World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
THU—FRI 12—6 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
2009, English
Hardcover, 550 pages, 22 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$400.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the scarce, highly sought after, and most comprehensive book ever published on American artist Paul Thek, published in 2009 by MIT Press. Edited by Harald Falckenberg and Peter Weibel, this enormous 550 page monograph contains more than 300 works by this groundbreaking artist, documenting his journey from legendary outsider to central figure in many contemporary art movements.
Paul Thek occupied a place between high art and low art, between the epic and the everyday. During his brief life (1933-1988), he went against the grain of art world trends, humanizing the institutional spaces of art with the force of his humor, spirituality, and character. Twenty years after Thek's death from AIDS, we can now recognize his influence on contemporary artists ranging from Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman to Matthew Barney, Mike Kelley, and Paul McCarthy, as well as Kai Althoff, Jonathan Meese, and Thomas Hirschhorn. This book brings together more than 300 of Thek's works—many of which are published here for the first time—to offer the most comprehensive display of his work yet seen. The book, which accompanies an exhibition at ZKM ? Museum of Contemporary Art presenting Thek's work in dialogue with contemporary art by young artists, includes painting, sculpture, drawing, and installation work, as well as photographs documenting the room-size environments into which Thek incorporated elements from art, literature, theater, and religion. These works chart Thek's journey from legendary outsider to foundational figure in contemporary art. In their antiheroic diversity, Thek's works embody the art revolution of the 1960s; indeed, Susan Sontag dedicated her classic Against Interpretation to him. Thek's treatment of the body in such works as “Technological Reliquaries,” with their castings and replicas of human body parts, tissue, and bones, both evoke the aura of Christian relics and anticipate the work of Damien Hirst. The book, with more than 500 images (300 in colour) and nineteen essays by art historians, curators, collectors, and artists, investigates Thek's work on its own terms, and as a starting point for understanding the work of the many younger artists Thek has influenced.
Essays by Jean-Christophe Ammann, Margrit Brehm, Bazon Brock, Suzanne Delehanty, Harald Falckenberg, Marietta Franke, Stefan Germer, Kim Gordon, Roland Groenenboom, Axel Heil, Gregor Jansen, Mike Kelley, John Miller, Susanne Neubauer, Kenny Schachter, Harald Szeemann, Annette Tietenberg, Peter Weibel, Ann Wilson.
Good copy with heavy tanning to spine and covers (esp. fluro spot colour), some bumping to cover corners, light page edge tanning. Internally Very Good, clean throughout.
1972, German / English / French
Vinyl ring-binder (screen printed w. design by E. Ruscha), 650 pages +, 32 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
documenta / Kassel
$500.00 - Out of stock
Scarce copy of the only edition of the most elaborately designed, and lowest circulated Documenta catalogue, conceived by curator Harald Szeemann to accompany the fifth edition of Documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition held in Kassel, Germany.
Subtitled "100 Days of Inquiry into Reality -- Today's Imagery," curated by the team of Harald Szeemann, Jean-Christophe Ammann and Arnold Bode, Documenta 5 followed a lineage of comprehensive shows documenting conceptually and minimally charged artworks curated by Szeemann including Live in Your Head (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969), and Happenings and Fluxus (Kunstverein, Köln), 1970. The largest, most expensive and most diverse of any exhibition anywhere, Documenta 5 was criticized in 1972 as being “bizarre…vulgar…sadistic” by art critic and essayist Hilton Kramer and “monstrous… overtly deranged” by art historian and art critic Barbara Rose, yet it still resonates today as one of the most important exhibitions in history. Featuring the works of over 170 artists and an equally expansive variety of materials and subjects drawn from popular cultural materials, architecture, science fiction, kitsch objects, film, advertising, children's art, etc. in addition to the more anticipated international survey of new painting and sculpture - Documenta 5 valiantly attempted to bridge the gap between art, culture, science and the broader society. This massive tome is housed in the iconic orange vinyl-covered, two-ring binder screen printed with the famous ant design by Edward Ruscha. The binder holds a tabbed index of illustrated artist's pages and associated texts and material, largely in German, but also many in English. All registers are present apart from the usual missing 19-25 which were not directly integrated into the catalogue and had to be ordered by the visitor separately to become their own contribution. This very complete copy also includes the additional 80 page, hole-punched Documenta 5 guide book, with floor plans, complete listing of exhibited artworks, list of exhibitions, bibliography, and many gallery, museum and other related advertisements. More than a catalogue, this publication is a piece of art history in itself.
