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:
OPEN 12—5 THU—FRI
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1994, English
Softcover, 50 pages, 20.5 x 15cm
Signed, numbered edition,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
$600.00 - In stock -
First signed edition of this lovely, rare book on Australian artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton (1917—1979). Published in a limited edition of 250 numbered copies signed by Richard Moir (this copy no. 61), Kings Cross Witch collects the Moir's personal memories of Norton, "the not so public person", whom he knew in her last elusive years (1969—1979). Illustrated throughout Norton’s paintings and several photographs.
Rosaleen Miriam Norton (1917—1979), who used the name of "Thorn", was an Australian artist and occultist, in the latter capacity adhering to a form of pantheistic / Neopagan Witchcraft largely devoted to the Greek god Pan. She lived much of her later life in the bohemian area of Kings Cross, Sydney, leading her to be termed the "Witch of Kings Cross" in some of the tabloids, and from where she led her own coven of witches. Her paintings, which have been compared to those of British occult artist Austin Osman Spare, often depicted images of supernatural entities such as pagan gods and demons, sometimes involved in sexual acts. These caused particular controversy in Australia during the 1940s and '50s, when the country "was both socially and politically conservative" with Christianity as the dominant faith and at a time when the government "promoted a harsh stance on censorship." For this reason the authorities dealt with her work harshly, with the police removing some of her work from exhibitions, confiscating books that contained her images, and attempting to prosecute her for public obscenity on a number of occasions. According to her later biographer, Nevill Drury, "Norton's esoteric beliefs, cosmology and visionary art are all closely intertwined – and reflect her unique approach to the magical universe." She was inspired by "the 'night' side of magic", emphasising darkness and studying the qlippoth, alongside forms of sex magic which she had learned from the writings of English occultist Aleister Crowley.
Very Good—NF copy. Light tanning to spine edge.
2024, English
Softcover, 326 pages, 23 x 15 cm
Published by
PM Press / Oakland
$45.00 - In stock -
With appeal to more than just punk history obsessives, Orstralia offers an unprecedented snapshot of an underacknowledged segment of Australian life and history.
Far from punk’s more modish North Atlantic core in the late 1970s, discontented youth in Australia were enacting similar musical and cultural reckonings. Yet in spite of the Australia's purported “laid-back” national demeanour, punks there were routinely met with insult, fist, or the police baton.
More subterranean than the national scandal that was punk back in “homeland” Britain, Australia’s own bands nonetheless came to be heralded internationally. Orstralia represents the first definitive account of the country’s initial years, from progenitors the Saints and Radio Birdman in the mid-70s, through the emergence of hardcore in the 1980s, to the stylistic diffusion that accompanied transition to the 1990s.
Based on over 130 interviews, Orstralia documents the most renowned to the most fleeting and obscure acts the nation produced. Included are equally engrossing and shocking personal narratives befitting such a passionate and intemperate cultural form, as well as punk’s placement within broader Australian society at the time.
“Australia has some claim to being a punk founder nation, most obviously through the influence of the Saints and Radio Birdman. In Orstralia, Tristan Clark explores the wider terrain to recover a vibrant prepunk, punk, and postpunk history that captures the vibrancy and excitement of a culture brimming with ingenuity and teenage verve. A brilliant book and essential reading for all those interested in punk's cultural past.”—Matthew Worley, author of No Future: Punk Politics and British Youth Culture, 1976–84
“If your knowledge of Australian punk grinds to a halt at the Saints, Radio Birdman, the Hard-Ons, and Vicious Circle, Orstralia is a deep dive into that country’s turbulent alternative underground of the late 1970s and ’80s, when rebellious youths clashed with the police (not to mention the church, the government, the media . . . authority in general), rival subcultures, their parents and even themselves. Proving that an oppressive police state is no match for subversive creativity in the long run, Australian punk evolved and thrived in the face of such adversity—very much its own beast given its isolation from London and New York—and this forensically researched tome is its story, written in such detail and with such fascinating insight, you can relive it all vicariously without having your nose broken and discover a treasure trove of passionate noise into the bargain. This is an important and entertaining piece of work.”—Ian Glasper, author of Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980–1984 and The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980 to 1984
Tristan Clark is a Melbourne-based educator, musician, and writer. His involvement in punk has spanned over three decades and encompassed a near gamut of roles: band member, roadie, merch person, show organizer, Food Not Bombs volunteer, community radio DJ, as well as having written sporadically for local zines and other publications. He now routinely encounters the young students he spends his week working with at local DIY shows and is heartened by punk’s continued ability to self-reproduce.
2024, English
Softcover, 212 pages, 23 x 15 cm
Published by
Self Published / Melbourne
$30.00 - In stock -
Australia, the 1990s: Strictly Ballroom, Silverchair, Mabo, Port Arthur, economic rationalism, and Pauline Hanson.
