World Food Books

Re-Sisters : Recordings of the Lives of Delia Derbyshire and Margery Kempe
by Cosey Fanni Tutti

2022, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 304 Pages, 23.4 x 15.3 cm
Published by Faber & Faber / London

$45.00 - Out of stock

From the acclaimed author of Art Sex Music comes a vital meditation on womanhood, creativity and self-expression, and a revelatory exploration into the lives of three visionary artists.

In 2018, boundary-breaking visual and sonic artist Cosey Fanni Tutti received a commission to write the soundtrack to a film about Delia Derbyshire, the pioneering electronic composer who influenced the likes of Aphex Twin and the Chemical Brothers. While researching Delia's life, Cosey became immersed in her story and uncovered some fascinating parallels with her own life. At the same time Cosey began reading about Margery Kempe, the 15th century mystic visionary who wrote the first English language autobiography.

Re-sisters is the story of three women consumed by their passion for life, a passion they expressed through music, art and lifestyle; they were undaunted by the consequences they faced in pursuit of expanding and enriching their lives, and unwilling to conform to the societal and cultural norms of their time.

File under: Cosey Fanni Tutti Delia Derbyshire Margery Kempe Cosey Fanni Tutti Faber & Faber / London Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Theory / Essay Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art
by Susan L. Aberth

2010, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 24.9 x 29 cm
Published by Lund Humphries / London

$85.00 - Out of stock

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This book remains the definitive survey of the life and work of Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011).

Carrington burst onto the Surrealist scene in 1936, when, as a precocious nineteen-year-old debutante, she escaped the stultifying demands of her wealthy English family by running away to Paris with her lover Max Ernst. She was immediately championed by Andre Breton, who responded enthusiastically to her fantastical, dark and satirical writing style and her interest in fairy tales and the occult. Her stories were included in Surrealist publications, and her paintings in the Surrealists' exhibitions.

After the dramas and tragic separations of the Second World War, Carrington ended up in the 1940s as part of the circle of Surrealist European emigres living in Mexico City. Close friends with Luis Bunuel, Benjamin Peret, Octavio Paz and a host of both expatriate Surrealists and Mexican modernists, Carrington was at the centre of Mexican cultural life, while still maintaining her European connections.

Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art provides a fascinating overview of this intriguing artist's rich body of work. The author considers Carrington's preoccupation with alchemy and the occult, and explores the influence of indigenous Mexican culture and beliefs on her production.

Susan L. Aberth received her PhD in Art History from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York; her dissertation was on the art of Leonora Carrington. She is currently Assistant Professor of Art History at Bard College, New York, where she specializes in Latin American Art.

File under: Leonora Carrington Susan L. Aberth Lund Humphries / London Surrealism Painting Drawing Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Vasily Kandinsky
Around the Circle

2021, English
Hardcover, 196 pages, 22.9 x 26.2 cm
Published by Guggenheim Museum / New York

$99.00 - In stock -

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One of the foremost artistic innovators of abstraction in the 20th century, Vasily Kandinsky sought to liberate painting from its ties to the natural world and promote the spiritual in art. This richly illustrated publication looks at Kandinsky anew, through a critical lens, reframing our understanding of this vital figure of European modernism, who was also a prolific aesthetic theorist and writer.

A series of thematic essays considers his engagement with avant-garde artistic communities including the Bauhaus, his relationship to improvisation and music, his travels in Europe and Russia, and the influences behind his self-declared anarchist mode of abstraction, among other topics. Tracing Kandinsky’s life and work through his years in Moscow, several cities in Germany, and Paris, the texts offer striking new insights into an artist whose creative production and style were intimately tied to a sense of place—and displacement—and evolved amid the political and social upheavals catalyzed by the Russian Revolution and World Wars I and II.
Kandinsky’s history is closely linked to that of the Guggenheim Museum. Solomon R. Guggenheim began collecting the artist’s work in 1929; a year later, they met at the Bauhaus, in Dessau. This book features more than half of the museum’s deep holdings of works by Kandinsky, presenting the full arc of his artistic development and career. Included are paintings in oil and oil with sand, reverse-glass paintings, as well as woodcuts, watercolors and drawings on paper. An illustrated chronicle of Kandinsky’s life and career, including selected exhibitions and publications, rounds out the volume.

Edited with text by Tracey Bashkoff, Megan Fontanella. Text by Mark Antliff, Patricia Leighten, George E. Lewis.

File under: Wassily Kandinsky Tracey Bashkoff Megan Fontanella Mark Antliff Patricia Leighten George E. Lewis Guggenheim Museum / New York Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Painting Drawing Art Theory / Essay

The Sounding Cosmos : A Study in the Spiritualism of Kandinsky and the Genesis of Abstract Painting
by Sixten Ringbom

2022, English
Hardcover, 350 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Published by Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm

$65.00 - Out of stock

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Long unavailable and highly sought after, Ringbom's classic 1970 volume launched the study of esotericism's influence on abstract art.

For many years, relatively few people knew of spiritualism's impact on the birth of abstract art. But when the Finnish art historian Sixten Ringbom's book The Sounding Cosmos was published in 1970, the writing of history changed forever. Through his research on Wassily Kandinsky, one of the pivotal figures in modern art, Ringbom showed how Theosophy and esoteric teachings were absolutely essential to the development of nonfigurative painting.

This discovery generated great debate at the time, and the book was both celebrated and controversial. Although the original publication is extremely rare and sought after, to this day The Sounding Cosmos is a classic of art history that continues to be discussed--especially in recent years, as the presence of esotericism in modernist art from Hilma af Klint to Mondrian and beyond has been revisited.

The Sounding Cosmos is now being reissued for the first time in this elegant new edition. The richly illustrated original text has been supplemented with a new foreword by Daniel Birnbaum and Julia Voss.
Sixten Ringbom (1935-92) was an influential Finnish art historian. In 1965 he completed a PhD under the great art historian Ernst Gombrich. Ringbom succeeded his father as professor of art history at Åbo Akademi University in 1970, and became the first art historian to explore in depth the connections between early abstract art and occultism. He published prolifically until his death in 1992.

