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—SAT 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.
1982, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and plastic sleeve), 126 pages, 33 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bijutsu Shuppansha / Japan
$160.00 - In stock -
Published in 1982 and long out-of-print, Masquerade is one of the finest artist books of Japanese illustrator and graphic artist Aquirax Uno. Lavishly illustrated and elaborately designed and directed by the artist himself, this beautiful album collects Uno's most stunning fantastical illustration and painting throughout the 1960s—1980s, alongside texts and photography of Uno in his atelier. Masquerade collates a cross-section of Uno's graphic work spanning his entire career, his iconic and innovative print, book, and theatre works, including many new, unpublished works and illustrations printed in large format across many full-colour fold-outs — a wonderful way to capture his decadent, provocative, stream of consciousness line work in intimate detail. Highly recommended!
Aquirax Uno, also known as Akira Uno (b. 1934) is a Japanese graphic artist, illustrator and painter who was very influential in the 1960s and 1970s. His incredibly unique work is characterized by fantastic visuals, capricious and sensuous line flow, flamboyant (and occasionally grotesque) eroticism, and frequent use of collage and psychedelic bright colours. Uno was prominently involved with the Japanese underground art of the 1960s–1970s, and is particularly notable for his frequent collaborations with Shuji Terayama and his experimental theater Tenjo Sajiki.
Aquirax Uno, also known as Akira Uno (b. 1934) is a Japanese graphic artist, illustrator and painter who was very influential in the 1960s–1970s. His incredibly unique work is characterized by fantastic visuals, capricious and sensuous line flow, flamboyant (and occasionally grotesque) eroticism, and frequent use of collage and psychedelic bright colours. Uno was prominently involved with the Japanese underground art of the 1960s–1970s, and is particularly notable for his frequent collaborations with Shuji Terayama and his experimental theater Tenjo Sajiki.
Good copy with heavy foxing to cover edges and end pages, original publisher's textured plastic protector sleeve with usual slight shrinkage from age, edge wear. Sample images only.
2005, Japanese / English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket and obi), 80 pages, 19 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Blue Interactions / Japan
$140.00 - In stock -
Wonderful hardcover collection of Aquirax Uno's poster work dating 1959-1975.
Aquirax Uno, also known as Akira Uno (b. 1934) is a Japanese graphic artist, illustrator and painter who was very influential in the 1960s and 1970s. His incredibly unique work is characterized by fantastic visuals, capricious and sensuous line flow, flamboyant (and occasionally grotesque) eroticism, and frequent use of collage and psychedelic bright colours. Uno was prominently involved with the Japanese underground art of the 1960s–1970s, and is particularly notable for his frequent collaborations with Shuji Terayama and his experimental theater Tenjo Sajiki.
Near Fine copy with dust jacket and obi.
1992, English
Softcover, 390 pages, 28 x 21.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Princeton University Press / New York
$100.00 - In stock -
First 1992 softcover edition of this pioneering work, the first history of the art of the insane, in which the author scrutinizes changes in attitudes toward the art of the mentally ill from a time when it was either ignored or ridiculed, through the era when Paul Klee, along with other major figures in the art world, discovered the extraordinary power of visual statements by psychotic artists such as Adolf Wölfli and Richard Dadd.
John MacGregor draws on his dual training in art history and in psychiatry and psychoanalysis to describe not only this evolution in attitudes, but also the significant influence of the art of the mentally ill on the development of modern art as a whole. His detailed narrative, with its strangely beautiful illustrations, introduces us to a fascinating group of people that includes the psychotic artists, both trained and untrained, and the psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, critics, and art historians who encountered their work.