Within its more concealed history, the opening of the decade saw punk in Australia experiencing a transitory lull. Populated mostly by the diehards and remnants of the 1980s, its sound and style were in danger of being subsumed, or at least diluted, by grunge and alternative music through a resurgent interest in guitar-driven bands. Able to maintain its own identity and networks against the challenge, as the decade progressed punk evolved into even more diffuse subgenres.
Now, twenty years after its relatively inauspicious birth in Australia, punk, in one of its multivarious forms, topped the national music charts. But though the decade brought if not respectability then a new saleability to punk, it was an era still prone to its tumult, tragedy, humour, and audacity. Through a further 70 interviews, Orstralia: A Punk History 1990-1999 continues the disclosure of its first volume, covering bands from the most obscure to those who reached the very apex of Australia's music industry.
Tristan Clark is a Melbourne-based educator, musician, and writer. His involvement in punk has spanned over three decades and encompassed a near gamut of roles: band member, roadie, merch person, show organizer, Food Not Bombs volunteer, community radio DJ, as well as having written sporadically for local zines and other publications. He now routinely encounters the young students he spends his week working with at local DIY shows and is heartened by punk’s continued ability to self-reproduce.
2024, English
Softcovers, 326 + 212 pages, 23 x 15 cm
Published by
PM Press / Oakland
Self Published / Melbourne
$75.00 - In stock -
Both volumes of Tristan Clark's ORSTRALIA: A PUNK HISTORY, covering 1974—1989 & 1990—1999, offering an unprecedented snapshot of an underacknowledged segment of Australian life and history. See individual listings for more information on each volume.
Tristan Clark is a Melbourne-based educator, musician, and writer. His involvement in punk has spanned over three decades and encompassed a near gamut of roles: band member, roadie, merch person, show organizer, Food Not Bombs volunteer, community radio DJ, as well as having written sporadically for local zines and other publications. He now routinely encounters the young students he spends his week working with at local DIY shows and is heartened by punk’s continued ability to self-reproduce.
2003, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 19 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Currency Press / Melbourne
$30.00 - In stock -
"Max lovers, your definitive fix has arrived."—Empire
First 2003 edition of Martin's sparkling new appreciation of the movies that rudely shook up Australian cinema and made Mel Gibson and George Miller internationally famous. According to Martin, no other Australian films have influenced world cinema and popular culture as widely and lastingly as George Miller's Mad Max trilogy.
Leading Australian film writer Adrian Martin compares the three Mad Max movies—Mad Max, Mad Max 2 and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome—sharing his views on which works best and why. In a chapter dedicated to each film, he looks at their critical reception and their themes, examines Miller's shooting techniques and provides a shot-by-shot analysis of integral scenes.
Since Mad Max roared onto cinema screens in 1979, the films have developed a worldwide cult following and provoked numerous debates as to their meaning: a study of masculinity in crisis, an investigation of good versus evil, a celebration of the Western (with wheels) or a frightening vision of the post-apocalypse. Martin explores these diverse interpretations in his fascinating account of three of Australia's most influential films.
Contains stills from all three films, complete notes and film credits.
ADRIAN MARTIN, born in Melbourne, is a film critic for the Age. He is the author of Phantasms and Once Upon a Time in America, and co-editor of Movie Mutations. He has won the Byron Kennedy Award (1993) and the Pascall Prize for Critical Writing (1993). He is co-editor of the Internet film journal Rouge (www.rouge.com.au).
Very Good copy.
1982, English
Softcover (staple bound), 46 pages, 28.5 x 24.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
TRANSITION / St. Kilda
$25.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of March 1982 issue (Vol. 3 No. 1) of TRANSITION magazine, a critical journal about architecture published quarterly out of St. Kilda and produced by the Department of Architecture at RMIT University. TRANSITION was devoted to discourse on contemporary architectural practice and theory, considering architecture's often difficult relationship with theory and how knowledge enters into the production of architecture. Articles focus on the predictive and speculative and encourage experimental design work, propositional writing and variations in between.
This issue edited by Ian McDougall and Richard Munday, designed by Michael Trudgeon.
Features: Fashion And Consumption: Notes On Aldo Rossi—Micha Bandini
Howard Raggatt - 1981 Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition—Ian Mcdougall
On Howard Raggatt's House - Writings Are Drawing On Building—Alex Selenitsch
Sherlock Holmes—Derham Groves
Unity And The Idea—Michael Tawa
Shades Of Bill Harney—Peter Myers
The Discreet Charm Of The Anti-Bourgeoise A Review Of From Bauhaus To Our House By Tom Wolfe—Paul Rankin
and more.
Very Good copy with storage rippling to printed wax paper covers. Light age/tanning to page edges.
