published to document the collection on the occasion of an exhibition curated by Wilhelm Schürmann at Mumok, Vienna, June 23, 2018 - November 11, 2018.
Edited by Karola Kraus and illustrated throughout in colour, with accompanying texts and full collection catalogue.
Participating artists:
Nairy Baghramian, Silvia Bächli, Monika Baer, John Baldessari/Meg Cranston, Francesco Barocco, Jennifer Bornstein, Nicola Brunnhuber, Ernst Caramelle, Kate Davis, Heinrich Dunst, Marina Faust, Morgan Fisher, Jef Geys, Ralph Gibson, Julian Göthe, Trixi Groiss, Gerhard Gronefeld, Julia Haller, Rachel Harrison, Lone Haugaard Madsen, Georg Herold, Nicolas Jasmin, Raimer Jochims, Mike Kelley, , Martin Kippenberger, Silke Otto Knapp, Alwin Lay, Brandon Lattu, Michael Light, Sonia Leimer, Anita Leisz, Jochen Lempert, Zoe Leonard, Chris Martin, Park McArthur, Paul McCarthy, Meuser, Lisette Model, Oswald Oberhuber, Albert Oehlen, Anna Oppermann, Anna Ostoya, Jens Preusse, Rebecca Quaytman, Susanne Paesler, Laurie Parsons, Stephen Prina, Deborah Remington, Lin May Saeed, Pentti Sammallahti, Stefan Sandner, Arlene Shechet, Sigune Siévi, Michael Simpson, Michael E. Smith, Lewis Stein, Jana Sterbark, Esther Stocker, Walter Swennen, Alice Tippit, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Nora Turato, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Miriam Visaczki, Franz West, Tristan Wilczek, Christopher Williams, Heimo Zobernig
2017, English / German
Softcover, 248 pages, 23 x 16.5 cm
Published by
Texte Zur Kunst / Berlin
$32.00 - Out of stock
"Identity politics" has always been beleaguered territory. Yet recently the debate around “identity" has intensified and (with Trump) even developed new fronts. This issue examines the present state of identity politics in the West, finding the commodification of identity in mass culture (as in the art market) to be a leading influence. We also recognize a divide between, on the one hand, non-dominant communities cohering around identity so as to become visible together; and on the other hand, individuals aiming to stand out as special or "unique" by dint of membership in various non-dominant groups. Such ambiguity, in the face of current leadership (see issue cover) lends only all the more urgency, we feel, for a serious engagement with “identity” vis-a-vis “politics” now.
ISSUE NO. 107 / SEPTEMBER 2017 "IDENTITY POLITICS NOW"
Table Of Contents
Preface
True And False Victims / Sarah Schulman In Conversation With Caroline Busta and Anke Dyes (Texte Zur Kunst)
People Politics
Gabi Ngcobo & Yvette Mutumba, Klaus Biesenbach, Egija Inzule On "People Politics"
Monique Roelofs / Identity And Its Public Platforms: A String Of Promises Entwined With Threats
Andreas Reckwitz / Performative Authenticity: The Subject In The Late Modern Society Of Singularities
What Would Winning Look Like? / Bini Adamczak In Conversation With Anke Dyes (Texte Zur Kunst)
Coco Fusco / Decades Of Identity Politics
Bildstrecke
Sandra Mujinga
Rotation
Das Falsche Buch Zur Richtigen Zeit / Floris Biskamp Über „Beißreflexe“ Von Patsy L’amour Lalove
Apocalypse, A Lover’s Discourse / Jeff Nagy On “Life” By Hannah Black and Juliana Huxtable
Das Unbewusste Ist Strukturiert Wie Eine Ware / Helmut Draxler Und Kerstin Stakemeier Über „The Capitalist Unconscious“ Von Samo Tomšic
Zwischen Warten Und Wandern / Christiane Voss Über „Siegfried Kracauer. Eine Biografie“ Von Jörg Später
Liebe Arbeit Kino
Ghost In Chanel / Tobias Madison On Olivier Assayas’s Film “Personal Shopper”
Lippenbekenntnisse / Fiona Mcgovern Über Kerstin Honeit Im Videoraum Der Berlinischen Galerie
Grand Tour
Documenta 14 - Skulptur Projekte Münster - 57Th Biennale Di Venezia
Aus Fehlern Lernen / Sabeth Buchmann Und Ilse Lafer Über Die Documenta 14 In Athen
Incorrect History / Tom Mcdonough On Naeem Mohaiemen’s “Two Meetings And A Funeral” At Documenta 14, Kassel