"The psychotics who haunt Mr. MacGregor's pages desperately fling images at us from the midst of their manias, suicidal depressions or paranoid reconstructions of the cosmos. ... All these painters were lost souls, curved in on themselves. Yet despite their isolation, Mr. MacGregor is able to show that their work is by no means sealed off from culture. However private their visions, the ways they represent them in art are shaped to a surprising degree by the styles and taste that dominate their respective times. Mr. MacGregor has written a valuable, at times even a daring book."—Michael Vincent Miller, The New York Times Book Review
"A delightful surprise, a scholarly but warm, lucid, lucent, nondogmatic work.... Valuable reading for anyone interested in the creative process."—Joanne Greenberg
"This fascinating story, which has never been told before, is told beautifully, and with extraordinary scholarship, in [this] richly illustrated new book."—Oliver Sacks
"[MacGregor] is a dedicated scholar who has spared no effort and has written what must be the first and only account of a very interesting and varied subject."—E. H. Gombrich
John M. MacGregor lives in San Francisco. Since 1985 he has devoted himself to research and writing in psychiatric art.
Very Good copy, light wear. First softcover edition (1992), first hardcover edition issued in 1989.
1972, Japanese
Softcover, 250 pages, 21 x 14.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Misaki Shobo / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Erotica April 1972, Japan's erotic magazine for bibliophiles, published in the 1960s—1970s by Misaki Bookstore. Each issue densely packed with illustrations, articles, news, and feature stories around the universe of Eros from around the world during a time of great sexual revolution. Covering all manner of sexual customs and subject matter from the arts and literature, film and manga, philosophy and radical politics, Erotica was Japan's leading erotic academic journal, featuring, amongst it's heavy historical and contemporary papers, the cutting-edge of Japanese and international erotic artists, from Hans Bellmer to Toshio Saeki.
Erotica April 1972 features the artwork of Toshio Saeki, Kyozo Hayashi, Koaku Yukio, Kaname Ozuma, "Alone" by Japanese photographer Takumi Uchida, Meiji sexual history, erotica by poet and painter Mitsuharu Kaneko, European erotic cinema, and much more.
Very Good copy, light wear.
1970, Japanese
Softcover, 250 pages, 21 x 14.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Misaki Shobo / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Erotica July 1970, Japan's erotic magazine for bibliophiles, published in the 1960s—1970s by Misaki Bookstore. Each issue densely packed with illustrations, articles, news, and feature stories around the universe of Eros from around the world during a time of great sexual revolution. Covering all manner of sexual customs and subject matter from the arts and literature, film and manga, philosophy and radical politics, Erotica was Japan's leading erotic academic journal, featuring, amongst it's heavy historical and contemporary papers, the cutting-edge of Japanese and international erotic artists, from Hans Bellmer to Toshio Saeki.
Erotica July 1970 features the artwork of Toshio Saeki, Haruo Shinozaki, Masayuki Kitamura, Tomoe Shibaoka, "Pornology" by Japanese photographer Toyohiko Yasui, Swedish erotica, European erotic cinema, Pleasure Machines/Mechanical Sex featuring artworks by Tomi Ungerer and science fiction with illustrations by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the psychology of premajure ejaculation, and much more.
Very Good copy, light wear.
1970, Japanese
Softcover, 250 pages, 21 x 14.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Misaki Shobo / Tokyo
$50.00 - In stock -
Erotica February 1970, Japan's erotic magazine for bibliophiles, published in the 1960s—1970s by Misaki Bookstore. Each issue densely packed with illustrations, articles, news, and feature stories around the universe of Eros from around the world during a time of great sexual revolution. Covering all manner of sexual customs and subject matter from the arts and literature, film and manga, philosophy and radical politics, Erotica was Japan's leading erotic academic journal, featuring, amongst it's heavy historical and contemporary papers, the cutting-edge of Japanese and international erotic artists, from Hans Bellmer to Toshio Saeki.
Erotica February 1970 features the artwork of Hans Bellmer, Aoi Fujimoto, George Grosz, and Haruo Shinozaki, amongst many others, a "blue film encyclopedia", European erotic film, the Temptation of Saint Anthony in the visual arts, and much more.
Very Good copy, light wear.