2024, English
Softcover, 224 pages (500+ ills.), 22.5 x 22 cm
Published by
Geelong Art Gallery / Victoria
$60.00 - In stock -
Printmaking was a vital part of artist John Nixon’s celebrated oeuvre of abstract art. This catalogue accompanies the exhibition of the same name at Geelong Gallery and reveals Nixon's inventive use of varied techniques, which ranged from simple woodcuts and potato prints, to more complex screenprints, stone lithographs and etchings. It includes a curatorial essay by Sue Cramer, Emma Nixon, and Trent Walter. Additional contributions by Stephen Bram, Lizzie Boon, Roger Butler, Claus Carstensen, Sally Foster, James Gatt, Erik Jensen, Rebecca Mayo, Rose Nolan, Mike Parr, Victoria Perin, Jacqueline Stojanović, Jason Smith, and Warren Taylor.
1984, English
Softcover (staple bound), 50 pages, 27.5 x 20.5 cm
Signed copy.,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Denis Freney / Sydney
$80.00 - In stock -
Very rare and controversial publication self published in late 1984, Nazis Out Of Uniform, by Denis Freney, teacher, political activist, journalist, writer and editor of the Communist Party paper Tribune and author of The CIA's Australian Connection (1977). With cover illustration of National Action founder (and Australia First Party member) "Jim Saleam in full nazi regalia at a demonstration in Brisbane in mid-1970's. Behind him, largely obscured, is Ross "The ull" Skull" May, also in full nazi uniform". Illustrated throughout, with chapters "- Don't call us nazis: the early post-war groups"; "The fascist international"; "National Alliance: the great illusions"; "Strasserism and all that: the ideology of oz nazism"; "Bashers and bombers: National Action in Action"; "Terrorists worldwide: NA makes friends"; "The respectable racists: All the way with Joh and Flo"; "Conclusion: what can be done?"; "Appendix One: The League of Rights"; "Appendix Two: Graeme Royce/Maguire"; "Appendix Three: Geoff McDonald"; "Appendix Four: From White Power to Grey Power?", plus advertisements for Searchlight: The Anti-Fascist Monthly, Tribune, and Australian Left Review.
Signed by Denis, dedicated to Carmel, on the contents page in green ink.
Freney was a well known political activist in the 1970s. He helped organise demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and the Springbok rugby tour (1971). This was followed by his involvement in the campaign for an independent East Timor and the independence struggles in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
Very Good copy with only very light wear to edges and light age/tanning.
2024, English
Softcover, 48 pages, 20.5 x 11.5 cm
Published by
no more poetry / Naarm
$25.00 - In stock -
no more poetry celebrate the launch of their 20th publication; the second poetry collection from Natalie Briggs titled ‘FLOWER ENGINE’. This collection of cinched, bright free-verse explores the passing locations of love and the slow, private operations of pain’s knocking counterweight. The book extends Briggs’ relay of concise universal suggestions, translating them through brief, intimate utility.—daniel ward
First signed edition of 100 copies.
nmp.20
FLOWER
ENGINE
(2024)
Natalie Briggs
on nmp.20:
2024, english — paperback
48 pages, 115 x 205 mm
first edition, edition of 100
signed
no more poetry presents nmp.20
FLOWER
ENGINE
by
Natalie Briggs
1991, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 12 pages, 29 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Australian National Gallery / Canberra
$25.00 $10.00 - In stock -
Scarce brochure catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1991. This exhibition of Sievers photographs travelled Victoria and New South Wales between 1991—1992. "The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers is the first retrospective of Sievers's work; it surveys Sievers's long and productive career and includes photographs taken in Italy, Germany, Portugal and Australia. Since he settled in Australia in 1938 Sievers has made an extremely significant—but still largely unacknowledged—contribution to Australian cultural life." Illustrated throughout, the photographs are accompanied by stories written by the artist.
Wolfgang Georg Sievers, AO (1913–2007) was a well-known modernist photographer who specialised in architectural and industrial photography over a career spanning almost 60 years. Sievers grew up in Germany during a period known as the Weimar Republic, studied photography at the Contempora School for Applied Arts in Berlin, a successor to the Bauhaus, and in 1938, fearing increasing persecution in Nazi Germany, the Sievers family fled and migrated to Australia. Sievers served in the Australia Army from 1942 to 1946. After the war, Sievers concentrated on a career as a photographer, bringing a new vision of crisp and uniform images, showcasing how the modern world was aiming for economy through efficiency. After the Second World War, Australia had been particularly driven to streamlining processes and techniques in the postwar era, sometimes called the ‘golden age’. After the war, Sievers concentrated on a career as a photographer. He worked with other famous modernist photographers in Melbourne, including Axel Poignant and Athol Shmith. In Australia, Sievers took to industrial photography, bringing a new vision of crisp and uniform images, showcasing how the modern world was aiming for economy through efficiency. Sievers documented a postwar Australia, sometimes called the ‘golden age’. In describing his artistic method, Sievers once said: ‘The fundamental Bauhaus idea is purity of line and simplicity of design, both in architecture and industry. To this I added the dignity of man as a worker.’ Many of Sievers works contain images of humans as connected to the machines they work with. These photographs show humans as an important ‘part’ of the technology they are using.