Public Sculpture Pokéstop / Amy Lien And Enzo Camacho On Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017
Aufhören, Wenn’s Am Schönsten Ist / Eva Ehninger Über Die Skulptur Projekte Münster
The Stuck Hourglass / Venus Lau On The 57Th Venice Biennale
Crowd Kontrolle / Judith Rodenbeck On Anne Imhof’s “Faust” For The German Pavilion, 57Th Venice Biennale
Reviews
Negative Chic / Ken Okiishi On Rei Kawakubo/Comme Des Garçons At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, New York
Zünftig In Die Zukunft / Beate Söntgen Über „Otto Freundlich: Kosmischer Kommunismus“ Im Museum Ludwig, Köln
The Man In The Mirror / Sarah Morris On Merlin Carpenter At Galerie Neu, Berlin
Verdeckte Arbeit / Gertrud Koch Über Sarah Morris Bei Capitain Petzel, Berlin
Marilyn And The Museum With Walls / Kevin Lotery On Rachel Harrison At Greene Naftali, New York
Unterwerfung Durch Architektur / Anna Voswinkel Über Peggy Buth Im Museum Folkwang Essen
Democracy Of Sound / Zoë Alexandra Harris On “Free Music Production/Fmp: The Living Music” At Haus Der Kunst, Munich
Tausend Snapchat-Rimbauds / Hans-Christian Dany Über Seth Price Im Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Trocadero Drift / John Kelsey on Michel Houellebecq At Venus Over Manhattan, New York
Resident Aliens / Ella Plevin On Monira Al Qadiri At Gasworks, London
Blickwechsel-Begehren / Ines Kleesattel Über Birgit Megerle Im Kunsthaus Glarus
Containers Of The Virtual / Lars Bang Larsen On Hans-Christian Lotz At Christian Andersen, Copenhagen
Geschwätzige Zeiten / Tobias Teutenberg Über „After The Fact. Propaganda Im 21. Jahrhundert“ In Der Städtischen Galerie Im Lenbachhausund Kunstbau München
The Interdependence Of Feelings And Debates / Yuki Higashino On Martin Beck At Mumok, Vienna
Nachruf
Werner Hamacher (1948–2017)
Edition
Josh Kline
Juergen Teller
2016, English
Hardcover, 312 pages, 22 x 29 cm
Published by
Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College / New York
$67.00 - Out of stock
'Invisible Adversaries' was a major exhibition curated by Lauren Cornell and Tom Eccles inspired by the 1976 feature film by the radical Austrian artist Valie Export. The film presents a woman’s struggle to retain her sense of self against hostile alien forces that appear increasingly ubiquitous, colonizing the minds of all those around her. Motifs from the film – among them, architecture’s influence on identity; feminist critique; and the power of political fantasy – operate as filters through which to consider significant pieces from the Marieluise Hessel Collection.
With works by over 50 artists including Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Chantal Akerman, Kai Althoff, Janine Antoni, Ida Applebroog, Phyllida Barlow, Lynda Benglis, Barbara Bloom, Paul Chan, Patty Chang, Anne Collier, Rineke Dijkstra, Trisha Donnelly, VALIE EXPORT, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Isa Genzken, Liam Gillick, K8 Hardy, Rachel Harrison, Mona Hatoum, Roni Horn, Emily Jacir, Annette Kelm, Leigh Ledare, Nikki S. Lee, Sarah Lucas, Tala Madani, Christian Marclay, Helen Marten, Ulrike Müller, Bruce Nauman, Tony Oursler, Philippe Parreno, William Pope.L, Seth Price, Magali Reus, Rachel Rose, Thomas Ruff, Ilene Segalove, Cindy Sherman, Stephen Shore, Diane Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Jo Spence, Hito Steyerl, Tunga, Gillian Wearing, Martha Wilson, and Krzysztof Wodiczko, amongst others.
This 300-page publication designed by Zak Group with original essays by nine influential writers, scholars and artists: Zach Blas, Johanna Fateman, Nav Haq, Vít Havránek, J. Hoberman, Alex Kitnick, Tavia Nyong’O, Lauren O’Neill-Butler, and Julian Rose. The catalogue also includes original interviews with VALIE EXPORT, Trevor Paglen, and Hito Steyerl.