File under: Hilma af Klint Wassily Kandinsky Piet Mondrian Daniel Birnbaum Sixten Ringbom Ernst Gombrich Julia Voss Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm Art Painting Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Theory / Essay

THE CUTE (WHITECHAPEL DOCUMENTS OF CONTEMPORARY ART series)
Edited by Sianne Ngai

2022, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 20.9 x 15 cm
Published by Whitechapel / London

$40.00 - Out of stock

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The Cute tracks the astonishing impact of a single aesthetic category on post-war and contemporary art, and on the vast range of cultural practices and discourses on which artists draw. From robots and cat videos to ice cream socials, The Cute explores the ramifications of an aesthetic 'of' or 'about' minorness - or what is perceived to be diminutive, subordinate, and above all, unthreatening - on the shifting forms and contents of art today. This anthology is the first of its kind to show how contemporary artists have worked on and transformed the cute, and in ways that not only complexify its meaning, but reshape their own artistic practices.

Artists surveyed include Peggy Ahwesh, Cosima Von Bonin, Nayland Blake, Paul Chan, Henry Darger, Adrian Howells, Juliana Huxtable, Larry Johnson, Mike Kelley, Dean Kenning, Wyndham Lewis, Jeff Koons, Sean-Kierre Lyons, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Tala Madani, Annette Messager, Mariko Mori, Charlemagne Palestine, Mika Rottenberg, Allen Ruppersberg, Jack Smith, Carolee Schneeman, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Yoshitomo Nara

Writers include Sasha Archibald, Roland Barthes, Leigh Claire La Berge, Ian Bogost, Lauren Berlant, Jennifer Doyle, Lee Edelman, Stephen Jay Gould, Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy, Bridget Minamore, Juliane Rebentisch, Frances Richard, John Roberts, Friedrich Schiller, Peter Schjeldahl, Kanako Shiokawa

is the author of Ugly Feelings (Harvard, 2005), Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting (Harvard, 2012), and Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form (Belknap/Harvard, 2020). She is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English at the University of Chicago.

File under: Peggy Ahwesh Cosima Von Bonin Nayland Blake Paul Chan Henry Darger Adrian Howells Juliana Huxtable Larry Johnson Mike Kelley Dean Kenning Wyndham Lewis Jeff Koons Sean-Kierre Lyons Mammalian Diving Reflex Tala Madani Annette Messager Mariko Mori Charlemagne Palestine Mika Rottenberg Allen Ruppersberg Jack Smith Carolee Schneeman Kara Walker Andy Warhol Yoshitomo Nara Sasha Archibald Roland Barthes Leigh Claire La Berge Ian Bogost Lauren Berlant Jennifer Doyle Lee Edelman Stephen Jay Gould Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy Bridget Minamore Juliane Rebentisch Frances Richard John Roberts Friedrich Schiller Peter Schjeldahl Kanako Shiokawa Whitechapel / London Painting Sculpture / Installation Theory / Essay Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Fantasy : The Literature of Subversion
by Rosemary jackson

1981, English
Softcover, 212 pages, 12.5 x 19.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Methuen Publishing / London

$20.00 - Out of stock

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Published in 1981, this study argues against vague interpretations of fantasy as mere escapism and seeks to define it as a distinct kind of narrative. A general theoretical section introduces recent work on fantasy. notably Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (1973). Dr Jackson. however, extends Todorov's ideas to include aspects of psychoanalytic theory seeing fantasy as primarily an expression of unconscious drives, she stresses the importance of the writings of Freud and subsequent theorists when analysing recurrent themes, such as doubling or multiplying selves, mirror images, metamorphosis and bodily disintegration. Gothic fiction, classic Victorian fantasies, the 'fantastic realism' of Dickens and Dostoevsky, tales by Mary Shelley, James Hogg, E. T. A. Hoffman, George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, R L. Stevenson, Franz Kafka, Mervyn Peake and Thomas Pynchon are among the texts covered. Through a reading of these frequently disquieting works Dr Jackson moves towards a definition of fantasy as a historically determined form, whose ambiguities are seen as expressing cultural unease. These issues are discussed in relation to a wide range of fantasies with varying images of desire and disenchantment.

Very Good copy.

File under: Charles Dickens Mary Shelley James Hogg E. T. A. Hoffman George Eliot Henry James Joseph Conrad R L. Stevenson Franz Kafka Mervyn Peake Thomas Pynchon Methuen Publishing / London Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Zdzisław Beksiński

1992, English
Hardcover, 144 pages, 24 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Arkady / Warsaw

$600.00 - Out of stock

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Signed copy of the long out-of-print and collectible hardcover monograph on Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński, published in 1992 by Arkady, Warsaw. Profusely illustrated throughout with colour reproductions of Beksiński's surreal dystopian paintings spanning his entire career, alongside an introductory text in Polish by Tadeusz Nyczek.

Already a scarce title on Beksiński, this copy is extra special with signature by the master himself in pen on first blank page after his ("Beksinski"). Rarely does a signed book appear by this artist.

Zdzisław Beksiński (1929 – 2005) was a Polish painter, photographer and sculptor. Beksiński had no formal training as an artist. Born in Sanok, he studied architecture in Kraków and worked as a construction site supervisor before turning to his passion for art, sculpting with construction site materials for his medium. His early photography would be a precursor to his paintings, often referred to as dystopian surrealism. Beksiński claimed, "I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams". Beksiński undertook painting with a passion, working intensely whilst listening to classical music and quickly becoming a leading figure in contemporary Polish art. In the late 1960s, Beksiński entered what he himself called his "fantastic period", which lasted up to the mid-1980s, during which he created his famed images of desolate, surrealistic landscapes with intricate depictions of anxious, abstracted figures and architecture in states of decay, mutation and decomposition. Although Beksiński's art was often dark, he himself was known to be a pleasant person with a keen sense of humour. Modest and somewhat shy, he avoided public events such as the openings of his own exhibitions and almost never visited museums or exhibitions in general. He always credited music as his main source of inspiration. Beksiński avoided concrete analysis of the content of his work, saying "I cannot conceive of a sensible statement on painting". Beksiński was stabbed to death at his Warsaw apartment in February 2005 by a 19-year-old acquaintance from Wołomin, reportedly because he refused to lend the teenager money.

According to Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro "In the medieval tradition, Beksinski seems to believe art to be a forewarning about the fragility of the flesh – whatever pleasures we know are doomed to perish – thus, his paintings manage to evoke at once the process of decay and the ongoing struggle for life. They hold within them a secret poetry, stained with blood and rust."