Good copy with storage wear to covers.
1981, English
Softcover (staple bound w. brochure), 64 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Creative Space / Chippendale
$45.00 - In stock -
Including the Video Plus Group and the 'Sydney Artists Video and Sound Tape, 1979—1980' performances (Laughing Hands, David Chesworth, → ↑ → (Tsk Tsk Tsk), Warren Burt, Chris Wyatt, Eva Karczag, Robert Randall, and Frank Bendinelli) this rare catalogue published on the occasion of the Studio Access Project, an expansive Sydney-wide event during the 1981 Festival of Sydney and a solution to the desperate situation in the arts competing with industry, commerce and residential expansion in the inner city. "If the city is to remain a lively centre for the arts, room must be found for the artist to work." The first show of its kind in Australia, the project, organised by the volunteer-run Creative Space and Art Network attacked the problem by surveying the needs of artists in Sydney, revealing no less than 400 artists from a multitude of disciplines in urgent need of space, then identifying and investigating unused spaces for studios and presentations. "The redevelopment process is continuous and it leaves many buildings empty for long periods of time. In England and America artists have been found to be the perfect in between tenants for these type of properties."
"The Studio Access Project which this catalogue documents, was initiated to introduce the public to some of the artists in Sydney who are working in studios. It is hoped that in this way some idea of the process and not just the product can be communicated resulting in a greater understanding of artist space needs as well as providing the artists themselves with an exhibiting opportunity."
Sadly nothing has changed. If anything it's exceptionally worse, but this document is an important insight into the battle of Australian cultural initiatives to push back against the rampant redevelopment squeeze in this country and reclaim property waste.
With a map of the city and schedules of concerts and exhibitions, the book profiles all of the artists and utilising the many disparate buildings (shop fronts, garages, basements, warehouses...) profusely illustrated with their artworks, graphics, and biographies.
Includes Creative Space brochure inserted.
Very Good with some creasing to top of inserted brochure.
2008, English
Softcover (w. die-cut type and french-folds, 136 pages, 29 x 24.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) / Victoria
$140.00 - In stock -
Now very rare monographic catalogue by curator and writer Kelly Gellatly devoted to the poetic assemblages of the New Zealand born-Australian sculptor Rosalie Gascoigne, published on the occasion of the major retrospective exhibition at NGV Ian Potter Centre, 19 December 2008—15 March 2009. Profusely illustrated in colour with Gascoigne's many works spanning her entire artistic career, accompanied by text contributions from Kelly Gellatly, Deborah Clark and Martin Gascoigne, plus chronology, bibliography, exhibition history, exhibition checklist, and more. One of the finest reference books on the artist.
Rosalie Norah King Gascoigne AM (1917—1999) was a New Zealand-born Australian sculptor and assemblage artist who shot to late fame at the age of 57. Gascoigne is renowned for her sculptural assemblages of great clarity, simplicity and poetic power. Using natural or manufactured objects, sourced from collecting forays, that evoke the lyrical beauty of the Monaro region of New South Wales, her work radically reformulated the ways in which the Australian landscape is perceived. She showed at the Venice Biennale in 1982, becoming the first female artist to represent Australia there. In 1994, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to the arts.
Out-of-print, As New copy.
1984, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 142 pages, 26 x 36 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
James Fraser / Sydney
$300.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1984 hardcover edition of one of the greatest Australian photo-books, William Yang's "Sydney Diary."
Absolutely stunning large-format book of Yang's photography from the late 1970s-early 1980s, documenting the Sydney party scene, gay community, and general Australian cultural atmosphere of the period, from the beach to the runway to the disco via the further reaches of sex, drugs (including the incredible "poppers" spread), celebrity and political demonstration. It is a collection of "friendships lost and found, fragile landscapes, modern icons, images of the incessant pursuit of pleasure, of innocence and experience, ecstasy and desire. In the many ways of looking at this work some will find only sensation, a lurid catalogue from a provincial paparazzi. Certainly it has an appeal to the sensations, a visceral power. But to me this book represents much more. It is a unique exploration of the human spirit, a confession from a guilty romantic, a solitary journey through the land of the dispossessed." - Jim Sharman (Introduction)
William Yang (b. 1943, Mareeba, Queensland. Lives and works Sydney, New South Wales) is principally known as a photographer exploring issues of cultural and sexual identity, integrating this practice with writing, performance and film. Starting out as a playwright, Yang turned to photographing parties and social events as a way of making money. His 1977 exhibition, Sydneyphiles, and 1984 book Sydney Diary, recorded the emergent gay community and Sydney party scene of the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s, Yang began to explore his Chinese heritage, and his photographic themes expanded to include landscapes and the Chinese in Australia. Yang began performing monologues with slide projections in theatres in 1989, integrating his skills as a writer and a visual artist. These slide shows were recognised as a unique form of performance theatre and have since become his preferred way of showing his work. Yang has toured Australia and the world with shows such as Sadness, Friends of Dorothy, The North, Blood Links and Shadows.