Includes artists: Vito Acconci, Vincenzo Agnetti, Peter Alexander, John de Andrea, Giovanni Anselmo, Arbeitszeit, Archigram, Chuck Arnoldi, Art & Language, Richard Artschwager, Michael Ashkin, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Georg Baselitz, Lothar Baumgarten, Robert Bechtle, Gottfried Bechtold, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Karl Oskar Blase, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Christian Boltanski, Claudio Bravo, George Brecht, K.P. Brehmer, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Günter Brus, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Michael Buthe, James Lee Byars, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Castelli, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Chuck Close, Tony Conrad, Ron Cooper, Bill Copley, Joseph Cornell, Robert Cottingham, Paul Cotton, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, David Deutsch, Jan Dibbets, Herbert Distel, Gino de Dominicis, Marcel Duchamp, John Dugger, Don Eddy, Franz Eggenschwiler, Ger van Elk, Richard Estes, Luciano Fabro, John C. Fernie, Robert Filliou, Jud Fine, Joel Fisher, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Hamish Fulton, Franz Gertsch, Gilbert & George, Ralph Goings, Hubert Gojowczyk, Dan Graham, Walter Grasskamp, Nancy Graves, Hans Haacke, Duane Hanson, Guy Harloff, Michael Harvey, Haus-Rucker-Co, Auguste Herbin, Eva Hesse, Rebecca Horn, Jean Olivier Hucleux, Douglas Huebler, Jörg Immendorff, Will Insley, Rolf Iseli, Ken Jacobs, Neil Jenney, Alfred Jensen, Jasper Johns, Joan Jonas, Max G. Kaminski, Howard Kanovitz, Edward Kienholz, Imi Knoebel, Christof Kohlhofer, Jannis Kounellis, Tom Kovachevich, Piotr Kowalski, David Lamelas, Barry Le Va, Jean LeGac, Alfred Leslie, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Ingeborg Luscher, Inge Mahn, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Etienne Martin, Richard McLean, David Medalla, Fernando Melani, Jim Melchert, Mario Merz, Gustav Metzger, Bernd Minnich, Malcolm Morley, Ed Moses, Bruce Nauman, Hermann Nitsch, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Blinky Palermo, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, A.R. Penck, Giuseppe Penone, Vettor Pisani, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Posen, Markus Raetz, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Klaus Rinke, Dorothea Rockburne, Peter Roehr, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Ulrich Ruckriem, Robert Ryman, John Salt, Salvo, Lucas Samaras, Paul Sarkisian, Jean-Frederic Schnyder, Ben Schonzeit, Werner Schroeter, HA Schult, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Fritz Schwegler, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Allan Shields, Katharina Sieverding, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Klaus Staeck, Paul Staiger, Jorge Stever, Robert Strubin, Paul Thek, Wayne Thiebaud, Andre Thomkins, David Tremlett, Richard Tuttle, Ben Vautier, W + B Hein, Franz Erhard Walther, Robert Watts, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, John Wesley, H.C. Westermann, William Wiley, Rolf Winnewisser, Tom Wudl, Klaus Wyborny, La Monte Young, Peter Young, Gilberto Zorio.
Catalogue also includes Bob Projansky and Seth Siegelaub's "The Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement." This "Agreement form has been drafted by Bob Projansky, a New York lawyer, after my [Siegelaub] extensive discussions and correspondence with over 500 artists, dealers, lawyers, collectors, museum people, critics and other concerned people involved in the day-to-day workings of the international art world. The Agreement has been designed to remedy some generally acknowledged inequities in the art world, particularly artists' lack of control over the use of their work and participation in its economics after they no longer own it. The Agreement for has been written with special awareness of the current ordinary practices and economic realitites of the art world, particularly its private, cash and informal nature, with careful regard for the interests and motives of all concerned. It is expected to be the standard form for the transfer and sale of all contemporary art, and has been made as fair, simple and useful as possible. It can be used either as presented here or slightly altered to fit your specific situation. If the following information does not answer all your questions consult your attorney." -- from Agreement's cover. Copies of the contract are individually included in English, Germany, and French editions.
Very Good, complete (as issued) copy. Very minor wear.
1974, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 21 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$30.00 - Out of stock
Environments and Happenings by painter and poet Adrian Henri, published by Thames & Hudson in 1974, forms one of the first mainstream book surveys to trace the phenomenon of environmental/performative/total living artworks that became prevalent in the 1960s/70s. This historical study is profusely illustrated in colour and b/w with many international works from Fluxus to Zero to Dolle Mina to Nouveau Réalisme to Provo to Gutai to The Situationists and much more. Includes the works of Joseph Beuys, Clarence Schmidt, Ray Johnson, Öyvind Fahlström, Paul Thek, Yves Klein, Allan Kaprow, Hans Haacke, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Guerllia Art Action Group, Daniel Spoerri, Wolf Vostell, Gustav Metzger, Peter Kuttner, Jackson Pollock, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Robert Morris, Situationist International, Ferdinand Kriwet, Klaus Rinke, Duane Hanson, A-Yo, Meret Oppenheim, Space Structure Workshop, Ferdinand Cheval, Dolle Mina (Mad Mina), Robert Smithson, Jeff Nuttall, Stefan Wewerka, Christo, Dennis Oppenheim, Vladimir Tatlin, Provo, Barry Flanagan, Andy Warhol, Meredith Monk, Atsuko Tanaka, Kazuo Shiraga, Ed Keinholz, Yayoi Kusama, Piero Gilardi, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Claes Oldenburg, Les Levine, James Rosenquist, Red Grooms, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Eduardo Paolozzi, and many many more. Includes reproductions of performance scripts, partial chronology, etc.
Very Good copy, previous owner name to front endpaper.
1977, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 12 pages, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jiyugaoka Gallery / Tokyo
$120.00 - Out of stock
Very rare Japanese Japanese catalogue of Lucio Fontana's work published on the occasion of an exhibition at Jiyugaoka Gallery, Tokyo, in 1977. Cataloguing 27 works (canvas, metal, paper, litho, vinyl collage) all illustrated in b/w, accompanied by introductory text (in Japanese), biography, bibliography and list of exhibitions.
Good copy with crease to cover (running parallel to spine — looks like it was published this way to fold open), light wear, light tanning, light cover marking.