"Beksinski's powerfully unique paintings are such as I have never before seen" H.R. Giger

Very Good copy in Very Good dust jacket.

File under: Zdzisław Beksiński Tadeusz Nyczek Arkady / Warsaw Art Painting Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Signed Books Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

H.R. Giger
WWW HR Giger Com: Biomechanical World

1997, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 240 pages, 31 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Taschen / Cologne

$150.00 - Out of stock

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First hardcover English-language edition of this exceptionally in-depth and comprehensive book by H.R. Giger, published by Taschen in 1997.

“I paint what frightens me,” says H.R. Giger, who compiled and designed this comprehensive retrospective himself, documenting and describing his work from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. Lavishly illustrated with reproductions of his biomechanical visions, accompanied by his own detailed commentaries offering privileged insight into a uniquely imaginative mind. The book cover Giger's life and working methods, followed by page after page of Giger's artworks and various lesser-seen creations from the deepest recesses of the mind and of the Giger personal archives — from his early oil experiments to the Giger Bar in Tokyo to his killer condoms to his nightmare garden train! Includes an extensive illustrated chronology. An uncommon book in the original, long out-of-print foiled hardcover issue with English text (not a later reprint). Highly recommended resource for any Giger fan.

Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.

File under: H.R. Giger Taschen / Cologne Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Painting Film / Video Sculpture / Installation Drawing

Jochen Lempert
Phenotype

2013, English
Hardcover, 348 pages, 27.5 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Walther König / Köln

$500.00 - Out of stock

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Now exceptionally rare and collectible, Phenotype is the first comprehensive monograph on the biologist Jochen Lempert, who has worked as a photographer since the early 1990s.

Since the early 1990s, the German photographer and biologist Jochen Lempert (born 1958) has used analogue, black-and-white photography to convey his gently reverential vision of nature and sentience—whether that of animals, plants or humans. Often grainy, sometimes verging on abstraction, and sometimes focusing minutely on the activity of some tiny creature, his photographs exude a simple pleasure in fleeting tranquility. Lempert has also taken a quietly particular stance on the presentation of his work: in exhibitions, his images are presented unframed and tacked up on walls, and his books (among them Recent Field Work and Coevolution) are always immediately identifiable for their modest but exquisite design, printing and paper. Continuing this tradition of gorgeous bookmaking, Jochen Lempert: Phenotype reproduces 450 of his works, most of them arranged in groups and sequences, from more than 20 years of artistic production.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Hamburger Kunsthalle Gallery of Contemporary Art, 22 June – 29 September 2013.

Very Good copy, light tanning to spine.

File under: Jochen Lempert Brigitte Kölle Frédéric Paul Roberto Ohrt Walther König / Köln Art Photography Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Out-of-print / Rare

The Botanical Mind - Art, Mysticism And The Cosmic Tree

2021, English
Softcover, 232 pages, 16 x 23 cm
Published by Camden Art Centre / UK

$98.00 - Out of stock

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Humanity’s place in the natural order is under scrutiny as never before, held in a precarious balance between visible and invisible forces: from the microscopic threat of a virus to the monumental power of climate change.

Drawing on indigenous traditions from the Amazon rainforest; alternative perspectives on Western scientific rationalism; and new thinking around plant intelligence, philosophy and cultural theory, The Botanical Mind investigates the significance of the plant kingdom to human life, consciousness and spirituality across cultures and through time. The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree was conceived as a trans-generational group exhibition by Gina Buenfeld and Matt Williams for the Camden Art Centre, bringing together surrealist, modernist, visionary, outsider, indigenous Amazonian, and contemporary works alongside historical and ethnographic artefacts, textiles and manuscripts spanning more than 500 years. Through the symbolism of diverse cultural artefacts and the works of mystics, artists and thinkers around the world, 'The Botanical Mind' reveals how the vegetal kingdom has metaphysical importance to the development of consciousness and spirituality.

This richly illustrated 224-page companion publication includes essays by the curators and contributions from scholars on the key themes of the exhibition – alchemy, art history, plant ontology, Gaian ecology, anthropology and ethnobotany – unifying philosophical, scientific, spiritual and artistic approaches to meditate on the cosmic significance of plants in different worldviews.

Edited by Gina Buenfeld and Martin Clark
Designed by Sara De Bondt studio.

Artists and Writers
Eileen Agar / Anni Albers / Josef Albers / Sarah Angliss / Consuelo "Chelo" González Amézcua / Gemma Anderson with Wakefield Lab and John Dupré / Anna Atkins / Kirk Barley / Jordan Belson / Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater / Karl Blossfeldt / Carol Bove / Jagadish Chandra Bose / Kerstin Brätsch / Bernd Brabec De Mori / Hildegarde von Bingen / Andrea Büttner / Adam Chodzko / Ithell Colquhoun / Bruce Conner / Brenda Danilowitz / Das Institut / Mirtha Dermisache / Minnie Evans / Cerith Wyn Evans / Charles Filiger / Robert Fludd / Monica Gagliano / Giorgio Griffa / Brion Gysin / Friedrich Wilhelm Heine / Ernst Haeckel / Dr Stephan Harding / Anna Haskel / Tamara Henderson / Channa Horwitz / Textiles from the Huni Kuin (Kaxinawa) people / C.G. Jung / Joachim Koester / Rachid Koraïchi / Hilma af Klint / Emma Kunz / Yves Laloy / Ghislaine Leung / Linder / Simon Ling / Michael Marder / Agnes Martin / André Masson / John McCracken / Terence McKenna / Henri Michaux / Matt Mullican / Wolfgang Paalen / Paul Păun / Stefan A. Pedersen / Santiago Ramón y Cajal / Steve Reinke and James Richards / Edith Rimmington / Adele Röder / Daniel Rios Rodriguez / Rupert Sheldrake / Textiles and ceramics from the Shipibo-Conibo people / Penny Slinger / F. Percy Smith / Janet Sobel / Philip Taaffe / Priscilla Telmon and Vincent Moon / Fred Tomaselli / Delfina Muñoz de Toro / Alexander Tovborg / David Tudor / Lee Ufan / Scottie Wilson / Terry Winters / Adolf Wölfli / Bryan Wynter / Henriette Zéphir / Anna Zemánková / Unica Zürn / artists from the Yawanawá community