Very Good copy of the now very rare Australian photo-book, in original illustrated dust jacket (VG, with some tanning).
1985, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 20 pages + catalogue insert, 25 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
$100.00 - Out of stock
Rare glossy catalogue published on the occasion of a major "Survey Exhibition" of Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 1985, curated by Peter Cripps and Malcolm Enright. Heavily illustrated throughout with MacPherson's works and installations mostly at the IMA, but also Q Space Annex and Ray Hughes Gallery. Includes informative text by then IMA director and artist Peter Cripps tracing the major works of MacPherson from his first solo exhibition in 1975 (also held at the IMA) through to 1985. Also includes biography, bibliography and loose-leaf fold-out illustrated catalogue enclosed.
Over the course of his 40 plus-year career, Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson (1937–2021) explored the philosophical propositions of what constitutes a work of art. He often incorporated familiar imagery, everyday materials and visual elements from daily life, honouring the beauty of the mundane. MacPherson’s fascination with systems of objects and language is manifested through broad fields of knowledge, including art history and social history, biology and mythology.
Very Good copy.
1974, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 16 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
Ed. of 250,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Robert Jacks / New York
$200.00 - Out of stock
Wonderful, very rare artist's book published by Australian artist Robert Jacks in 1974 whilst in New York in an edition of 250 copies to distribute to friends and acquaintances. The book (almost textless, apart from image captions and title page) is a crucial document of this important period in Jacks's career, comprising photographic documentation of all of the exhibition installations by Jacks during his time in New York and Toronto after 1968. As Ian Burn noted in his important 1970 essay ‘Conceptual art as art’, Jacks’s "recent work in New York has moved beyond painting into conceptualized presentation of numeral systems and serial techniques". Jacks’s first opportunity to present this new work was facilitated by Sol LeWitt, who selected him to inaugurate a rolling program of free exhibitions at the New York Cultural Centre in January 1971 – the ‘International Artist’s Invitational’ – with each exhibiting artist showing just a single work and selecting the artist to follow. Further exhibitions include the New York Cultural Centre, the Whitney Museum Artists Resource Centre, 112 Greene St. Gallery, and Resse Palley, all New York, plus A Space, Toronto, all documented herein.
Robert Jacks (1943—2014) was one of Australia’s most significant and accomplished abstract artists. Jacks studied sculpture at Prahran Technical College from 1958–1960 and painting at RMIT in 1961–62. His first solo exhibition, a sell-out at Gallery A in Melbourne, was held to great acclaim in 1966 and in 1968 his work was included in the landmark exhibition, The Field, at the National Gallery of Victoria. Jacks left Australia in 1968, spending ten years living and working in Canada and the United States. It was during this period, much of which was spent in New York's Soho, in which Jack was invited to exhibit by Sol LeWitt and Robert Rauschenberg at the New York Cultural Centre in 1971. When he returned to Australia in 1978, Jacks brought back a finely-tuned, mature visual language and experience that makes him a unique figure within the history and development of twentieth century Australian art. Over the subsequent decades, Jacks was collected by every state gallery, the subject of numerous monographs and honoured with a retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2014. In 2001, the Bendigo Art Gallery established an art award in Jacks' honour.
Very Good, mild age/wear, mild rust to staples.
1973, English
Softcover (staple-bound),
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) / Victoria
$240.00 - Out of stock
Extremely rare catalogue of the great OBJECT & IDEA exhibition, presented at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1973, curated by Brian Finemore (Curator of Australian Art and co-curator of The Field in 1968). With the assistance of Graeme Sturgeon (Exhibitions Officer 1970–1980), this important survey exhibition helped in defining radical new shifts in contemporary Australian art at the start of the 1970s by bringing together new work by 6 young Australian artists; John Armstrong, Tony Coleing, Aleks Danko, Nigel Lendon, Ti Parks and Imants Tillers, all of whom are profiled here in-depth with illustrations of many of their works, along with biographies, portraits, and notes. Introduction by Finemore and Sturgeon, with texts by Brian Finemore, Gregory Heath, Ian Millis and John Stringer. Designed by Graeme Sturgeon and Melbourne artist Peter Cripps. "This book records an exhibition and poses some questions for Australian Art in 1973. New Art? New Aesthetic? New Artist? New Museum?". One of the finest, yet seldom seen Australian art catalogues. Highly recommended.
“[...] The new art was to be a new reality. It was to be what Duchamp called a cervellite that is a "brainfact". It is from that stream of tradition with its influxions from the tributaries of De Stijl and the Russian Constructivists, this Australian exhibition and "Object and Idea" ultimately comes. I do not say that these six artists are disciples of Duchamp, or that their work is imitative of his art style. What l do say is that their work is in the stylistic and cultural tradition which developed from taking up the options his work proposed. This exhibition is not a manifesto, the artists are not group artists. But it is well to remember that a fundamental revision of collective sensibility, of attitudes to life, often finds its first expression in art and the philosophical disciplines. In the work of these men one may perhaps examine the tides which will direct the future. Their art is of the present yet hints of change.” — from Finemore’s “New Art?” essay.