2016, English
Softcover (spiral-bound w. flexidisc), 208 pages, 20 x 31 cm
Published by
Walker Art Centre / Minneapolis
$85.00 $45.00 - Out of stock
Despite its apparent throwaway status, the stock image comprises the primary commodity of a billion-dollar global industry with far-reaching effects in the marketplace and the public sphere. Taking this overlooked facet of contemporary life as a point of departure, "Ordinary Pictures" explores the photographic apparatuses and commercial interests that have given rise to our generic image culture through the conceptual image-based work of some 40 artists, including John Baldessari, Steven Baldi, Sarah Charlesworth, Anne Collier, Liz Deschenes, John Divola, Aleksandra Domanovi c, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Morgan Fisher, Hollis Frampton, Jack Goldstein, Rachel Harrison, Robert Heinecken, Leslie Hewitt, Elad Lassry, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Steve McQueen, Jack Pierson, Peter Piller, Seth Price, Amanda Rossotto, Ed Ruscha, Steven Shore, Sturtevant, Mungo Thomson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tseng Kwong Chi, Julia Wachtel and Christopher Williams. Spanning generations, movements and artistic strategies from the 1960s to the present day, this publication brings together works by artists who have probed, mimicked and critiqued this aspect of our visual environment as well as its industrial modes of production and distribution. Through the work of these artists and a series of scholarly essays, the catalogue aims to examine different operations of the generic image in culture, namely its anonymous circulation and editorial uses, its adaptability and reproducibility, its technical processes of production, its claim to copyright and artistic license and its tendency toward abstraction. Featuring a unique, coil-bound design reminiscent of stock photo catalogues and a flexidisc recording by the artist Jack Goldstein, this highly collectible book ultimately reflects on contemporary art's own complicit function as an expanding industrial image economy.
Edited by Eric Crosby, texts by Lane Relyea and Thomas Beard.
2015, English / Portuguese
Softcover (die-cut), 300 pages, 28.5 x 22.5 cm
Published by
Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art / Porto
$58.00 $30.00 - Out of stock
Since the second half of the 20th century, we have lived under the shadow of two clouds: the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb, and the ‘cloud’ of distributed information networks. How did the central metaphor of cold war paranoia become the utopian metaphor of today? ‘Under the Clouds’ explores the contemporary sublime that has replaced the natural one, and the interrelated effects and affects of these two clouds on life and work, leisure and love, and on images, bodies, and minds.
The post-war technologies of the emergent third industrial revolution have now evolved to fit in the palm of our hand; we no longer merely look at images, we now touch, scroll, pinch, and drag them. Where is the border between the self and its data shadow, between information, matter, and affect? The biological, economic, aesthetic, and political effects of living under the clouds has taken the form of new relations between data and material, as well as increasing debt and abstract financialization; the changing nature of work and sex; and new relationships between screens, images, and things. As earlier forms of technologically inflected art sought to mitigate the effects of change — both on perception and society — many of today’s artistic practices confront the myriad interfaces and decentralized networks that continue to shape and transform daily life, forming new evolving connections between bits and atoms.
Texts by
Enrico Baj & Sergio Dangelo, Thomas Hirschhorn, Sean Landers, Metahaven, Seth Price, João Ribas, Frances Stark, Hito Steyerl, Stan VanDerBeek
Artists
Adel Abdessemed, Horst Ademeit, Cory Arcangel, Arte Nucleare, Darren Bader, Enrico Baj, Robert Barry, Eduardo Batarda, Thomas Bayrle, Neïl Beloufa, René Bertholo, Joseph Beuys, K.P. Brehmer, Bruce Conner, Kate Cooper, Gregory Corso, Guy Debord, Harun Farocki, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Carla Filipe, General Idea, Melanie Gilligan, Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, Peter Halley, Rachel Harrison, Mona Hatoum, Pedro Henriques, Thomas Hirschhorn, Yves Klein, Sean Landers, Elad Lassry, Mark Lombardi, Julie Mehretu, Katja Novitskova, Ken Okiishi, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Silvestre Pestana, Pratchaya Phinthong, Seth Price, Martha Rosler, Thomas Ruff, Jacolby Satterwhite, Ângelo de Sousa, Frances Stark, Haim Steinbach, Hito Steyerl, Jean Tinguely, Adelhyd van Bender, Stan VanDerBeek, Andy Warhol, Christopher Williams, Christopher Wool, Anicka Yi
2015, English / German
Softcover, 264 pages, 23 x 16.5 cm
Published by
Texte Zur Kunst / Berlin
$32.00 $15.00 - In stock -
ISSUE NO. 100
DECEMBER 2015
„THE CANON“
“Our 100th issue is dedicated to the question of the “canon.” We take up this theme with an interest in reflecting on the journal’s own role in the field of contemporary art — one that, when first initiated in 1990, was markedly counter-canonical, vigorously contesting certain methods of critique while supporting others. And yet, we pause here to acknowledge that after 25 years, we have also doubtlessly played a crucial part in shaping a particular discourse, even normativizing it to some degree. Could it even be said that TzK has established a canon in its own right? With this issue, we now take stock of what TzK’s relationship to the canon might be, and moreover, what the notion of canonicity in 2015 might now represent.”