File under: Eileen Agar Anni Albers Josef Albers Karl Blossfeldt Carol Bove Das Institut Sarah Angliss Consuelo González Amezcua Anna Atkins Kirk Barley Jordan Belson Kerstin Brätsch Andrea Büttner Cerith Wyn Evans Adam Chodzko Ithell Colquhoun Bruce Conner Giorgio Griffa Brion Gysin Hilma af Klint Emma Kunz Henri Michaux Matt Mullican Wolfgang Paalen Penny Slinger Lee Ufan Terry Winters Adolf Wölfli Scottie Wilson Delfina Muñoz de Toro Alexander Tovborg Fred Tomaselli Priscilla Telmon and Vincent Moon Janet Sobel Philip Taaffe F. Percy Smith Joachim Koester Minnie Evans Mirtha Dermisache Ernst Haeckel Ghislaine Leung Linder Agnes Martin André Masson John McCracken Friedrich Wilhelm Heine Simon Ling Charles Filiger Anna Haskel Tamara Henderson Channa Horwitz Rachid Koraïchi Yves Laloy Adele Röder Daniel Rios Rodriguez Stefan A. Pedersen Edith Rimmington Steve Reinke James Richards Henriette Zéphir Anna Zemánková Sara De Bondt Bernd Brabec De Mori Gina Buenfeld Martin Clark Emanuele Coccia Stephan Harding C. G. Jung Terence McKenna Charles Webster Leadbeater Annie Besant Jagadish Chandra Bose Hildegarde von Bingen Brenda Danilowitz Michael Marder Robert Fludd Monica Gagliano Rupert Sheldrake Paul Păun Santiago Ramón y Cajal Camden Art Centre / UK Art Theory / Essay Group Shows / Collections Surrealism Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Painting Sculpture / Installation Curatorial Photography Sound / Music Ecology / Earth

Miroslav Tichý

2017, English
Softcover, 44 pages, 22 x 23 cm
Edition of 500
Published by Robert Heald Gallery / Wellington

$30.00 - Out of stock

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Catalogue published by Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, on the occasion of the exhibition 'Miroslav Tichý', Robert Heald Gallery, 14 September 2017 - 14 October 2017. Illustrated throughout in colour with a beautiful selection of Tichý's photographs featured in the exhibition, accompanied by a new text by Serena Bentley.

Miroslav Tichy (1926-2011)
After studying at the Academy of Arts in Prague (1945-48), Miroslav Tichy withdrew to a life in isolation in his hometown of Kyjov, Moravia, Czech Republic. In the late 1950s he quit painting and became a distinctive Diogenes-like figure. From the end of the 1960s he began to take photographs mainly of local women, in part with cameras he made by hand. He later mounted them on hand-made frames, added finishing touches with pencil, and thus moved them from photography in the direction of drawing. The result are works of strikingly unusual formal qualities, which disregard the rules of conventional photography. They constitute a large oeuvre of poetic, dreamlike views of feminine beauty in a small town under the Czechoslovak Communist regime.

File under: Miroslav Tichý Serena Bentley Robert Heald Gallery / Wellington Art Photography Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Paolo Soleri
Arcologie: la ville à l'image de l'homme

1980, French
Softcover, 122 pages, 23 x 39 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Editions Parenthèses / Marseille

$150.00 - Out of stock

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First French edition of this visionary book by Italian architect Paolo Soleri (1919 Turin — 2013 Scottsdale, Arizona), published by Editions Parenthèses, Marseille, in 1980. This stunning over-sized landscape book reads like a manifesto/blue-print/scrap-book of Soleri's Arcology (Architecture+Ecology), through his own words (here in French) and 120 pages of his intricate and fantastic architectural drawings.

"I am advocating a Lean Hypothesis about reality and a Lean Alternative to our materialistic culture. With the lean urban development I put tangibility to my conjecturing. Years ago I declared that Leanness is frugality fraught with sophistication. The gazelle is lean, i.e. frugality wrapped in grace. Can anyone imagine a frozen tundra or a scorching Sahara colonized by millions of hermitages, single homes? A nightmarish American Dream incapable of supporting any kind of dignified life, let alone the evolution of a civilization. Is the exurban (ever-expanding suburban) metastasis a bejeweled dream? Of food and shelter, the two indispensable needs of life, shelter is the direct responsibility of planners; architects, urban planners, builders, developers, speculators, politicians, students ... time to wake up!" — Paolo Soleri, Arcosanti, Arizona

Through his work as architect, urban designer, artist, craftsman and philosopher, Paolo Soleri has been exploring the countless possibilities of human aspiration. The envisioned future taking shape in his mind has been expressed in various media. One outstanding endeavor is Arcosanti, an urban laboratory, constructed in the high Arizona desert. It attempts to demonstrate an alternative human habitat much needed in this increasingly perplexing world. This project also exemplifies his steadfast devotion to creating an experiential space to "prototype" an environment in harmony with man. Through his articulated philosophy "Arcology (Architecture+Ecology)", Soleri formulates a path that may aid us on our evolutionary journey toward a state of aesthetic, equity and compassion. The half century work of his broad-ranging and coherent intellect (so scarce in the age of specialization) has influenced many in the field in search of a new paradigm for our built environment. — Tomiaki Tamura

Very Good copy with light bump to top-right cover corner, light tanning and ex-shop sticker mark.

File under: Paolo Soleri Paolo Soleri Editions Parenthèses / Marseille Architecture / Interior Out-of-print / Rare Ecology Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Ceramics / Glass

Disss-co (A Fragment)
by Douglas Crimp & Henrik Olesen

2021, English
Softcover, 128 pages, 14 x 20 cm
Published by Distanz / Berlin

$42.00 - In stock -

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"Getting your disco act together."

"Guy Hocquenghem visited New York and stayed with me in my loft on Chambers Street, and one night while I was out, he read what I'd written. When I returned later, he said to me that such straightforward description of gay culture was just the sort of thing that gay activists should be writing." — Douglas Crimp

Douglas Crimp (b. Coeur d'Alene, USA, 1944; d. 2019) was one of the most influential art critics, curators, and AIDS activists of his time. His writings on representation and critique remain uncontested milestones in the debate over AIDS and queer aesthetics. The seminal essay Disss-co (A Fragment) reads as a primer to his pioneering studies of queer subcultures and New York's underground scene. In light of today's renewed repression of subcultural—sexual and ethnic—communities, the text has lost none of its relevance.