Very Good, tightly bound copy. Light tanning.
1971, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 42 pages, 43 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
C.A.S. Gallery / Sydney
$400.00 - Out of stock
Very rare, important publication distributed on the occasion of the exhibition "The Situation Now: Object and Post-Object Art", 16 July—6 August 1971, Central Street Gallery, Sydney, NSW. Curated by Terry Smith and Donald Brook, The Situation Now: Object and Post-Object Art, was a survey exhibition of conceptual and experimental works in Australia, sponsored by the Contemporary Art Society (CAS) held at Central Street. Artists in the exhibition: David Aspden, Michael Johnson, Trevor Vickers, Guy Stuart, Aleksander Danko, Nigel Lendon, Tony Coleing, Ti Parks, Clive Murray-White, Bill Gregory, Robert Hunter, Optronic Kinetics (Bert Flugelman, Jim McDonnell, David Smith), Tim Johnson, Simon Close, Robert Rooney, Dale Hickey, Neil Evans, Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden; with further contributions by Peter Kennedy, Mike Parr, Noel Hutchison, Bruce Pollard, Terry Smith, Donald Brook, Joel Fisher.
"THIS EXHIBITION has been put together less as a display of merely good and/or interesting art (although we think it is that), but more as a series of statements which amount to an argument about the nature of the most recent changes in art."
The staple-bound, stamped publication acts as a catalogue and reader, consisting of of discussions, interviews and artist statements, providing a deeper understanding of the various conceptual operations of these contemporary Australian artists and contributors, and important projects they were associated with (Inhibodress, Pinacotheca, Tin Sheds Art Workshop, Art & Language, et al.).
Very Good copy with some tanning to the edges and light wear.
1978, English
Softcover folder, fold-out loose leaf 1.01 x 1.47 metres + additional loose leaf piece, 22 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Outback Press / Fitzroy
$200.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of late Australian artist/compositional linguist/raconteur Chris Mann's epic first published work, Words and Classes — On Having Words, published by Melbourne's Outbackl Press in 1978 in this elaborate artist's book/binder housing an enormous fold-out (approx 1 x 1.5 M unfurled) thick newsprint sheet printed both sides with Mann's experimental texts — poetry, stream-of-consciousness prose, commentaries, dialogues, even a small play — one of the finest examples of Mann's complex and witty exploration of linguistic composition. Includes an additional text work printed and folded inside along with the main work, possibly not originally included.
Chris Mann (1949—2018) was an Australian-American composer, poet and performer specializing in the emerging field of compositional linguistics, coined by Kenneth Gaburo and described by Mann as "the mechanism whereby you understand what I'm thinking better than I do". Mann was the son of German Jewish refugees, Ruth and Peter Mann, who settled in Melbourne and founded the Discurio music store Score record label in the 1960s, producing some of Australia's first recordings of Australian folk music as well as jazz, classical and Aboriginal music. Mann studied Chinese and linguistics at the University of Melbourne, and his interest in language, systems, and philosophy is evident in his work. Mann founded the New Music Centre in 1972 and taught at the State College of Victoria in the mid-1970s. He then left teaching to work on research projects involving cultural ideas of information theory and has been recognized by UNESCO for his work in that field. Mann moved to New York in the 1980s and was an associate of American composers John Cage and Kenneth Gaburo. He has performed text in collaboration with artists such as Thomas Buckner, David Dunn, Annea Lockwood, Larry Polansky, and Robert Rauschenberg. Mann has recorded with the ensemble Machine For Making Sense with Amanda Stewart and others, Chris Mann and the Impediments (with two backup singers and Mann reading a text simultaneously while only being able to hear one another), and Chris Mann and The Use. His piece The Plato Songs, a collaboration with Holland Hopson and R. Luke DuBois, features realtime spectral analysis and parsing of the voice into multiple channels based on phonemes. Mann has also participated in the 60x60 project. Mann taught in the Media Studies Graduate program at The New School. He died in September 2018, survived by his wife and two children.
Very Good copy with some rubbing to folder and tanning to all stocks. Fold-out work As New with age tanning, folded as issued. Edge wear and spine crease to folder.
1986, English
Softcover (glue-bound), unpaginated, 14.5 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
NMA / Melbourne
$65.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of late Australian artist/compositional linguist/raconteur Chris Mann's 1986 “The Rationales” booklet/pad, the NMA published text version of the work recorded by Mann as contribution to NMA TAPES No. 5. This book, an analysis of the Australian conceptual tradition, takes the physical form of a tear-off memorandum pad. The Rationales explored, among other things, the importance in Australia of a tradition of 'making do' and of 'radical amateurism'. Each rationale is printed on a separate sheet.