1976, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 30.5 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
NAL / New York
$55.00 - Out of stock
First US edition of this lovely volume of artworks from "The Golden Age of Fantastic Illustration" edited by Brigid Peppin and published in 1976. Profusely illustrated throughout with many stunning full-colour and b/w examples of all the artists featured: Alastair, John D. Batten, Aubrey Beardsley, Francis Donkin Bedford, Robert Anning Bell, Jean de Bosschère, Arthur Gaskin, Vernon Hill, William Thomas Horton, Laurence Housman, Arthur Boyd Houghton, Arthur Hughes, Eleanor Vere Boyle, René Bull, Edward Julius Detmold, Edward Burne-Jones, Harry Clarke, Walter Crane, Gustave Doré, Richard Doyle, Edmund Dulac, Henry Justice Ford, William Holman Hunt, Alfred Garth Jones, Jessie M. King, Rudyard Kipling, Reginald Knowles, Edward Lear, John Everett Millais, H. R. Millar, Louis Fairfax Muckley, Harold E. H. Nelson, Kay Nielsen, Joseph Noel Paton, Arthur Rackham, Charles Ricketts, Charles Robinson, Thomas Robinson, W. Heath Robinson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frederick Sandys, Byam Shaw, Sidney Sime, William Strang, E. J. Sullivan, John Tenniel.
"Late Victorian and early 20th century England saw a unique flowering of book illustration as an art form. Such illustrators as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen are now recognised as remarkable artists. But perhaps their return to fashion stems less from their consummate skill than from a new, possibly more sophisticated appreciation of the fantasy elements in their work. It was in the realms of fantasy that illustration reached its highest levels, through a happy interaction of opportunity and inspiration: developments in printing and reproduction combined with the growth of the middle class audience for books and magazines to offer a perfect medium for expressing the cultural preoccupations of the era."—from the introduction
Very Good copy.
1998, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 204 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Isshusha / Japan
$45.00 - Out of stock
Catalogue and historical study by renowned Japanese fairy scholar Kimie Imura, published in Japan to accompany a travelling Japanese exhibition in 1998. Profusely illustrated throughout in full-colour, the book traces the history of the fairy in folk-lore and the arts, from Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend, to the danger of their depiction being rejected by Christianity as the descendants of pagan gods, through the Elizabethan era in the 16th century, where they regained their place in the world of literature and theatre, through the adoration of the 19th century Victorian period and future generations of artists in Japan all weaving the fairy legend into works of painting, music, ballet, literature, book illustration, costume, applied arts, sculpture, and much more. Features the work of George Cruickshank, Honor Charlotte Appleton, Arthur Rackham, Amelia Murray, Edmund Dulac, Joseph Payton, John Simmons, Joseph Zevan, The Doyle brothers, C. Wilhelm, Shigeru Mizuki, Yoshitaka Amano, Itsuko Azuma, Suzuko Makino, Akira Uno, Yukio Satsukime, Yuki Yuuki, Akiko Iwakiri, and many more.
Very Good—Near Fine copy in VG dust jacket with a few ballpoint marks to lower back.
2010, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi), 136 pages, 19 x 14.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Atelier Third / Tokyo
$90.00 - Out of stock
Published in 2010 and long out-of-print, this book collects the rare artworks of Japanese artists Ran Akiyoshi and Aya Shijo explores a world of erotic fantasies ranging from surrealism to magic, S&M to spanking, and much more. Two prolific artists whose work proliferated throughout the bountiful pages of Tokyo's underground SM / fetish publishing scene in the 1960s—1970s, but are virtually unknown and undocumented outside of Japan.
Legendary self-taught underground Japanese artist Ran Ran Akiyoshi (1922—1982), virtually unknown and undocumented outside of Japan, Akiyoshi never held an exhibition nor sold any of his drawings in his lifetime. Much like the work of Toshio Saeki or Namio Harukawa, Akiyoshi's creations proliferated throughout the bountiful pages of Tokyo's underground SM / fetish publishing scene in the 1960s—1970s. Yet Akiyoshi's phantasmagoric world of erotic fantasy is like no other, building sado-masochistic themes within unique, somewhat Lovecraftian and Bosch-esque dreamscapes populated by mythological goddesses and grotesque creatures. His peculiar fantasy drawings were highly praised by Japanese novelist and art critic, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, an instrumental figure in the Japanese avant-garde who translated de Sade and Bataille to Japanese, and specialised in the study of medieval demonology.