1971, English / Italian / French
Softcover, 150 pages, 24.5 x 24.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Cento Di / Florence
$190.00 - Out of stock
Rare exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the 7th Paris Biennale held at the Parc Floral de Paris, Bois de Vincennes, Paris, France, September 24 — November 1, 1971, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva. An important volume representing the Italian avant-garde of the various sectors of art (including music and architecture) in this critical period in history, including the work of Alighiero Boetti, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Gino De Dominicis, Luciano Fabro, Mimmo Germanà, Giuseppe Penone, Emilio Prini, Gilberto Zorio, Jannis Kounellis, Giulio Paolini, Giorgio Pressburger, Achille Bonito Oliva, Mario Franco, Umberto Silva, Paolo Mussat Sartor, Frederic Rzewski, Marcello Panni, Archizoom, Superstudio, and Ufo. Illustrated throughout with many examples by each artist, alongside artists' biographies, exhibition histories, and bibliographies, and essay by Achille Bonito Oliva. Text in English, Italian, and French.
Achille Bonito Oliva (born 1939) is an Italian art critic and historian of contemporary art. Since 1968 he has taught history of contemporary art at La Sapienza, the university of Rome. He has written extensively on contemporary art and contemporary artists; he originated the term Transavanguardia to describe the new direction taken in the late 1970s by artists such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino. He has organised or curated numerous contemporary art events and exhibitions; in 1993 he was artistic director of the Biennale di Venezia.
Good copy w. light wear/tanning/spotting.
1969 / 2006, English / French / German / Italian
Softcover binder (w. spring-loaded plate), 170 pages, 31.5 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Kunsthalle Bern / Bern
$290.00 - Out of stock
One of the great art documents of the 20th century, "Live in Your Head : When Attitudes Become Form", curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, March 22 - April 27, 1969. This is the impeccably re-produced facsimile edition of the exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with an exhibition honouring the legacy of Szeemann in 2006, published by the Kunsthalle Bern, the producers of the original. Strictly limited edition and immediately out-of-print, this most faithful reprint, with the unique die-cut alphabetically tabbed index bound with hardware-fittings, has become as collectible as the 1969 edition.
Sponsored by the Philip Morris tobacco company, this was an important, extensive and primary exhibition dedicated to the amalgam of Pop, Minimal and Conceptual Art in Europe and the United States. The catalogue itself is designed and produced by Szeemann, and printed in Switzerland by Stämpfli & Cie in Bern. Alongside those of Seth Siegelaub, Szeemann's now historical catalogues changed the way exhibition publishing performed. Presented as a indexical binder (spring-bound with a metal plate) forming an index of alphabetical artist pages and accompanying texts. Includes a biography, bibliography, illustrations and portrait for each artist.
Texts by Harald Szeemann, Scott Burton, Grégoire Müller and Tommaso Trini.
Artists include Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Richard Artschwager, Thomas Bang, Jared Bark, Robert Barry, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Marinus Boezem, Bill Bollinger, Michael Buthe, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Paul Cotton, Alighiero Boetti, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Ger Van Elk, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Hans Haacke, Michael Heizer, Douglas Huebler, Paolo Icaro, Alain Jacquet, Neil Jenney, Jo Ann Kaplan, Eva Hesse, Edward Kienholz, Yves Klein, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Gary B. Kuehn, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Roelof Louw, Bruce McLean, Walter De Maria, David Medalla, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Paul Pechter, Panamarenko, Michelangelo Pisteletto, Emilio Prini, Markus Raetz, Allen Ruppersberg, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Robert Ryman, Alan Saret, Sarkis, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Keith Sonnier, Richard Tuttle, Frank Viner, Erhard Walther, Lawrence Weiner, William Wegman, William Wiley and Gilberto Zorio.
Texts in English, French, German and Italian.
As New with only light creasing to the overhanging edges of the cover edges, otherwise a Fine copy.
1990, German
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 128 pages, 31 x 22 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Westermann / Braunschweig
$60.00 - Out of stock
1990 German edition of this 1986 monograph on Antoni Tàpies by Victoria Combalia Dexeus, originally published by Ediciones Poligrafa S. A., Barcelona, this edition by Westermann, Braunschweig.
"This book by Victoria Combalia Dexeus strengthens our intrinsically artistic knowledge of the painter with a text supported by a lucid, well-documented cultural consciousness. The author analyses a good number of specific paintings, the reciprocal relationships and connections of which with other cultural facts or events are established with very sound arguments. Her intelligent exposition is of great assistance to us in our attempts to further our acquaintance with the work of this great Catalan artist - an 'oeuvre' capable of successive interpretations which gradually reveal to us, as in this case, its 'greatness and its profundity." The chapters are: abstract art; childhood, adolescence & the Surrealist period; the international context; a many-faceted realism; imitation through textures; transpoition of textures; objects; ambiguous perspectives, poetic geometriess, empty spaces; bodies; elusive presences; signs. Heavy illustrated throughout.
Antoni Tàpies (1923 – 2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art theorist. At 17, Tàpies suffered a near-fatal heart attack caused by tuberculosis and spent two years as a convalescent in the mountains, reading widely and pursuing an interest in art. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting. At this time he also became increasingly interested in philosophy, especially that of Sartre as well as Eastern thought. In 1948, Tàpies helped co-found the first Post-War Movement in Spain known as Dau al Set, alongside poet Joan Brossa, which was connected to the Surrealist and Dadaist Movements. In 1953 he began working in mixed media as a member of the Art Informal school; this is considered his most original contribution to art. Working in a style known as pintura matèrica, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into paintings (clay, marble dust, waste paper, string, and rags), he became known as one of Spain's most renowned artists in the second half of the 20th century. Social themes run throughout his highly textured and tactile paintings, which were influenced by his experience of the politics and environment of the wartime and the postwar state of the Spanish government. His abstract and avant-garde works were displayed in many major museums all over the world. “If one draws things in a manner which provides only the barest clue to their meaning, the viewer is forced to fill in the gaps by using his own imagination,” he reflected.