The art works of Henrik Olesen (b. 1967) often focus on sexual politics. In this publication he shows excerpts from the project Lack of Information, 2001. Arranged as a grid, the work presents a map of different laws worldwide that are directed against gays, lesbians and transsexuals. Among other topics, the work examines anti-gay and sodomy laws, migration and adoption rights, and statistics on hate crimes. It also contains information on the frequency Disss-co (A Fragment) of same-sex behaviour among animal species.

File under: Henrik Olesen Douglas Crimp Distanz / Berlin Art LGBTQ+ Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

MAGIC
Edited by Jamie Sutcliffe

2021, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 14.5 x 21 cm
Published by Whitechapel / London The MIT Press / Massachusetts

$40.00 - Out of stock

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From the hexing of presidents to a renewed interest in herbalism and atavistic forms of self-care, magic has furnished the contemporary imagination with mysterious and complex bodies of arcane thought and practice. This volume brings together writings by artists, magicians, historians, and theorists that illuminate the vibrant correspondences animating contemporary art's varied encounters with magical culture, inspiring a reconsideration of the relationship between the symbolic and the pragmatic.

Dispensing with simple narratives of re-enchantment, Magic illustrates the intricate ways in which we have to some extent always been captivated by the allure of the numinous. It demonstrates how magical culture's tendencies toward secrecy, occlusion, and encryption might provide contemporary artists with strategies of remedial communality, a renewed faith in the invocational power of personal testimony, and a poetics of practice that could boldly question our political circumstances, from the crisis of climate collapse to the strictures of socially sanctioned techniques of medical and psychiatric care.

Tracing its various emergences through the shadows of modernity, the circuitries of ritual media, and declarations of psychic self-defence, Magic deciphers the evolution of a 'magical-critical' thinking that productively complicates, contradicts and expands the boundaries of our increasingly weird present.

Artists surveyed:
Holly Pester, Katrina Palmer, Ithell Colquhoun, Anna Zett, Monica Sjoeo, Sofia Al-Maria, Jack Burnham, Jeremy Millar, Susan Hiller, Mike Kelley, Morehshin Allahyari, Center for Tactical Magic, David Steans, Porpentine, Travis Jeppesen, Linda Stupart, Caspar Heinemann, Elizabeth Mputu, Faith Wilding, David Hammons, Ana Mendieta, Henri Michaux, Kenneth Anger, Benedict Drew, Mark Leckey, Robert Morris, Jenna Sutela, Haroon Mirza, Zadie Xa, Saya Woolfalk, Ian Cheng, Tabita Rezaire, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, Elijah Burgher, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sahej Rahal

Writers:
Charles Fort, Victoria Nelson, Gary Lachman, Yvonne P. Chireau, Randall Styers, Isabelle Stengers, Alan Moore, Simon O' Sullivan, Lucy Lippard, Louis Chude Sokei, Patricia MacCormack, Mark Pilkington, AE, Annie Besant & C.W. Leadbeater, Michel Leiris, Aime Cesaire, Austin Osman Spare, Erik Davis, Mark Dery, Elaine Graham, Jeffrey Sconce, Giulia Smith, Esther Leslie, Alice Bucknell, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Hannah Gregory, Kristen Gallerneaux, Mahan Moalemi, Jamie Sutcliffe, Gregory Sholette, Aaron Gach, Eugene Thacker, Diane Di Prima, Allan Doyle, Aria Dean, Emily LaBarge, Lou Cornum, Joy KMT, Scott Wark, McKenzie Wark, Phil Hine, Jackie Wang, Sean Bonney

File under: Pier Paolo Pasolini Holly Pester Katrina Palmer Ithell Colquhoun Anna Zett Monica Sjoeo Sofia Al-Maria Jack Burnham Jeremy Millar Susan Hiller Mike Kelley Morehshin Allahyari Center for Tactical Magic David Steans Porpentine Travis Jeppesen Linda Stupart Caspar Heinemann Elizabeth Mputu Faith Wilding David Hammons Ana Mendieta Henri Michaux Kenneth Anger Benedict Drew Mark Leckey Robert Morris Jenna Sutela Haroon Mirza Zadie Xa Saya Woolfalk Ian Cheng Tabita Rezaire Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth Elijah Burgher Sahej Rahal Charles Fort Victoria Nelson Gary Lachman Yvonne P. Chireau Randall Styers Isabelle Stengers Alan Moore Simon O' Sullivan Lucy Lippard Louis Chude Sokei Patricia MacCormack Mark Pilkington AE Annie Besant & C.W. Leadbeater Michel Leiris Aime Cesaire Austin Osman Spare Erik Davis Mark Dery Elaine Graham Jeffrey Sconce Giulia Smith Esther Leslie Alice Bucknell Gary Zhexi Zhang Hannah Gregory Kristen Gallerneaux Mahan Moalemi Jamie Sutcliffe Gregory Sholette Aaron Gach Eugene Thacker Diane Di Prima Allan Doyle Aria Dean Emily LaBarge Lou Cornum Joy KMT Scott Wark McKenzie Wark Phil Hine Jackie Wang Sean Bonney Whitechapel / London The MIT Press / Massachusetts Art Painting Surrealism Occult / Esoterica Ecology / Earth Ecology Sculpture / Installation Sound / Music Film / Video Performance / Dance / Theater Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Drawing Feminism Theory / Essay

Hawkins Bolden
Tongues

2021, English
Softcover (walnut cloth-bound), 50 pages, 31 x 20.5 cm
Ed. of 400,
Published by Robert Heald Gallery / Wellington

$30.00 - In stock -

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The first gallery catalogue dedicated entirely to the work of American artist Hawkins Bolden (1914—2005), published by Robert Heald Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition Hawkins Bolden — Tongues, 25 June 2020 - 25 July, 2020. Hawkins Bolden was a self-taught artist who lived his entire life in Memphis, Tennessee. At the age of seven, Bolden was left completely blind following a baseball accident. Later in his life, utilizing only his sense of touch, Bolden began scavenging the alleyways and fields around his home in search of discarded materials, litter and other debris with which to work, creating a vast number of his astonishing "scarecrows", tall totems and mask-like objects made from pots, pans, leather belts, rubber hoses and other found materials.