Shijo Aya is a legendary underground Japanese artist little-known inside or outside Japan who specialised in fetish/punishment/humiliation imagery. He illustrated for magazines such as Kitan Club, SM King, SM Fan, and SM Play.
As New in dust jacket w. obi.
2024, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket + obi), 176 pages, 19 x 15 cm
Published by
Atelier Third / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Brand new book collecting 200 rare and phenomenal illustrations of the legendary underground Japanese artist Ran Akiyoshi (1922—1982), many never seen before in print. Virtually unknown and undocumented outside of Japan, Akiyoshi never held an exhibition nor sold any of his drawings in his lifetime. Much like the work of Toshio Saeki or Namio Harukawa, Akiyoshi's creations proliferated throughout the bountiful pages of Tokyo's underground SM / fetish publishing scene in the 1960s—1970s. Yet Akiyoshi's phantasmagoric world of erotic fantasy is like no other, building sado-masochistic themes within unique, somewhat Lovecraftian and Bosch-esque dreamscapes populated by mythological goddesses and grotesque creatures. His peculiar fantasy drawings were highly praised by Japanese novelist and art critic, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, an instrumental figure in the Japanese avant-garde who translated de Sade and Bataille to Japanese, and specialised in the study of medieval demonology.
Born in Kyongsong (present Seoul), Korea in 1922, Akiyoshi was publicly schooled and self-taught in drawing. After WWII, he moved to Japan, traveled around Kyushu area and finally settled in Tokyo in 1946. Akiyoshi started working for adult entertainment magazines such as "Decameron","Fuzoku Soushi", and "Uramado" in 1950. Around 1958, he began focusing on original drawings while continuing to draw illustrations for various magazines. In the 1970s, Akiyoshi provided iconic cover and insert illustrations to a number of prominent SM magazines, including "SM King", "SM Kitan", and "SM Club". A prolific and private artists, he never held an exhibition nor sold any of his drawings in his lifetime. Akiyoshi died from heart failure in 1982 at the age of 58.
1992, Japanese
Hardcover, 98 pages (w. fold-outs), 42 x 30 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
$140.00 $100.00 - In stock -
First special Japanese hardcover edition of H.R. Giger's Necronomicon II, the second oversized and visually overwhelming Giger-designed collection that takes us further through the incredible history of one of the most brilliant fantasy artists of the century. Reproducing Giger's award-winning work for the film ALIEN, lavish reproductions of his major paintings, environments, sculptural works, his work for never-shot film "The Tourist", his early grotesque ink illustrations, collaborations with Blondie's Debbie Harry, his "New York City" series from the late 1970's and so much more, all beautifully reproduced in full-colour and black and white, full-bleed spreads, including fold-out pages. Also includes interviews, texts, biography. These Giger folio books have become very desirable, collectable editions in their various printings around the world, the series encompassing the work of one of the world's most unique and influential visionaries of the macabre. This is volume 2 of 2 of "HR Giger's Necronomicon" where Al Azred's legendary magical book of the most wonderful abominations and perversions, "Necronomicon" (made infamous in the pages of HP Lovecraft's "Cthulhu" mythology), becomes a visual reality!
First hardcover Japanese edition, published by Hardcover edition published by Treville, Tokyo, in 1992. Light foxing/splitting/bumping to spine top and bottom, one semi-detaching from binding on endpaper, otherwise internally VG well preserved throughout.
2024, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 334 pages, 32 x 22 cm
Published by
Centre Pompidou / Paris
$110.00 - In stock -
The defining book for the centenary of Surrealism. From September 2024 to January 2025, the Centre Pompidou will celebrate the 100th anniversary of André Breton's Surrealist Manifesto. For the next two years, their unprecedented Surrealist exhibition will tour the art galleries of the world, accompanied by this special catalogue.