1986, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 128 pages, 31 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ediciones Poligrafa S. A. / Barcelona
$65.00 - Out of stock
First English edition of this great monograph on Antoni Tàpies by Victoria Combalia Dexeus and published by Ediciones Poligrafa S. A., Barcelona, in 1986.
"This book by Victoria Combalia Dexeus strengthens our intrinsically artistic knowledge of the painter with a text supported by a lucid, well-documented cultural consciousness. The author analyses a good number of specific paintings, the reciprocal relationships and connections of which with other cultural facts or events are established with very sound arguments. Her intelligent exposition is of great assistance to us in our attempts to further our acquaintance with the work of this great Catalan artist - an 'oeuvre' capable of successive interpretations which gradually reveal to us, as in this case, its 'greatness and its profundity." The chapters are: abstract art; childhood, adolescence & the Surrealist period; the international context; a many-faceted realism; imitation through textures; transpoition of textures; objects; ambiguous perspectives, poetic geometriess, empty spaces; bodies; elusive presences; signs. Heavy illustrated throughout.
Antoni Tàpies (1923 – 2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art theorist. At 17, Tàpies suffered a near-fatal heart attack caused by tuberculosis and spent two years as a convalescent in the mountains, reading widely and pursuing an interest in art. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting. At this time he also became increasingly interested in philosophy, especially that of Sartre as well as Eastern thought. In 1948, Tàpies helped co-found the first Post-War Movement in Spain known as Dau al Set, alongside poet Joan Brossa, which was connected to the Surrealist and Dadaist Movements. In 1953 he began working in mixed media as a member of the Art Informal school; this is considered his most original contribution to art. Working in a style known as pintura matèrica, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into paintings (clay, marble dust, waste paper, string, and rags), he became known as one of Spain's most renowned artists in the second half of the 20th century. Social themes run throughout his highly textured and tactile paintings, which were influenced by his experience of the politics and environment of the wartime and the postwar state of the Spanish government. His abstract and avant-garde works were displayed in many major museums all over the world. “If one draws things in a manner which provides only the barest clue to their meaning, the viewer is forced to fill in the gaps by using his own imagination,” he reflected.
1979, English
Softcover, 278 pages
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$65.00 - Out of stock
First edition, first softcover printing of this 1978 English-language major monograph on Antoni Tàpies, authored by English artist, historian and poet, Roland Penrose (1900—1984) and published by Rizzoli. Profusely illustrated with 217 images, including 73 in colour, accompanied by Penrose's text, a chronology, checklist, bibliography, list of previous exhibitions, and list of museums and institutions with works by Tàpies.
Antoni Tàpies (1923 – 2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art theorist. At 17, Tàpies suffered a near-fatal heart attack caused by tuberculosis and spent two years as a convalescent in the mountains, reading widely and pursuing an interest in art. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting. At this time he also became increasingly interested in philosophy, especially that of Sartre as well as Eastern thought. In 1948, Tàpies helped co-found the first Post-War Movement in Spain known as Dau al Set, alongside poet Joan Brossa, which was connected to the Surrealist and Dadaist Movements. In 1953 he began working in mixed media as a member of the Art Informal school; this is considered his most original contribution to art. Working in a style known as pintura matèrica, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into paintings (clay, marble dust, waste paper, string, and rags), he became known as one of Spain's most renowned artists in the second half of the 20th century. Social themes run throughout his highly textured and tactile paintings, which were influenced by his experience of the politics and environment of the wartime and the postwar state of the Spanish government. His abstract and avant-garde works were displayed in many major museums all over the world. “If one draws things in a manner which provides only the barest clue to their meaning, the viewer is forced to fill in the gaps by using his own imagination,” he reflected.
Very Good copy, light wear to edges, small marker price cross-out to back cover.
1985, French
Softcover, 32 pages, 32 x 24 cm
Published by
Galerie Maeght / Paris
$35.00 - Out of stock
First edition of Antoni Tàpies — Paintings 1965-1980, published on the occasion of the exhibition in 1985 at Gallerie Adrien Maeght, Paris. Illustrated throughout with large colour and b/w reproductions on Tàpies works, accompanied by foreword by Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, biography and list of works.
Antoni Tàpies (1923 – 2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art theorist. At 17, Tàpies suffered a near-fatal heart attack caused by tuberculosis and spent two years as a convalescent in the mountains, reading widely and pursuing an interest in art. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting. At this time he also became increasingly interested in philosophy, especially that of Sartre as well as Eastern thought. In 1948, Tàpies helped co-found the first Post-War Movement in Spain known as Dau al Set, alongside poet Joan Brossa, which was connected to the Surrealist and Dadaist Movements. In 1953 he began working in mixed media as a member of the Art Informal school; this is considered his most original contribution to art. Working in a style known as pintura matèrica, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into paintings (clay, marble dust, waste paper, string, and rags), he became known as one of Spain's most renowned artists in the second half of the 20th century. Social themes run throughout his highly textured and tactile paintings, which were influenced by his experience of the politics and environment of the wartime and the postwar state of the Spanish government. His abstract and avant-garde works were displayed in many major museums all over the world. “If one draws things in a manner which provides only the barest clue to their meaning, the viewer is forced to fill in the gaps by using his own imagination,” he reflected.
Good copy with rubbing wear to cover print and some pinching to spine, internally well preserved.