Chris Mann (1949—2018) was an Australian-American composer, poet and performer specializing in the emerging field of compositional linguistics, coined by Kenneth Gaburo and described by Mann as "the mechanism whereby you understand what I'm thinking better than I do". Mann was the son of German Jewish refugees, Ruth and Peter Mann, who settled in Melbourne and founded the Discurio music store Score record label in the 1960s, producing some of Australia's first recordings of Australian folk music as well as jazz, classical and Aboriginal music. Mann studied Chinese and linguistics at the University of Melbourne, and his interest in language, systems, and philosophy is evident in his work. Mann founded the New Music Centre in 1972 and taught at the State College of Victoria in the mid-1970s. He then left teaching to work on research projects involving cultural ideas of information theory and has been recognized by UNESCO for his work in that field. Mann moved to New York in the 1980s and was an associate of American composers John Cage and Kenneth Gaburo. He has performed text in collaboration with artists such as Thomas Buckner, David Dunn, Annea Lockwood, Larry Polansky, and Robert Rauschenberg. Mann has recorded with the ensemble Machine For Making Sense with Amanda Stewart and others, Chris Mann and the Impediments (with two backup singers and Mann reading a text simultaneously while only being able to hear one another), and Chris Mann and The Use. His piece The Plato Songs, a collaboration with Holland Hopson and R. Luke DuBois, features realtime spectral analysis and parsing of the voice into multiple channels based on phonemes. Mann has also participated in the 60x60 project. Mann taught in the Media Studies Graduate program at The New School. He died in September 2018, survived by his wife and two children.
Very Good with some light wear/marks to outer "cover" pages and extremities.
1986—1987, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 36 pages/40 pages/24 pages, , 21 x 15 cm
Ed. of 250 copies,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
$100.00 - Out of stock
Complete set of three volumes published in a series by the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, in 1986—1987. These now scarce, historical publications, initiated and handsomely designed by (then) IMA director Peter Cripps and typeset by Ian Hodgkiss, were produced in an edition of only 250 copies each. The series consists of : Interviews with nine Queensland artists (edited by IMA president Bob Lingard); Peter Cripps interviews nine exhibiting artists at the Institute (edited by IMA director Peter Cripps); Art Criticism in Queensland: Forum Papers (edited by Graham Coulter-Smith).
Interviews with nine Queensland artists (Edited by Bob Lingard) features Michelle Andringa interviewed by Robert Whyte; Eugene Carchesio interviewed by Peter Bellas and Steven Grainger; Marian Drew interviewed by Graham Coulter-Smith; Jeanelle Hurst interviewed by Allan Furlong; Wayne Smith interviewed by Graham Coulter-Smith; John Stafford interviewed by Graham Coulter-Smith; Ross Thompson interviewed by Bob Lingard; Adam Wolter interviewed by Marta Troland; Jay Younger interviewed by Graham Coulter-Smith.
Peter Cripps Interviews... (edited by Peter Cripps) comprises nine short interviews with eight artists (Robert MacPherson, Peter Tyndall, Vivienne Shark LeWitt, Tim Johnson, Geoff Lowe, Bronwyn Clark-Coolee, Scott Redford, Mark Webb) who had all exhibited at the IMA, and one with curator Robyn McKenzie, whose exhibition "The Gothic: Perversity and Its Pleasure" was held at the institute in 1986. Includes source references.
Art Criticism in Queensland: Forum Papers (edited by Graham Coulter-Smith) comprises the papers from the second in a series of three forums held at the IMA in 1985—1986, under the directorship of Cripps. Art Criticism in Queensland consists of : Peter Anderson Introduction: Art Criticism In Queensland; Sarah Follent — The Double Cringe; Keith Bradbury — Art Criticism in Brisbane Newspapers 1930-1940; Graham Coulter-Smith — Contemporary Art Versus Criticism: Criticism and the IMA; Kate Collins — Criticism and Censorship.
Fine—almost As New copies, only light tanning.
1986, English
Softcover, 40 pages, 21 x 22.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
$140.00 - In stock -
Rare and historic publication produced by the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane on the occasion of the exhibition "Q SPACE + Q SPACE ANNEX 1980 + 1981", curated by Peter Cripps in 1986.
"In 1981+82 Q SPACE and Q SPACE ANNEX, directed by John Nixon, operated in Brisbane as part of a series of strategies by artists involved in the reorientation and remodelling of contemporary art practice. Over the two years that Q SPACE and Q SPACE ANNEX operated, seventy seven exhibitions were held. Q SPACE, as with the earlier V SPACE, derived its meaning from the state in which it operated ― Q standing for Queensland. Works by the following artists and groups were shown at these spaces: Peter Tyndall, Jenny Watson, Imants Tillers, Hilary Boscott, John Davis, Robert MacPherson, John Nixon, John Smith and Anti-Music. This exhibition and catalogue have been compiled from the Q SPACE archives. Where possible we have attempted to maintain the original method and feeling of this documentation." — Peter Cripps, Brisbane, June 1986
Includes texts by Peter Cripps and John Nixon, as well as an interview between the two artists, alongside exhibition photography of each exhibition held, shot by John Nixon and Robert MacPherson, and a complete exhibition history.