Perhaps more than any other artistic movement, Surrealism had a cataclysmic effect on the modern mind, changing forever the way we think about experiencing the world. By rejecting the gross linearity that typified several centuries of preceding artworks, the legendary Surrealists Magritte, Ernst, Carrington, Dali, Tanning and so many others reached beyond the facade of that which is patently visible and found something more. Featuring original essays from leading academics and excerpts from the Surrealist Manifesto itself, this stands among the most essential Surrealist catalogues ever published.
1970, English
Softcover, 318 pages, 19.5 x 11.5 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Paladin / London
$25.00 - In stock -
1970 edition of this "brilliant inquiry into the psychology of artistic creativity ranges across the arts of cavemen and children, the music of Mozart and John Cage, the painting of Michelangelo and Robert Rauschenberg. It examines the role of the unconscious critical processes in the formal organisation of a work of art, and traces a central theme, that of the 'dying god', the psychological core of our greatest literature, painting and music."
"This is one of the most intelligent books ever written about the psychology of artistic creativity, and it is as relevent to the present situation of psychology as it is to the present situation of art... I know of no other book which so much conduces to a reasoned optimism about the future of art and, indirectly, about the future of human affairs."—John Russell SUNDAY TIMES
"... the fruits of a lifetime's rigorous thought and research... an important book, likely to have a permanent place alongside the work of E. H. Gombrich... outstanding virtues as a pioneer in the theory and understanding of art."—Anthony Curtis SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
G—VG copy, general wear and toning.
2025, English
Hardcover (clothbound), 376 pages, 28 x 20 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
Fridericianum / Kassel
$85.00 - Out of stock
This is the most comprehensive book ever published on one of the most extraordinary figures in post-war American art: Forrest Bess, who described himself as a painter and fisherman and whose biomorphic abstractions cannot be assigned to any movement. Starting in the 1940s, he lived in isolation in Texas and created small paintings that reflect his visionary experiences between wakefulness and sleep. Bess combined his art with an intense exploration of mythology, psychology, and sexology. Believing that immortality could be achieved through the union of the masculine and feminine, he underwent medical procedures. His unconventional works received posthumous recognition in international exhibitions and influenced many contemporary artists such as Amy Sillman, Richard Hawkins or James Benning.
Lavishly illustrated throughout, the work of Forrest Bess is accompanied by texts (in English and German) by Tomma Abts, Dieter Schwarz, Amy Sillman and Moritz Wesseler.
Forrest Bess, born in 1911 in Bay City, Texas, where he also died in 1977, led an extremely secluded existence in the first half of the 1940s on the Gulf of Mexico, where alongside catching and selling fishing bait he dedicated himself to painting. During this time, Bess began to systematically encapsulate in painting “visions” that appeared to him on the threshold between wakefulness and sleep. For Bess, subconscious human experiences manifested themselves in these abstract and highly symbolic images. He pursed their exploration like a piece of obsessive research that he articulated in countless records and intensive correspondence without ever unravelling the mystery of his creativity.
1995, English / Spanish / German
Softcover, 80 pages, 30 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Norma Editorial / Barcelona
$50.00 - In stock -
"In the adventure of her breasts, there are vines which extend themselves tangling lustfully, with powerfully cold hips. There is a dagger, iron, blood, fury... penetrating into the most hidden recesses of her flesh. Magic."
First 1995 edition of Spanish fantasy artist Luis Royo's (b. 1954) full-colour volume of artworks dedicated to "Women", published by Norma Norma Editorial in Barcelona. Packed full of his remarkable airbrush paintings and drawings of women who famously featured in the pages of Heavy Metal magazine and adorned the covers of many sci-fi paperback throughout the 1980's. From Cyber-punk to Sword and Sorcery, Royo's most iconic heroines and femme fatales are all here, alongside commentary in Spanish, English and German, biography and many unseen personal works.
Very Good—NF copy.
2018, English
Hardcover, 480 pages, 17.4 x 23.2 cm
Published by
Atlas Press / London
$65.00 - In stock -
Georges Bataille's secret society, long the stuff of legend, is now revealed in its texts, meditations, rules and prohibitions.