1978, German
Softcover, 20.5 x 15 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Schellmann & Klüser / Munich
$45.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Jörg Schellmann & Berndt Klüser and published on the occasion of a major travelling exhibition across Germany in 1977-78 (including Stadtisches Kunstmuseum Bonn, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Neue Galerie, etc.) this great, heavily illustrated book documents Beuys' entire multiple output, encompassing his entire career. In conversation with the publishers, Beuys gives his intentions and explains his "extensive concept of art" through 167 illustrated art multiples, followed by a cross-section of his history of unique works - sculptures, actions, drawings, paintings, installations, etc., giving context to this document of editioned pieces.
Texts in German.
Joseph Beuys (12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German Fluxus, happening, and performance artist as well as a sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist, and pedagogue.
His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social sculpture as a gesamtkunstwerk, for which he claimed a creative, participatory role in shaping society and politics. His career was characterized by passionate and only rarely acrimonious open public debates on a very wide range of subjects including political, environmental, social and long term cultural trends. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century.
1980, Italian
Hardcover, 50 pages, 32 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Casa Vogue / Milan
Edizioni Condé Nast / Milan
$80.00 - In stock -
First edition, published in 1980 by Edizioni Condé Nast / Casa Vogue (Milan), of this little known furniture book, edited by Casa Vogue editor Isa Vercelloni, who brought us the 1985 classic “Styles of Living: The Best of Casa Vogue”.
This fantastic hardcover book, the first in Casa Vogue's book library, is dedicated entirely to showcasing furniture by (amongst many other deisgners) Aldo Rossi, Gaetano Pesce, Andrea Branzi, Ettore Sottsass, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Toshiyuki Kita, Achille Castiglioni, Alchimia, Paolo Nava, Antonio Citterio, Enzo Mari, Alessandro Mendini, B&B Italia, Cassina, Flos, Poltronova, Vico Magistretti, Artemide, Stilnovo, Mario Bellini, Josef Hoffman, Studio Driade, Poltronova, Carlo Scarpa, Gae Aulenti, Angelo Mangiarotti, Eileen Grey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Gerrit T. Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, , Pierre Jeanneret, C&B Italia, Mario Ceroli, Cini Boeri, Arflex, Zanotta, Superstudio, Archizoom, Knoll, Meret Oppenheim, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Jonathan de Pas, De. Pas + D'urbino + Lomazzi, Donato d'Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, Gufram, Giani Ruffi, Piero Gilardi, Joe Columbo, Sergio Asti, Hans Hollein...
Scarce, wonderfully compiled Italian title of 1970's-1980's furniture design and its influences.
Very Good copy.
1985, English
Hardcover (w. dustjacket), 224 pages, 30 x 22.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$200.00 - Out of stock
First edition, published by Rizzoli in 1985, of this classic interior design book, "Styles of Living: The Best of Casa Vogue"
Making appearances in these rooms: Gae Aulenti, Man Ray, Enzo Mari, Carlo Scarpa, Pablo Picasso, Josef Hoffman, Cinzia Ruggeri, Max Ernst, Wols, Matteo Thun, Ettore Sottsass, Le Corbusier, Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Lucio Fontana, Eileen Grey, Daniel Buren, Gaetano Pesce, Charles Eames, Verner Panton, Massimo Vignelli, Andy Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright, Antoni Tàpies, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alver Aalto.....
"Ever since the end of the Second World War, Italian style, design and decoration have maintained an unprecedented predominance in the Western World. It was in the early 1950s that a great surge of decorative talent welled up in Italy, and this resulted in the 'Italian look' in clothes and in homes - a new standard of chic inventiveness.
The Italian view of interior design has been most enterprisingly expressed in the magazine Casa Vogue, which was founded in 1968 and has consistently been one of the most admired publications of Condé Nast International.
This book, garnered from the many issues of Casa Vogue, has been written and produced under the guidance of Isa Vercellonim who has been its editor ever since its inception. The choice of picture-stories is intended to reflect the unusual and distinctive diversity of the magazine - ranging from traditional decoration to the more advance examples of minimal design, most the most significant of contemporary buildings to the spectacular reconstructions and reconversions of old palazzi and coachhouses, from the 'post modern' to the 'anti-modern' and any other 'moderns' that may have been advocated recently. Italian trends naturally provide the main focus, but Casa Vogue also includes developments in the United States, France, Switzerland - indeed, wherever unusual and meaningful designs are being created."
Very good copy in Good dust-jacket, protected under mylar wrap.
1982, English / Japanese / Italian / French
Softcover (w. wax dust jacket), 128 pages, 21 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Japan Foundation / Tokyo
$100.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this wonderful Japanese catalogue published in 1982 to accompany an exhibition that brought together the work of 5 Western artists (Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, Bruce Mclean, and Giulio Paolini) for a major group show held at the Laforet Museum, Tokyo and The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Each artist has many pages of work reproduced in black and white, accompanied by artists' statements, essays on each artist, and artists' biographies, in English, Japanese, Italian and French. Bound in various raw paper stocks and wrapped in printed wax paper dust-jacket.
Good-Very Good copy. Perfectly preserved with small chips and wear to dust jacket edges.
1970, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 20.3 x 25.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
MoMA / New York
$600.00 - In stock -
Extremely rare first 1970 edition of MoMA's landmark book on conceptual art, published to accompany this groundbreaking avant-garde show.