Published in a limited edition of 400 copies, this large format, walnut cloth-bound publication is profusely illustrated throughout with Bolden's works, alongside installation views and text by William Arnett (Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta).

File under: Lonnie Holley Joshua Petherick Hawkins Bolden Robert Heald Gallery / Wellington Art Sculpture / Installation Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art, Vol. 1

2000, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 568 pages, 33 x 28.6 cm
Published by The New York Public Library / New York Tinwood Books / Burlington Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture / New York

$275.00 - In stock -

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The African American culture of the South has produced many of the twentieth century’s most innovative art forms. Widely appreciated for its music—from the blues and jazz, to gospel, soul, rock ‘n’ roll—the region has also played host to a less visible but equally important visual art tradition. Working without significant formal training, often employing the most unpretentious and unlikely materials, these grassroots artists have created powerful statements that, like the music, are strongly influenced by the legacies of African belief systems, rooted in community, and committed to cultural continuity. At the same time, however, this quintessentially American art testifies to the originality and transformative force of individual imaginations.

Since the 1980s, popular and critical interest in this genre has grown dramatically and has given it many names: “self-taught,” “folk,” “outsider,” “visionary.” Souls Grown Deep: African AmericanVernacular Art is the opening work in a multi-volume study that offers the first comprehensive exploration of this art form’s development during the late twentieth century, an era shaped by the civil rights movement. Souls Grown Deep illuminates a remarkable spectrum of creativity: the media of painting, sculpture, and works on paper; the region’s outdoor art environments and art installations; historical examples from earlier eras; and relevant decorative arts and crafts.

With unprecedented thoroughness and scope, Souls Grown Deep takes readers inside these creators’ worlds. The book includes lavishly illustrated, full-color chapters on forty vernacular artists. Writing from diverse perspectives, thirty-seven contributing writers—including civil rights leaders, art historians, museum curators, and folklorists—present thematic, and historical overviews crucial to and understanding of the art’s origins.

File under: Lonnie Holley Minnie Evans Hawkins Bolden Jimmy Lee Sudduth Juanita Rogers Bill Traylor William Edmondson Mose Tolliver Gertrude Morgan Nellie Mae Rowe Sam Doyle Theodore Hill J. T. McCord Luster Willis Arthur Dial Henry Speller Georgia Speller George Andrews Frank Jones William L. Hawkins Alyne Harris Royal Robertson Richard Burnside Sandy Hall John B. Murray Steve Ashby Ralph Griffen Dilmus Hall Herbert Singleton Leroy Almon James "Son" Thomas Jesse Aaron Archie Bryon Bessie Harvey Paul Arnett William Arnett Lucy R. Lippard The New York Public Library / New York Tinwood Books / Burlington Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture / New York Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Sculpture / Installation Painting Drawing Art

Broken Music

2019, English
Softcover (w. flexi-disc), 280 pages, 26 x 21 cm
Ed. of 2500,
Published by Primary Information / New York

$65.00 - Out of stock

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Broken Music is an essential compendium for records created by visual artists. The publication was edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier and originally published in 1989 by DAAD. Broken Music focuses on recordings, record-objects, artwork for records, and record installations made by thousands of artists between WWII and 1989.

It also includes essays by both editors as well as Theodor W. Adorno, René Block, Jean Dubuffet, Milan Knizak, László Moholy-Nagy, Christiane Seiffert, and Hans Rudolf Zeller, as well as a flexi disc of the Arditti Quartet performing Knizak’s “Broken Music.” The centerpiece of the publication is a nearly 200-page bibliography of artists’ records.

Works chosen for the publication revolved around four criteria: (1) record covers created as original work by visual artists; (2) record or sound-producing objects (multiples/editions/sculptures); (3) books and publications that contain a record or recorded-media object; and (4) records or recorded media that have sound by visual artists.

Artists documented in the volume include Vito Acconci, albrecht/d., Laurie Anderson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Karel Appel, Arman, Hans Arp, Antonin Artaud, John Baldessari, Hugo Ball, Claus van Bebber, John Bender, Harry Bertoia, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Claus Böhmler, Christian Boltanski, KP Brehmer, William Burroughs, John Cage, Henri Chopin, Henning Christiansen, Jean Cocteau, William Copley, Philip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Hanne Darboven, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Fischli and Weiss, R. Buckminster Fuller, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Jack Goldstein, Peter Gordon, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Bernard Heidsieck, Holger Hiller, Richard Huelsenbeck, Isidore Isou, Marcel Janco, Servie Janssen, Jasper Johns, Joe Jones, Thomas Kapielski, Allan Kaprow, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Cheri Knight, Milan Knizak, Richard Kriesche, Christina Kubisch, Laibach, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Annea Lockwood, Paul McCarthy, Meredith Monk, Josef Felix Müller, Piotr Nathan, Hermann Nitsch, Albert Oehlen, Frank O’Hara, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, A.R. Penck, Tom Phillips, Robert Rauschenberg, The Red Crayola, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Gerhard Richter, Jim Rosenquist, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Robert Rutman, Sarkis, Thomas Schmit, Conrad Schnitzler, Kurt Schwitters, Selten Gehörte Musik, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Strafe für Rebellion, Jean Tinguely, Moniek Toebosch, Tristan Tzara, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, Emmett Walsh, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, and Lawrence Weiner.

Ursula Block is a curator living in Berlin, Germany. From 1981 until 2014, she ran gelbe Musik, a gallery and record shop in Berlin that featured work by artists at the crossroads between music and art.

Michael Glasmeier is a professor, writer, and editor living in Berlin, Germany. Since the early 1980s, he has curated dozens of shows that explore the intersection between the visual arts, music, film, and language.