This book recounts what must be one of the most unusual intellectual journeys of modern times, in which the influential philosopher, cultural theorist and occasional pornographer Georges Bataille (1897-1962), having spent the early 1930s in far-left groups opposing the rise of fascism, abandoned that approach in order to transfer the struggle onto "the mythological plane."
In 1937, Bataille founded two groups in order to explore the combinations of power and the "sacred" at work in society. The first group, the College of Sociology, gave lectures that were intended to reveal the hidden undercurrents within a society on the verge of catastrophe. The second group was Acéphale, a genuine secret society and anti-religion whose emblem was a headless figure that, in part, represented the death of God. Until the discovery a few years ago of the group's internal papers (which include theoretical texts, meditations, minutes of meetings, rules and prohibitions and even a membership list), almost nothing was known of its activities.
This book is the first to collect a representative selection of the writings of Bataille, and of those close to him, in the years leading up to World War II. The texts published here comprise lectures given to the College of Sociology by Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris, essays from the Acéphale journal and a large cache of the internal papers from the secret society. A desperate narrative unfolds, wherein Bataille risked all in a wholly unreasonable quest--with a few fellow travelers, he undertook what he later described as a "journey out of this world."
Additional texts by Roger Caillois, Pierre Klossowski, Michel Leiris, and by Georges Ambrosino, Pierre Andler, Michel Carrouges, Jacques Chavy, Jean Dautry, Henri Dobier, Henri Dussat, Imre Kelemen, Jean Rollin, Patrick Waldberg.
And with drawings by André Masson
Highest recommendation!
1981, English
Softcover, 48 pages, 40 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Charles E. Tuttle / Tokyo
$170.00 - In stock -
Scarce first Japanese edition (entirely in English language), published in Tokyo by Charles Tuttle, of this beautifully produced over-sized 1981 book by H. R. Giger. Foreword by Timothy Leary.
In 1981, a year after being awarded the Oscar for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for Alien, the book H.R. GIGER N.Y. CITY was published. This series of post Alien works, the result of an intense period of non-stop painting, literally day and night, were inspired by Giger's trip to New York City and a template which his colleague Cornelius de Fries, brought back from one of his excursions into the electronic industry. The stencil was actually a sheet of scrap metal from which electrical components had been punched out. Alongside these incredible works are drawings, articles, press clippings, posters and polaroids from Giger's time in New York City.
Fantastic Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer Hans Rudolf “Ruedi” Giger was born in 1940, the son of a chemist. He spoke of a father who viewed art as a "breadless profession", and strongly encouraged his son to enter into pharmaceutics. Despite this, in 1962, he moved to Zürich, where he studied Architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts until 1970. Giger's style and thematic execution have been hugely influential. His design for the Alien was inspired by his painting Necronom IV and earned him an Oscar in 1980. His books of paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II (1985) and the frequent appearance of his art in Omni magazine continued his rise to international prominence. Giger is also well known for artwork on several music recording albums. His most distinctive stylistic innovation is that of a representation of human bodies and machines in a cold, interconnected relationship, he described as "biomechanical". His paintings often display fetishistic sexual imagery. His main influences were painters Ernst Fuchs and Salvador Dalí. He was also a personal friend of Timothy Leary. Giger suffered from night terrors and his paintings are all to some extent inspired by his experiences with that particular sleep disorder, making his first paintings as a means of art therapy. In 1998 Giger acquired the Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland, and it now houses the H. R. Giger Museum, a permanent repository of his work.
Good copy, tight binding with some corner cover wear, tanning to page edges and foxing to preliminary pages.