In the summer of 1970, the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted the now legendary exhibition Information, one of the first surveys of conceptual art. Conceived by MoMA’s celebrated curator Kynaston McShine as an “international report” on contemporary trends, the show and attendant catalog together assembled the work of more than 150 artists from 15 countries to explore the parameters and possibilities of the emerging art practices of the era. Noting the participating artists’ attunement to the “mobility and change that pervades their time,” McShine underscored their interest in “ways of rapidly exchanging ideas, rather than embalming the idea in an ‘object.’” Indeed, much of the work in the exhibition engaged mass-communications systems, such as broadcast television and the postal service, and addressed viewers directly, often encouraging their participation in return.
The catalog, rather than merely document the show, functioned autonomously: it included a list of recommended reading, a chance-based index by critic Lucy Lippard, and individual artist contributions in the form of photographic documentation, textual description, drawings and diagrams—some relating to work in the exhibition and others to artworks as yet unrealized.
Artists include Vito Acconci, Carl Andre, Siah Armajani, Keith Arnatt, Art & Language Press, Art & Project, Richard Artschwager, David Askevold, Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge, John Baldessari, Michael Baldwin, Barrio, Robert Barry, Frederick Barthelme, Bernhard & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Bill Bollinger, George Brecht, Stig Broegger, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Donald Burgy, Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden, James Lee Byars, Jorge Luis Carballa, Christopher Cook, Roger Cutforth, Carlos D'Alessio, Hanne Darboven, Walter de Maria, Jan Dibbets, Gerald Ferguson, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Group Frontera, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert & George, Giorno Poetry Systems, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Ira Joel Haber, Randy Hardy, Michael Heizer, Hans Hollein, Douglas Huebler, Robert Huot, Peter Hutchinson, Richards Jarden, Stephen Kaltenbach, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Christine Kozlov, John Latham, Barry Le Va, Sol Lewitt, Lucy Lippard, Richard Long, Bruce McLean, Cildo Campos Meirelles, Marta Minujin, Robert Morris, N.E. Thing Co., Bruce Nauman, New York Graphic Workshop, Newspaper, Group Oho, Helio Oiticica, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, Paul Pechter, Giuseppe Penone, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, Alejandro Puente, Markus Raetz, Yvonne Rainer, Klaus Rinke, Edward Ruscha, J.M. Sanejouand, Richard Sladden, Robert Smithson, Keith Sonnier, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Erik Thygesen, John Van Saun, Guilherme Magalhaes Vaz, Bernar Venet, Jeff Wall, Lawrence Weiner, Ian Wilson.
Kynaston McShine was formerly Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Very Good copy. Light cover wear, single spine crack, all crisp, clean interior and tightly bound copy of a book that usually sees serious page detachments. Best copy we have seen.
1974, Italian
Softcover, 198 pages, 27.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Casabella / Milan
$450.00 - Out of stock
The extremely collectable book of the movement, Architettura "Radicale" was published by Casabella Milan in 1974 and collects Navone's thesis with Orlandoni, forming an unsurpassed critical essay on the new avant-garde architecture and radical design of Italy (and further afield) that rose out of the 1960s. With an introduction by the great designer and editor Andrea Branzi, this volume contains over 150 black and white illustrations of projects and works by Archizoom, Superstudio, Alessandro Mendini, Gianni Pettena, UFO Group, Raimund Abraham, Lapo Binazzi, Andrea Branzi, James Gowan, Rem Koolhaas, Ugo La Pietra, Eduardo Paolozzi, Gaetano Pesce, Walter Pichler, Ettore Sottsass and many others. Includes a very important bibliography and profiles on the designers. A stunning piece of printed design history, now very rarely seen.
Good-Very Good copy with light general cover and corner wear, tanning to edges.
2006, English
Hardcover, 288 pages, 21 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Yale University Press / New Haven
The Drawing Center / New York
$150.00 - In stock -
First hardcover edition of this out-of-print volume on Eva Hesse's drawing practice. Hesse (1936—1970) was a highly experimental artist who continually challenged the conventions of her time. For Hesse, drawing played a unique role, providing the nexus between her works in all media. Eva Hesse Drawing is the first book to explore her drawing process, following her work from drawing to painting and sculpture, and always back to drawing. The book features important, recently rediscovered “working drawings,” providing an intimate look at Hesse’s everyday practice and methodology.
An accomplished draftswoman, Hesse began to develop her wandering, tentative line while studying at Yale University in the late 1950s. Her early 1960s works on paper engaged with visual vocabularies from geometry to biomorphic abstraction. In 1965, Hesse combined her tactile sensibility for materials with her stringlike line to achieve a breakthrough: her astonishing reliefs, which began to bridge the space between two and three dimensions. Balancing the disembodiment of line with its intensified materialization, Hesse went on to develop one of the most innovative oeuvres of the twentieth century, anticipating the hybridization of media and crossing borderlines linking one impossible space to another.
Very Good—Near Fine copy.
1997, English / German
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 296 pages, 22 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Generali Foundation / Vienna
$280.00 - In stock -
Rare first hardcover edition of the catalogue raisonné of Gordon Matta-Clark's incredible drawings published in conjunction with exhibition held at Generali Foundation, Vienna, May 7—August 10, 1997. Heavily illustrated throughout (243 colour and 548 b/w illustrations) with essays by Sabine Breitwiesser, Peter Fend, and Pamela M. Lee. Includes a biography and bibliography. Text in English and German.
Gordon Matta-Clark (1943—1978) was an American artist best known for site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He was also a pioneer in the field of socially engaged food art.
Fine copy in Fine DJ.