File under: Vito Acconci albrecht/d. Laurie Anderson Karel Appel Arman Antonin Artaud John Baldessari Hugo Ball Claus van Bebber John Bender Harry Bertoia Jean-Pierre Bertrand Joseph Beuys Mel Bochner Claus Böhmler Christian Boltanski John Cage Henri Chopin Henning Christiansen Jean Cocteau William Copley Philip Corner Merce Cunningham Hanne Darboven Jim Dine Marcel Duchamp Max Ernst Lawrence Ferlinghetti Buckminster Fuller Fischli & Weiss Peter Fischli Peter Fischli & David Weiss David Weiss Allen Ginsberg Philip Glass Jack Goldstein Peter Gordon Hans Haacke Richard Hamilton Bernard Heidsieck Holger Hiller Richard Huelsenbeck Isidore Isou Marcel Janco Servie Janssen Jasper Johns Joe Jones Thomas Kapielski Allan Kaprow Martin Kippenberger Per Kirkeby Cheri Knight Milan Knizak Richard Kriesche Christina Kubisch Laibach John Lennon Sol Lewitt Roy Lichtenstein Annea Lockwood Paul McCarthy Meredith Monk Josef Felix Müller Piotr Nathan Hermann Nitsch Albert Oehlen Frank O’Hara Claes Oldenburg Yoko Ono Dennis Oppenheim Nam June Paik Charlemagne Palestine A.R. Penck Tom Phillips Robert Rauschenberg The Red Crayola Ursula Reuter Christiansen Gerhard Richter Jim Rosenquist Dieter Roth Gerhard Rühm Robert Rutman Sarkis Thomas Schmit Conrad Schnitzler Kurt Schwitters Selten Gehörte Musik Richard Serra Robert Smithson Michael Snow Keith Sonnier Strafe für Rebellion Jean Tinguely Moniek Toebosch Tristan Tzara Ben Vautier Yoshi Wada Emmett Walsh Andy Warhol William Wegman Lawrence Weiner Jean Arp (Hans Arp) K. P. Brehmer William S. Burroughs Ursula Block Michael Glasmeier Theodor W. Adorno René Block Jean Dubuffet Milan Knizak László Moholy-Nagy Christiane Seiffert Hans Rudolf Zeller Guillaume Apollinaire William S. Burroughs Primary Information / New York Art Sound / Music Fluxus Conceptual Art Dada Arte Povera Counterculture Bauhaus Performance / Dance / Theater Minimal Art Pop Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Curatorial Group Shows / Collections Objects / Ephemera / A/V

Bruce Goff — Toward Absolute Architecture
By David G. De Long

1988, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 388 pages, 25 x 2.5 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts

$160.00 - Out of stock

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Rare first edition of the best, largest volume on visionary architect Bruce Goff, published by MIT in 1988! Distilled from years of research and friendship, this is the first comprehensive study to capture the essential Goff — the idiosyncratic and profoundly original designs, the erratic yet exuberant career that produced some of the most challenging and inventive architecture of this century. Bruce Goff spent most of his life (1904-1982) in the American heartland. In the seven decades of his practice he designed nearly 500 projects, of which some 140 were built. Although he loved to flaunt the novel use of found materials (steel pipe, coal, rope, plexiglas aircraft domes, cake pans) and flashy decorative surfaces including white goose feathers and egg crates Goff's central and abiding concern was with the mastery of space.

As David De Long shows in this engaging book, Goff's spatial creativity was unbounded, his diversity seemingly unlimited. De Long discusses the architect's development and early work in Tulsa, the formative influences that shaped his career, his first independent work in Chicago, the periods of working on speculation in Bartlesville and Kansas City, his withdrawal from active practice following charges of homosexuality, and Goffs triumphant resurgence with his design for the Japanese Wing of the Los Angeles County Museum. De Long devotes an entire chapter to Goff's major projects - the Ledbetter, Ford, Bavinger, and Wilson houses, the Hopewell Baptist Church, and Crystal Cathedral, whose complex geometries, spatial richness, and modified prefabricated elements set them radically apart from the conformity of small town America. The story is a fascinating one, incorporating significant design details with local reactions and sometimes devastating professional criticism.

Bruce Goff: Toward Absolute Architecture, contains a complete catalogue raisonné of buildings and projects; it is included in The Architectural History Foundation's American Monograph Series.

File under: Bruce Goff David G. De Long The MIT Press / Massachusetts Out-of-print / Rare Architecture / Interior Furniture Art Ceramics / Glass Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Hilma af Klint
Catalogue Raisonné Volume VI: Late Watercolours (1922-1941)

2021, English
Hardcover, 382 pages, 24 x 31 cm
Published by Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm

$80.00 - Out of stock

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Hilma af Klint’s Catalogue Raisonné, the sixth of seven volumes, about one of Sweden’s most fascinating collections of artistic output.

Hilma af Klint is now regarded as a pioneer of abstract art. Her work from the early 20th century predates the first purely abstract paintings by Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich. Now, for the first time, af Klint’s works, some 1,600 in all, have been collected in a Catalogue Raisonné. Af Klint’s work should be seen and appreciated in the series of paintings often depicting specific themes and this ground-breaking publication, divided into seven volumes, allows for this. Volume VI focuses on the time after her mother’s death in 1920 when Hilma af Klint gave up her geometrical works and began to paint with watercolours, as in the series On the Viewing of Flowers and Trees, from 1922.

Produced with the permission of the Hilma af Klint Foundation and featuring introductions by Daniel Birnbaum and Kurt Almqvist, a separate slip cased edition containing all seven volumes will be available in autumn 2021.

File under: Hilma af Klint Daniel Birnbaum Kurt Almqvist Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Occult / Esoterica Painting Drawing

Pataphysics
Into-Gal

2006, English
Softcover, 70 pages, 20.8 x 29.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Pataphysics Books / Melbourne

$45.00 - Out of stock

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Out of print 2006 issue of the great Pataphysics magazine from Melbourne, the Into-Gal issue.

Includes J.G. Ballard quotes and conversations, an interview with with Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson), “In Praise of the Jews” by Sylvère Lotringer, interview with John Geiger on Brion Gysin, interview with Brian Aldiss, an unpublished 1989 Abbie Hoffman interview, ancient Mesopotamian poetry, interview with Paul Violi, a project by Terry Winters, Judith Elliston, and more.

Published and edited by Leo Edelstein and Judith Elliston, 2006, and long out of print. Fine copy.