2024, English
Softcover, 134 pages, 24 x 17.5 cm
Published by
ACCA / Melbourne
$25.00 - In stock -
Fusing First Nations cultural traditions, the industrial materiality of the mining industry, and regional and global art influences, this title and its accompanying exhibition asserts and re-imagines the artists’ cross-cultural identities, drawing upon the haunting wounds of post-contact histories, the renewal and remaking of cultural practices, and the collaborative resilience and audaciously punk attitude of a frontier community.Encompassing contemporary artists from Northern Central Australia and Melbourne, Tennant Creek Brio includes key members Fabian Brown Japaljarri, Lindsay Nelson Jakamarra, Rupert Betheras, Joseph Williams Jungarayi, Clifford Thompson Japaljarri, Jimmy Frank Jupurrula, Fabian Rankine Jampijinpa, Marcus Camphoo Kemarre, and collaborators including Eleanor Jawurlngali Dixon, Lévi McLean, and Gary Sullibhaine. The group first converged in 2016 when the artists initiated an outreach program at the local men’s centre, Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation.
Edited by Max Delany and Elyse Goldfinch
1997, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 154 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
$220.00 - Out of stock
First 1997 edition collection of "The Early Works" by the Japanese master of Ero guro Toshio Saeki, published by Treville in 1997 and long out-of-print. An extensive collection of incredible works gathered from his first major book in 1970, his acclaimed 1971 Red Book, the panel-by-panel replication of an early Saeki manga story, and much more. Texts by Akira Uno, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Timothy Leary.
Toshio Saeki (1945—2019) was an illusive Japanese illustrator and painter, and icon of 1970s Tokyo counterculture, known for combining Japanese folklore, Yōkai spirits and elements of Western art with his own sophisticated aesthetics to create a unique, sensational world of eros, dark humour, and horror. Given the title “Erotic Engineer” by Timothy Leary, Saeki's provocative art broke all sexual taboos, questioned Japanese ideology and traditional views on love, desire and gender roles. Saeki’s surgically-precise graphic work is closely related to the Japanese cultural phenomenon ‘Erotic, Grotesque, Nonsense’ (ero, guro, nansensu).
“Toshio Saeki conjures death with a pen”—Shūji Terayama, 1969.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket, light wear.
1989, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket + ephemera), 96 pages, 42.5 x 30.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Treville / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1989 Japanese edition of H. R. Giger's Biomechanics. In his classic series of oversized and visually immersive early art volumes, this book comprises a retrospective showcase, from 1964—88, of Giger's work, designed by and with running commentary by Giger himself, with over 200 drawings, paintings, and sculptures, and including concept art for the film Poltergeist II, and design paintings for Emerson, Lake, and Palmer albums, his lost film work and early cartoons. With a foreword by legendary Science Fiction author and longtime Giger fan Harlan Ellison, who dubs him "our latter-day Hieronymus Bosch."
Note: the Japanese editions of these books often had better reproductions from the original plates than the German and English language editions.
Includes Treville publisher ephemera inserted as issued, including an illustrated advert for Giger poster editions, etc.
Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. Excellent, well-preserved copy.
2004, Japanese
Hardcover (w. slipcase), 48 pages, 27 x 19 cm
Signed and numbered edition,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Seirin Kogeisha / Tokyo
$350.00 - In stock -
Very rare first Japanese edition of Picture Scroll of Pathos by ero-guro master Toshio Saeki (1945—2019), limited to only 1000 copies, numbered and this special copy signed by Saeki inside the cover! A gorgeous and rarely seen collection of Saeki's early manga works and picture stories that were originally published in the early 70's and thought to be lost, here reproduced impeccably in black and white with stunning multi-panel colour fold-out spreads. Hardcover bound in illustrated slipcase. Most complete.
Toshio Saeki (1945—2019) was an illusive Japanese illustrator and painter, and icon of 1970s Tokyo counterculture, known for combining Japanese folklore, Yōkai spirits and elements of Western art with his own sophisticated aesthetics to create a unique, sensational world of eros, dark humour, and horror. Given the title “Erotic Engineer” by Timothy Leary, Saeki's provocative art broke all sexual taboos, questioned Japanese ideology and traditional views on love, desire and gender roles. Saeki’s surgically-precise graphic work is closely related to the Japanese cultural phenomenon ‘Erotic, Grotesque, Nonsense’ (ero, guro, nansensu).
“Toshio Saeki conjures death with a pen”—Shūji Terayama, 1969.
Fine copy with Fine dj, slipcase. Signed in bold silver pen by Saeki.
1971, Japanese
Rigid softcover (in illustrated slipcase), 64 pages, 30 cm x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Gakugei Shorinsha / Tokyo
$400.00 - In stock -
Super rare and bookshop favourite early collection of artworks by ero-guro master Toshio Saeki (1945—2019), published in 1971 by Gakugeishorin. Stunning large-format softcover collection of exquisitely printed saturated full-bleed colour and b/w artworks on warm matte paper stock capturing this legendary underground artist at the height of his powers, housed in original publisher's cardboard slipcase. His third book collection featuring so many of his finest works. Postface by Hiraoka Masaaki in Japanese. A must!
Toshio Saeki (1945—2019) was an illusive Japanese illustrator and painter, and icon of 1970s Tokyo counterculture, known for combining Japanese folklore, Yōkai spirits and elements of Western art with his own sophisticated aesthetics to create a unique, sensational world of eros, dark humour, and horror. Given the title “Erotic Engineer” by Timothy Leary, Saeki's provocative art broke all sexual taboos, questioned Japanese ideology and traditional views on love, desire and gender roles. Saeki’s surgically-precise graphic work is closely related to the Japanese cultural phenomenon ‘Erotic, Grotesque, Nonsense’ (ero, guro, nansensu).
“Toshio Saeki conjures death with a pen”—Shūji Terayama, 1969.
Very Good copy. Very complete copy with slipcase and obi present. Some wear/marking to a VG slipcase.
2025, English
Hardcover, 320 pages, 30 x 24 cm
Published by
Fulgur Press / UK
$165.00 - Out of stock
Breton's late treatise on magic and art appears for the first time in English, complete with citations, commentaries and a bibliography.
What is “Magic Art”? In 1953, André Breton, founder of the Surrealist movement, was invited by a prestigious French publisher to explore answers to this question. His resulting analysis is wide-ranging and evocative. Beginning with a literary review of magic and art, Breton draws upon Novalis and Baudelaire before considering the prehistoric rock art of Spain and France, the native art of the Pacific Northwest, the magical grimoires and alchemical symbolism of the Middle Ages, and the work of Hieronymus Bosch, Antoine Caron, Paolo Uccello, Gustav Moreau, Paul Gauguin and the Surrealists. Through these and other diverse sources, Breton traces a mystery that lies at the heart of our timeless fascination with otherness and seeks to place Surrealism as a successor to a magical sensibility that began with art itself.
First published in 1957 as L’Art magique, this important text is offered here as an English translation for the first time. Working from manuscript notes for the original project, this edition presents the iconographic content as Breton intended, together with more than 300 new citations and a comprehensive bibliography that emphasizes sources found in Breton’s own library.
André Breton (1896–1966) was one of the founders and most controversial exponents of Surrealism, defining the movement in his first Surrealist Manifesto as “pure psychic automatism.” Fleeing from Europe during World War II, Breton traveled throughout North America staging Surrealist exhibitions and lending his voice to several political movements.
With contributions by Gérard Legrand, Robert Shehu-Ansell, Merlin Cox, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Dawn Ades, Anne Egger, Kristoffer Noheden.
2023, Czech / English / German
Softcover, 256 pages, 24 x 33 cm
Published by
Edizioni Periferia / Lucerne
$175.00 - In stock -
Despite his art education, Czech painter and photographer Miroslav Tichý (1926–2011) was considered an outsider due to his unconventional approach to photography that revealed a voyeuristic fascination for the female body. His analogue photography shows traces and errors he deliberately sought out by building his own cameras and telephoto lenses. In the 1970s and ’80s, Tichý regularly took pictures of his television screen. Because he lived close to the Austrian border, he was able to circumvent the censorship of Eastern Bloc media and watch the more permissive films and late night shows from the West. Many of his seemingly surreptitious screenshots appear in this book.