An important piece of Australian contemporary art history. Highly recommended.
Fine—As New copy.
2018, English
Softcover (2 volumes w. die-cut covers in plastic jacket), 144 / 96 pages, 32.8 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) / Victoria
$140.00 - In stock -
The fast out-of-print two-volume publication published to accompany 'The Field Revisited' 50th anniversary exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia, 27 April - 26 August, 2018. Housed in a transparent plastic jacket, the publication includes a complete facsimile of the rare and highly collectable original 1968 'The Field' exhibition publication and a new publication for 'The Field Revisited', which reflects on the importance of this exhibition over the past fifty years through new essays, colour documentation of the exhibited (and related) works and archival photographs of the 1968 exhibit. Designed by Stuart Geddes, with typography by Vincent Chan.
The National Gallery of Victoria’s inaugural exhibition at its new premises on St Kilda Road in 1968 was The Field, the first comprehensive display of colour field painting and abstract sculpture in Australia. Regarded as a landmark exhibition in Australian art history, The Field was a radical presentation of 74 works by 40 artists who practised hard-edge, geometric, colour and flat abstraction, many of which were influenced by American stylistic tendencies of the time. With its silver foil–covered walls and geometric light fittings, The Field opened to much controversy and helped launch the careers of a generation of Australian artists, including Sydney Ball, Peter Booth, Janet Dawson and Robert Jacks. Eighteen of the exhibiting artists were under the age of thirty, with Robert Hunter the youngest at twenty-one years of age.
The Field Revisited recreated The Field exhibition for its fifty-year anniversary. By reassembling as many of the original 74 paintings and sculptures as possible, this restaging re-examined the exhibition’s impact and significance for Australian art history and allow a new generation to experience it for themselves. Because some works included in The Field are known to have been destroyed, the NGV has commissioned a number of artists, including Normana Wight and Col Jordan, to recreate their original works for The Field Revisited.
Artists : Sydney Ball, Peter Booth, Janet Dawson, Robert Jacks, James Doolin, David Aspden, Tony Bishop, Ian Burn, Gunter Christmann, Tony Coleing, Noel Dunn, Garry Foulkes, Dale Hickey, Michael Johnson, Col Jordan, Michael Kitching, Alun Leach-Jones, Nigel Lendon, Tony McGillick, Clement Meadmore, Michael Nicholson, Harald Noritis, Alan Oldfield, Wendy Paramor, Paul Partos, John Peart, Emanuel Raft, Melvyn Ramsden, R.C. Robertson-Swann, Robert Rooney, Rollin Schlicht, Udo Sellbach, Eric Shirley, Joseph Szabo, Vernon Treweeke, Trevor Vickers, Dick Watkins, John White, Normana Wight.
Out-of-print, As New copy.
2014, English
Hardcover, 202 pages, 30 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) / Victoria
$250.00 - In stock -
First edition of this fast out-of-print, important hardcover survey of Australian Mid-Century furniture design, edited by Kirsty Grant and published on the occasion of the exhibition, Mid-Century Modern, Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square, 30 May–19 October, 2014. Covering the 1940s to 1970s, Mid-Century Modern comprises the first major survey of Australian furniture and designers, including Grant Featherston, Douglas Snelling, Fred Lowen, George Korody, Clement Meadmore, and Michael Hirst. Profusely illustrated with photographic documentation of the iconic pieces, this volume included essays by prominent collectors, academics, architects and designers provide in-depth analysis of this uniquely innovative and influential period in Australian design. Contributors include Denise Whitehouse, writing on Grant Featherston, and Peter Atkins reflecting on the careers of Clement Meadmore and Michael Hirst. Neil Clerehan, Mary Featherston, Suzanna Shaw, and Dean Keep each examine the subject from a different perspective — that of the architect, designer, conservator, and collector respectively. Complete with time-line and bibliographical references.
Near Fine copy.
1994, English
Hardcover, 72 page,s 20.5 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Art Gallery of New South Wales / Sydney
$18.00 - In stock -
Hardcover catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition of Susan Norrie at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1994, profusely illustrated with accompanying texts by Victoria Lynn, Gregory Burke, Ingrid Periz. Includes chronology, catalogue.
Susan Norrie (b. 1953) is Sydney-based artist who has developed a practice which utilises art, documentary and film genres. Her projects are concerned with the environment, human rights and survival. In 2007 she represented Australia at the 52nd Venice Biennale.
Very Good copy, light cover wear.