ISSUE NO. 100 / DECEMBER 2015 “THE CANON”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
TOM HOLERT IN PRAISE OF PRESUMPTUOUSNESS: “KANON-POLITIK ” (1992) REVISITED
DIEDRICH DIEDERICHSEN
MIKE KELLEY
SABETH BUCHMANN
MEDIAL (SELF-)MOVEMENT
ISABELLE GRAW
CANON AND CRITIQUE: AN INTERPLAY / Heimo Zobernig
JULIANE REBENTISCH
25 ARTISTS FROM 1990 TO 2015 / And 25 reasons why each belongs in the Texte zur Kunst canon
GERTRUD KOCH
POLYPHONY OR DISSONANCE / Are there artists lost in the canon?
KERSTIN STAKEMEIER
MORE MANNERISM / Ruth May and Jan Molzberger
GUNTER RESKI
EMBEDDED NUDES / Arno Rink
ALEXANDER GARCÍA DÜTTMANN
OLD WOMEN / Maria Lassnig’s “Du oder ich” (You or me), 2005
BEATE SÖNTGEN
ROSEMARIE TROCKEL
NICK MAUSS
IAN WHITE
TESS EDMONSON
DIS
HANNA MAGAUER
POST-INTERNET: THE NEW ORDER
JOSEPHINE PRYDE
THE INDIVIDUAL
CAROLINE BUSTA
BAD CANON
SIMON DENNY
DISRUPT
KEN OKIISHI
CITIZENSHIP
VALENTINA LIERNUR
SELF-REFLECTIVE SUBJECTS
JUTTA KOETHER
FIGURE OF PAINT: ON THE INCONTROVERTIBLE!
ALICE CREISCHER AND ANDREAS SIEKMANN
TUCUMÁN ARDE
PAMELA M. LEE
GROUP MATERIAL
FELIX VOGEL
MARTIN BECK
SVEN BECKSTETTE
STURTEVANT
CLAIRE FONTAINE
TOWARD A CANONIC FREEDOM
SVEN LÜTTICKEN
FALLING APART, TOGETHER
ROBERT KULISEK AND DAVID LIESKE
HUSBANDS HAVE GOT TO DIE! / A conversation about Taryn Simon
BRIGITTE WEINGART
GREAT & SMALL
HELMUT DRAXLER
CANON OF EXISTENCE, ETHICS OF THE BREAK
ROTATION
ELECTROCONVULSIVE LIT / John Kelsey on Sylvère Lotringer’s “Mad Like Artaud”
REVIEWS
VERWISCHTE GRENZEN / Robert Müller über „Radikal Modern. Planen und Bauen im Berlin der 1960er-Jahre“ in der Berlinischen Galerie
AGING INTO NEW WORLDS: DEUTSCH-AMERIKANISCHE FREUNDSCHAFT / Bettina Funcke surveys five fall 2015 shows in New York
ANGEWANDTER HISTOMAT / Ariane Müller über „to expose, to show, to demonstrate, to inform, to offer. Künstlerische Praktiken um 1990“ im Mumok, Wien
ENIGMA IN THE MIRROR / Luis Felipe Fabre on “In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni” at Museo Jumex, Mexico City
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD / Nuit Banai on R. H. Quaytman at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art
IST KUNST EIN SEXUALPROBLEM? / Eva Birkenstock über Lea Lublin im Lenbachhaus, München
HERE'S NOT HERE / Damon Sfetsios and Elise Duryee-Browner on Stephan Dillemuth at Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York
WEAK LOCAL LINEAMENTS / Gareth James on Sam Lewitt at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco
OBITUARIES
PETER SCHEIFFELE (1971–2015)
by Ilka Becker
CHANTAL AKERMAN (1950–2015)
by Tim Griffin
EDITION
JOHN BALDESSARI
NHU DUONG
PETER FISCHLI/DAVID WEISS
WADE GUYTON
RACHEL HARRISON
SARAH MORRIS
ALBERT OEHLEN
RICHARD PHILLIPS
SETH PRICE
GERHARD RICHTER
ROSEMARIE TROCKEL
2014, English
Softcover (zip-open cardboard jacket), 112 pages, 12.7 x 19 cm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
Swiss Institute / New York
$30.00 - Out of stock
Texts by Melanie Gilligan, Jenny Jaskey, Fionn Meade, Kari Rittenbach, Piper Marshall
Descartes’ Daughter, edited by Piper Marshall, former curator of the Swiss Institute in New York, documents the critically lauded 2013 exhibition of the same name as well as continuing its ideas. Taking the historical account of philosopher René Descartes’ creation of an animatronic effigy of his deceased young daughter as its foundation, the exhibition explored the traditional divide between conceptual and expressive works, those dealing with either the mind or the body.
The reader includes five essays that explore the room in between this divide, both within the works exhibited and beyond. Fionn Meade, curator at the Walker Art Center, submits a poetic elegy to René Descartes, placing his ideas and the discussion around them at the center of this book. Jenny Jaskey, director and curator of the Artists’s Institute, writes on scale and the subjective, metabolic qualities of “human.” Piper Marshall asks how one can curate a feminist art exhibition, firmly merging the discussion.
Copublished with Swiss Institute following the exhibition“Descartes’ Daughter” (September 20–November 3, 2014), with works by Malin Arnell, Miriam Cahn, John Chamberlain, Hanne Darboven, Melanie Gilligan, Rochelle Goldberg, Nicolás Guagnini/Jeff Preiss, Rachel Harrison, Charline von Heyl, Lucas Knipscher, Jason Loebs, Ulrike Müller, Pamela Rosenkranz, Karin Schneider, and Sergei Tcherepnin.
Design by Li Inc., New York
2010, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 152 x 229 mm
Published by
Walker Art Centre / Minneapolis
$18.00 - Out of stock
True to its title, the exhibition "Abstract Resistance" considers the metaphor of "resistance" as a complex political and compositional force defining art of the past half century.
Abstract Resistance (an exhibition held at the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, in 2010) proposes an alternative framework for aesthetically inventive, ethically engaged, and politically defiant art. The exhibition, drawn mostly from the Walker’s collection, highlights works in assemblage, collage, and photomontage by Francis Bacon, Lynda Benglis, Anthony Caro, Sarah Charlesworth, Bruce Conner, Willem de Kooning, Lucio Fontana, Hollis Frampton, Philip Guston, Rachel Harrison, Hirschhorn, Ellsworth Kelly, Paul McCarthy, Robert Motherwell, Bruce Nauman, Cady Noland, Charles Ray, Gedi Sibony, Kara Walker, Andro Wekua, and Cathy Wilkes.To accompany the exhibition, the Walker published this collection of essays by exhibition curator Yasmil Raymond, art historian Simon Baier, and philosopher Marcus Steinweg as well as artist statements by Thomas Hirschhorn, Gedi Sibony, and Cathy Wilkes.
Paperback (w. plastic wrap cover and full-colour artist card set), 176 pages, 21.6 x 34.5 cm
Published by
CAM / St. Louis
$55.00 - Out of stock
This title is now out of print.
Curated by Anthony Huberman at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the group exhibition and catalogue For the Blind Man in the Dark Room Looking for the Black Cat That Isn't There explores the speculative nature of knowledge and insists on the importance of curiosity and the things we don't understand. Arranged around the premise that the world--and art--is not a code that needs cracking, the works in the exhibition center on the fruitfulness of not-knowing, un-learning, and productive confusion. David Hullfish Bailey, Marcel Broodthaers, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Fischli & Weiss, Rachel Harrison, Giorgio Morandi, Matt Mullican, Rosalind Nashashibi & Lucy Skaer, Frances Stark, Rosemarie Trockel and others present explanations that playfully don't explain. Dedicated to the inquisitive mind, For The Blind Man celebrates our ability to get lost and the stories we use to find our way in the dark. The book is edited, arranged and designed by London-based writer Will Holder and includes a new essay by curator Anthony Huberman.