1971, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 268 pages, 29.5 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Praeger Publishers Inc. / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
First 1971 clothbound hardcover edition of the first major English-language monograph on Argentinian artist Lucio Fontana (1899–1968), published two years after his death. Profusely illustrated with texts by Italian writer and art critic Guido Ballo (1914-2010), this volume surveys Fontana's works across painting (many of his Concetti Spaziale examples), sculpture, drawing, installation and graphic work, encompassing his Spatialism manifesto, along with biographic details, bibliography, photographs documenting the life and work of the great artist.
Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) is one the most innovative artists of the 20th century. A major figure of postwar European art and a binational resident of Argentina and Italy, Fontana blurred numerous boundaries in his life and art, crossing borders both literally and figuratively. The founder of Spatialism, a movement focused on the spatial qualities of sculpture and paintings with the goal of breaking through the two-dimensionality of the traditional picture plane, he pushed the painterly into the sculptural and redefined the relationship between the arts. He was best known for his monochrome canvases known as Concetti Spaziale that he would cut or puncture, leaving distinctive gaping slash marks and holes that imbued the finished work with an almost violent energy. In his seminal writing, White Manifesto (1946), the artist traced ideas for creating a new medium that blended architecture, painting, and sculpture. “I do not want to make a painting; I want to open up space, create a new dimension, tie in the cosmos, as it endlessly expands beyond the confining plane of the picture,” he said of his work. Fontana had widespread impact on the following generation of artists, who began to use installation media more aggressively to address the dynamics of space in gallery environments and Land Art. Fontana died on September 7, 1968 in Varese, Italy at the age of 69, just two years after being awarded the Grand Prize for painting at the Venice Biennale.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket. All near Fine.
1973 / 1997, English
Softcover, 280 pages, 173 x 213 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
University of Chicago Press / Chicago
$70.00 - Out of stock
“Conceptual art, for me, means work in which the idea is paramount and the material form is secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious and/or 'dematerialized.'”—Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years
In 1973 the critic and curator Lucy R. Lippard published Six Years, a book with possibly the longest subtitle in the bibliography of art: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972: a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries: consisting of a bibliography into which are inserted a fragmented text, art works, documents, interviews, and symposia, arranged chronologically and focused on so-called conceptual or information or idea art with mentions of such vaguely designated areas as minimal, anti-form, systems, earth, or process art, occurring now in the Americas, Europe, England, Australia, and Asia (with occasional political overtones) edited and annotated by Lucy R. Lippard. Six Years, sometimes referred to as a conceptual art object itself, not only described and embodied the new type of art-making that Lippard was intent on identifying and cataloging, it also exemplified a new way of criticizing and curating art. The result is a book with the character of a lively contemporary forum that offers an invaluable record of the thinking of the artists—a historical survey and essential reference book for the period. Lippard provides a new preface to this 1997 reprint edition.
Includes: Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Dennis Adrian, Carl Andre, Eleanor Antin, Keith Arnatt, Art-Language, Richard Artschwager, Michael Asher, David Askevold, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Frederick Barthelme, N.E. Thing Co., Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Donald Burgy, Ian Burn, Jack Burnham, James Lee Byars, Hanne Darboven, Agnes Denes, Jan Dibbets, Peter Downsbrough, Gerald Ferguson, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Gilbert & George, Dan Graham, Guerrilla Art Action Group, Hans Haacke, Charles Harrison, Michael Heizer, Douglas Huebler, Peter Hutchinson, Stephen Kaltenbach, Allan Kaprow, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Christine Kozlov, John Latham, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Lee Lozano, Bruce McLean, Walter de Maria, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sigmar Polke, Mel Ramsden, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Gerry Schum, Richard Serra, Willoughby Sharp, Seth Siegelaub, Tony Smith, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Athena Tacha Spear, Bernar Venet, Wolf Vostell, Franz Erhard Walther, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, William Wiley, Ian Wilson, La Monte Young
"Essential source book of documentation of the Conceptual Art, Land Art, Earth Art, Arte Povera, Minimal Art, Performance Art, Video Art movements. Documents the activities, day by day, month by month, year by year of artists including Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Dennis Adrian, Carl Andre, Eleanor Antin, Keith Arnatt, Art-Language, Richard Artschwager, Michael Asher, David Askevold, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Frederick Barthelme, N.E. Thing Co., Josef Beuys, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Donald Burgy, Ian Burn, Jack Burnham, James Lee Byars, Hanne Darboven, Agnes Denes, Jan Dibbets, Peter Downsbrough, Gerald Ferguson, Rafael Ferrer, Barry Flanagan, Gilbert & George, Dan Graham, Guerrilla Art Action Group, Hans Haacke, Charles Harrison, Michael Heizer, Douglas Huebler, Peter Hutchinson, Stephen Kaltenbach, Allan Kaprow, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Christine Kozlov, John Latham, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Lee Lozano, Bruce McLean, Walter de Maria, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sigmar Polke, Mel Ramsden, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Gerry Schum, Richard Serra, Willoughby Sharp, Seth Siegelaub, Tony Smith, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Athena Tacha Spear, Bernar Venet, Wolf Vostell, Franz Erhard Walther, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, William Wiley, Ian Wilson, La Monte Young and others. "The unusual form of this provocative book intentionally reflects the chaotic network of ideas connected with so-called conceptual art or information art or idea art, in America and abroad, from 1966 to 1972. Arranged as a continuous bibliographical chronology, into which is woven a rich collection of original documents - including texts by, and taped discussions with and among, the artists involved - and annotations by Lucy R. Lippard, the book has the informal quality of a lively contemporary forum. Only a minimum of order is imposed; for the most part the reader is left to confront the curious compendium of information on his or her own, to follow changing ideas and artistic developments over the six-year period, to witness the gradual (and controversial) "dematerialization" of the art object." -- publisher's statement."
Good—Very Good copy with general light shelf wear and tanning to spine.
1994, English / Dutch
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 134 pages, 27 × 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Museum Boymans-van Beuningen / Rotterdam
$850.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover edition of the the highly sought after Donald Judd Furniture Retrospective catalogue, published on the occasion of the exhibition at Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, in 1993.
The only published overview of Judd's furniture works, this clothbound (wrapped in kraft paper printed jacket), is profusely illustrated throughout and accompanied by Judd's essays "It’s Hard to Find a Good Lamp", “Eichholteren, Switzerland” and “Marfa, Texas: Concrete Building”. "It’s Hard to Find a Good Lamp" is partly an account of his first forays into chair and table making, having found it hard to buy the right furnishings for his own home in Marfa, Texas. It is also a meditation on the problems of designer, antique and mass-produced furniture in which Judd rails against the price and availability of decent furniture, while also examining what constitutes good and bad design.
Lovely copy of the original hardcover volume, much scarcer than the softcover.
Very Good copy with light tanning to edges in Very Good jacket with light tanning to spine.
2022, English
Softcover, 384 pages, 19.8 x 24.1 cm
Published by
Walker Art Centre / Minneapolis
$110.00 - Out of stock
Six decades of sculptural innovation from the Arte Povera pioneer and alchemist of the everyday captured in this stunning new volume.
Over the course of more than five decades, Jannis Kounellis developed a singular practice across painting, works on paper, sculpture, installation and hybrid works combining objects with live performance. Playing a central role in the Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, Kounellis created wide-ranging and innovative works exploring theater, migration, history, politics and other themes, which continue to influence subsequent generations of artists.
Published by the Walker Art Center for the first US Kounellis survey in over 35 years, Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts offers the most comprehensive assessment of his career to date. The richly illustrated catalog, assembled with the full cooperation of the artist's estate and archive, presents a first-of-its-kind collection of visual materials and Kounellis' writings, including image-based exhibition and performance chronologies. The volume also features essays by Vincenzo de Bellis, Claire Gilman, Kit Hammonds and Ara H. Merjian.
Jannis Kounellis (1936-2017) was born in Piraeus, Greece. In 1956, he moved to Rome and by 1960 was an active member of the Arte Povera movement. In 1969 he created one of his best-known works: the installation of 12 live horses in the gallery L'Attico in Rome. Kounellis' first New York solo show was in 1972. Recent exhibitions have been held at the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greece (2012) and the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (2007), among others.
2019, English
Softcover, 264 pages, 27 x 19.5 cm
Published by
Nero / Rome
$65.00 - Out of stock
Global Tools 1973–1975 documents and narrates the story of the eponymous experience of Radical Design and its multidisciplinary school program “without students or teachers.” The Global Tools journey began with its foundation in 1973 by groups and figures drawn from Italian Radical Architecture, Arte Povera, and Conceptual Art, and ended in 1975 after three years of intense experimentation. This book is both a commentary and an impressive visual archive that brings together essays by international authors and reproductions of many original documents—including the Global Tools bulletins, entirely republished here for the first time. This unique and definitive book marks a fundamental stage in the rediscovery of one of the most fascinating European cultural experiences of the late twentieth century.
Edited by Valerio Borgonuovo and Silvia Franceschini.
With texts by Manola Antonioli and Alessandro Vicari, Valerio Borgonuovo and Silvia Franceschini, Alison J. Clarke, Beatriz Colomina, Maurizio Lazzarato, Franco Raggi, Simon Sadler.
Published by Nero in collaboration with SALT, Istanbul.
1966, English
Hardcover (Burlap covered boards), 342 pages, 32 x 31cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Harry N. Abrams / New York
$400.00 - Out of stock
Rare first 1966 burlap-bound edition of this seminal work by Allan Kaprow documenting the milieu of performance art and happenings in the early-mid 1960s. Published by H. N. Abrams, Assemblage, Environments & Happenings is a legendary photo-artist-book by “one of the grand antiheroes of contemporary art”, produced in way we would never see today. Wrapped in a heavy, debossed and screen-printed raw burlap hardcover, this massive and visually stunning volume features incredible typography, commentary and lay-out by Kaprow himself, accompanying countless photogravures (photos taken by Oldenburg, Robert McElroy, Peter Moore and others) featuring the work of artists (and non-artists) such as Claes Oldenburg, Tetsumi Kudo, Jean Tinguely, Clarence Schmidt, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Wolf Vostell, George Brecht, Kenneth Dewey, Milan Knizak, Jackson Pollock, Robert Whitman, Red Grooms, George Segal, Yayoi Kusama, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, together with images of works by the Japanese Gutai Group (Murakami Saburo, Shozo Shimamoto, Kazuo Shiraga, Atsuko Tanaka, et al) and many more.
Allan Kaprow, “an artist who coined the term ‘happenings’ in the late 1950s and whose anti-art works contributed to radical changes in the course of late 20th-century art,” was a leading member-with artists George Segal, Jim Dine and Claes Oldenberg-of a group whose performance works were signally influenced by John Cage’s “reliance on chance as an organizing, or disorganizing element in art. Like Cage, Kaprow used a combination of choice and accident as a way of creating nonverbal, quasi-theatrical situations in which performers functioned as kinetic objects, the role of the single artist-genius was de-emphasized, audience members became creative participants and no-clear distinction was made between everyday actions and ritual…” (New York Times).
"Step Right In"
Very Good copy, spotless with tight-As New binding, perfectly preserved.