File under: Terry Winters Brion Gysin Pataphysics Books / Melbourne Art Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Painting Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Australian Art

Bernard Faucon
Les Idoles et les Sacrifices

1991, French / Japanese
Softcover (2 volumes in cardboard slipcase), 112 pages / 112 pages, 19 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by PARCO / Tokyo

$160.00 - Out of stock

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First two-volume box edition of this scarce publication on the work of Bernard Faucon, issued only in Japan in 1991 by PARCO and dedicated entirely to Faucon's major body of photographic work (accompanied by his writings) Les Idoles et les Sacrifices (1989–1991). Beautifully printed and bound in Japan.

“Idols and Sacrifices mark the end of a long cycle of abstraction, idealisation, that had led from the first pleasant times on the beach to the gold haze of the Chambers. The end also of an innocence, a magic confidence in the power of the image, in that 'leibnitzian' idea that every image contains all others, contains the world.

Dressed up as a sort of back-to-basics of photography, back to the classic genres, 'the Portrait and the Landscape'. Idols and Sacrifices constitute a laying-bare, a radicalisation, a simplifying of the means that will take me to the End Of The Image. The wish to face, once at least, the body only, beauty without artifice. The wish to answer in my own way the question of the living: since the living cannot be photographed, we will try and photograph the gods!

The red landscapes imposed themselves later, because Idol and Sacrifice make up an inseparable couple, and also as a metaphor of the powerlessness of photography, of its incurable deficiency faced with the intensity of the living, the red of Sacrifices becomes the wound, the despair of photography itself.” - Bernard Faucon

Bernard Faucon (b. 1950 in Provence) is a French photographer and writer. Faucon was one of the first photographers in the second half of the 20th century to systematically create and master the constructed image, gaining fame worldwide in the late 1970s when he started a new trend of mise en scène photo. His photographic work has a love of youth and dreamy beauty, using saturated colour, natural settings, rooms and often tableaux of mannequins. For more than 20 years, his staged photographs have been exhibited in international galleries such as Leo Castelli in New York, and Agathe Gaillard and Yvon Lambert in Paris. Elsewhere, he has also been a part of collective exhibitions dedicated to staged photography. He has won numerous awards from his work, including the Grand Prix National (1989), and the Prix Leonard de Vinci (1991). His major photographic series are, in date-order: Les Grandes Vacances (1977–1981); Evolution probable du Temps (1981–1984); Les Chambres d'amour (1987–1989); Les Idoles et les Sacrifices (1989–1991); Les écritures (1991–1993); and La Fin de L'image (1993–1995).

Very Good—Fine copy (Fine pristine volumes in VG original cardboard slipcase, with small closed tear, minor wear and tear.

File under: Bernard Faucon PARCO / Tokyo Art Out-of-print / Rare Photography Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Eros

Hilma af Klint
Catalogue Raisonné Volume IV: Parsifal and the Atom (1916-1917)

2021, English
Hardcover, 224 pages, 24 x 31 cm
Published by Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm

$80.00 - In stock -

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Hilma af Klint’s Catalogue Raisonné, the fourth of seven volumes, about one of Sweden’s most fascinating collections of artistic output.

Hilma af Klint is now regarded as a pioneer of abstract art. Her work from the early 20th century predates the first purely abstract paintings by Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich. Now, for the first time, af Klint’s works, some 1,600 in all, have been collected in a Catalogue Raisonné. Af Klint’s work should be seen and appreciated in the series of paintings often depicting specific themes and this ground-breaking publication, divided into seven volumes, allows for this. Volume IV, within the series Parsifal she explored her inward self through the journey of a boy and a girl and their various levels of consciousness. In her Atom series, af Klint explored the inner parts of our existence through what scientists then considered the smallest particles in the world.

Produced with the permission of the Hilma af Klint Foundation and featuring introductions by Daniel Birnbaum and Kurt Almqvist.

File under: Hilma af Klint Daniel Birnbaum Kurt Almqvist Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Painting

Hilma af Klint
Occult Painter and Abstract Pioneer

2021, English
Hardcover, 250 pages, 23 x 29 cm
Published by Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm

$80.00 - Out of stock

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The long-awaited English translation of a pioneering account of af Klint’s oeuvre.
Text by Åke Fant. Translation by Ruth Urbom.

For the first time since its original publication in 1989, Åke Fant’s pioneering account of Hilma af Klint’s life and career is available to read in English. Following her training at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and 20 subsequent years of painting, Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) began working with an abstract visual language in 1906. She then dedicated the rest of her life to her magnum opus, a series of large-scale abstract paintings intended to be exhibited as part of an immense spiritual temple. Af Klint drew upon contemporaneous occult sources to develop her work, such as Spiritualism and the writings of Theosophical writers Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant, as well as Rudolf Steiner, who claimed to be clairvoyant. This edition supplements Åke Fant’s original text and curator Lars Nittve’s foreword with a new preface by Kurt Almqvist (President, Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit). An updated timeline, full-color reproductions of af Klint’s art and a beautiful cloth binding further emphasize the momentousness of Fant’s work, which remains vital even in the light of subsequent research, at a time when interest in Hilma af Klint and her work has never been greater.

File under: Hilma af Klint Åke Fant Ruth Urbom Stolpe Publishing / Stockholm Art Painting Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Drawing

Ithell Colquhoun : Genius of The Fern Loved Gully
by Amy Hale

2020, English
Softcover, 336 pages, 14.6 x 20.3 cm
Published by Strange Attractor / London

$48.00 - Out of stock

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This book offers the first in-depth biographical study of the British surrealist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun, situating her art within the magical contexts that shaped her imaginative life and work. After decades of neglect, Colquhoun's unique vision and hermetic life have become an object of great renewed interest, both for artists and for historians of magic.

Although her paintings are represented in such major collections as Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery, Colquhoun's rejection of both avant-garde and occult orthodoxies resulted in a life of relative obscurity. Her visual and written works have only recently received adequate recognition as a precursor to contemporary experiments in magical autobiography and esoteric feminism.

After rejecting the hectic social expectations and magical orthodoxies of London's art and occult scenes, Colquhoun pursued a life of dedicated spiritual and artistic enquiry embodied in her retreat to Cornwall. Genius of the Fern Loved Gully balances engaging biography with art historical erudition and critical insight into the magical systems that underscored her art and writing.

File under: Ithell Colquhoun Amy Hale Strange Attractor / London Surrealism Painting Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic