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.
1999, English
Softcover, 186 pages, 15.5 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cityful Press / Seattle
$200.00 - In stock -
First, only edition of "Think of The Self Speaking : Harry Smith — Selected Interviews", published in 1998 by Cityful Press and long out-of-print. In this incredible collection you will find the flavour and texture of experimental filmmaker, music anthologist, and enigmatic polymath Harry Smith’s conversation, his rambling, obscure, luminous, cantankerous genius. This collection of interviews spans Harry Smith's long and influential life in American arts and letters. They cover a quarter-century, touching on the full range of Smith's activity as a groundbreaking experimental filmmaker, obsessive collector, folk music anthologist, visionary painter, student of Native American lore, anthropologist, cosmographer, alchemist, hermetic scholar, occultist, autodidact, classic American eccentric, and all-around explorer of the possibilities of human consciousness and creativity. Jordan Belson writes, "THINK OF THE SELF SPEAKING is the next best thing to being with Harry himself-perhaps better, certainly safer. The interviews are remarkably similar to his collage films. A brilliant mind unhinged." Includes an introduction by Allen Ginsberg.
Very Good copy with only light shelf wear.
1980, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. acetate jacket and obi-strip), 190 pages, 30 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Byakuya Shobo / Tokyo
$850.00 - In stock -
First edition. A seminal Japanese photo book and instant classic upon release, Flash up is one of the most remarkable photographic excursions into the seedy underbelly of 1970s Tokyo. Kurata (b. 1945—2020), one Japan’s formidable contemporary photographers who’s work is often referenced in the same circles as his "Provoke" teachers Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki, won the fifth Kimura Ihei Award in 1980 for this, his first book, his acclaimed collection of photographs of creatures of the night — gangsters showing off their full-length tattoos, youth styling themselves after the Hells Angels, self-professed ultra-nationalists from the notorious Black Dragon Society, transvestites drawing in crowds of men, cabaret girls...
"The photographs of Seiji Kurata are striking for their violence. The viewer must be prepared to be hit by his flashgun along with the subjects. ‘Violence’, in this case, is not necessarily invoked by the scenes of blood-shed; rather, it is Kurata’s sharp-shooting ability to stop the flow of time, capture the moment, draw of details we would otherwise never see, then proffer them up before our eyes. Sometimes our response is to avert our eyes for fear of seeing too much. This is not to say that the images are not exaggerated; for after all, people tend only to see what they want to see. If there are those who find Kurata’s photographs ‘ugly’, it can only be said that he has succeeded in paradoxically pointing the finger at them: You who want to avoid ugliness, he says, this is reality and I have cut it out for you. [...] we must admit that the ugliness apparent in these photographs is our ugliness. Our failure to do so simply invites Kurata to deal us an extra-violent blow with his images."—Akira Hasegawa, from the afterword.
Included in Martin Parr & Gerry Badger, The Photobook, Vol. II.
Text in English and Japanese.
Very Good copy, wear and usual shrinkage to publisher's thick acetate dust jacket, VG original metallic obi-strip, Very Good book, light bump to one corner.
1970, Japanese
Softcover, 300 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$260.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 3, 1970, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With gorgeous graphic design and (Aleister Crowley) cover by graphic designer Heikichi Harata, this issue's special feature is ‘Eros and Theater’, edited by Shūji Terayama and Masahiko Akuta with contributions by Terayama, photographer Hajime Sawatari, writer Taruho Inagaki, director Takahiko Iimura, anthropologist Masao Yamaguchi, playwright Yasunari Takahashi, director and cinematographer Sakumi Hagiwara, film director Nobuhiro Kawanaka, playwright Rio Kishida, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
2022, English / French
Hardcover (clothbound), 96 pages, 30 x 22 cm
Published by
Timeless Edition / Paris
$95.00 - In stock -
‘In Steel Grey Armour’ consistis of the complete reproduction of an infamous and mysterious collage book created by Genesis P-Orridge in 1979 and entrusted to his friend Yves Adrien,
a regular columnist of French music magazine ‘Rock’n’Folk’. It also explores the friendship between the 2 individuals with reproductions of some letters, photos and other artworks that Gen and Yves used to exchange. The book closes with a few words from the wise collector and current owner of the actual book, recounting his first encounter with the original Genesis collage book thanks to Jacques Noel, warden and smuggler-in-chief at Un Regard Moderne bookshop in Paris.
Artist, performer, musician and writer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson, 1950-2020), leader of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, was a major, pioneering, radical and subversive figure in British industrial and experimental music.
Yves Adrien (born 1951) is a French writer, best known for his articles in Rock & Folk magazine from the early 1970s onwards, for his subsequent theorization of post-punk, and for his first book Novövision.
2022, English
Hardcover (clothbound), 192 pages, 30 x 22 cm
Published by
Timeless Edition / Paris
$95.00 - In stock -
Personal correspondence between Genesis P-Orridge and Jean-Pierre Turmel over a fifteen-year period.
This book pays tribute to one of counter-culture's single most iconic figures of the past fifty odd years, someone who has over the course of he/r career influenced countless fellow artists and theorists. Comprised of an exclusive unpublished interview with the artist conducted by Nicolas Ballet in 2016, theoretical texts on he/r work, and archival documents from the personal collection of Jean-Pierre Turmel.
Comprised theoretical texts on he/r work, and archival documents from the personal collection of Jean-Pierre Turmel. The Last Slogan offers a completely new perspective on the work of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.The book collects multiple letters sent by Genesis to Jean-Pierre Turmel from the mid-1970s till early 1990s. These unique personal archives provide an unequaled insight into Genesis Breyer P-Orridge's life-long journey via a deeply intimate correspondence with a close friend and associate, an intellectual sparring-partner of sorts, in which the artist discusses he/r inner thoughts, strategies, doubts and plans without any of the usual control filters.
Artist, performer, musician and writer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson, 1950-2020), leader of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, was a major, pioneering, radical and subversive figure in British industrial and experimental music.
Jean-Pierre Turmel (born 1947 in Rouen, France) is co-founder of the legendary Sordide Sentimental label, which since 1978 has pioneered industrial, new wave and gothic music, producing Throbbing Gristle, Joy Division, Tuxedomoon, The Durutti Column, Savage Republic, Monte Cazazza, Davie Allan & The Arrows, etc.
Contributions by Genesis P-Orridge, Jean-Pierre Turmel, Nicolas Ballet.
2010, English
Softcover, unpaginated, 22.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
PowerHouse / New York
$30.00 - In stock -
With The Night Is Still Young, Los Angeles-based, Japanese photographer Tomoaki Hata returns to his roots—the underground club scene of Osaka's gay, nightlife district. Filled with intimate images of the radically—creative drag queens who performed at various venues in the city from the late 1990s through the present, this book is a peek into the underbelly of modern Japan.
Hata occupies a much-deserved place in the ranks of the great Japanese photographers—on par with the likes of Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki—yet he achieved this rank not by following the example of these greats, but via the presentation of his own unique view of a slice of Japanese culture that otherwise remains largely undocumented. Gay life and culture in Japan remains mostly secretive, and tends to take place within the safe confines of gay bars and gay districts that are many times hidden in plain view within the entertainment districts of major urban centers. A passionate and intimate portrayal of the gender-bending performers as they cavort, both on and off the stage, Hata exposes this elusive subculture for the entire world to see. The results are campy and combustible images of drag performers going full tilt. Glitter, glamour, sequins, and seediness are all on display, up-close and unrestrained.
Including an essay on Hata's photographs-and the world they examine—The Night Is Still Young captures and contextualizes drag culture in Japan at the turn of the century, and is the ultimate primary-source document of this otherwise obscure scene.
2024, English
Softcover, 132 pages, 16 x 12 cm
Published by
Resampled / UK
$45.00 - In stock -
Selected cassette tape and vinyl artwork from experimental electronic music of the 1980s. Touching on industrial, noise, new wave, minimal, drone, sound art, ambient and more. A visual archive of the xerox scanned imagery, disorderly type and hand illustration used to present the decade's boundary-pushing music and abstract compositions.
1983, French
Softcover (w. plastic dust-jacket), 126 pages, 24 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Temps Futurs / France
$150.00 - Out of stock
First 1983 edition of the one-of-a-kind L’Art Medical, edited by French author, artist and core member of the "Bazooka" art collective and early Metal Hurlant magazine, Romain Slocombe. Published by Temps Futurs in France in 1983, this incredible book celebrates the phenomenon of "medical art", lavishly illustrated throughout with the incredible work of Slocombe, who brought us the provocative cult classic photobook, City of Broken Dolls. Anyone familiar with that book would know what to expect here. Photographs, paintings and illustrations, alongside Slocombe's study, with artworks throughout by fellow "Bazooka" art collective members, Kiki Picasso, Bernard Vidal, Natsuko, Yoshi Ichimura, Fred Chalmer, Loulou Picasso, plus Didier Eberoni, Kim Tchoun Kwang, Jena-Baptiste Mondino, Natsuko, Yoichi Nagata, Shigenari Onishi, and more. Full of paintings and photography of women in casts and slings, in hospitals and at accident scenes, medical erotica, body manipulation/mutilation, plus many visual historical references to violent fantasy, medical fetishism and bondage in film, illustration, erotic magazines, and other forms of popular culture from Japan and Europe. Nothing like it, and a long out-of-print collector's item.
Very Good copy still in original publisher's plastic dust jacket. Light wear and age.
2024, English
Softcover, 32 pages, 29.8 x 21.4 cm
Published by
Cultural Traffic / London
$69.00 - In stock -
Cultural Traffic presents PRELUDE: Transgression In The UK, by Toby Mott. This visual archive explores the UK’s fetish and transgressive scenes from the 1980s onwards, featuring material from Mott’s collection. The book includes pre-internet items, club flyers, posters, and fashion catalogues, documenting this underground movement.
PRELUDE highlights the influence of publications like Skin Two magazine and clubs such as Torture Garden, where fashion, music, and art combined. Mott’s collection traces how leather, latex, punk, and goth subcultures moved from Soho to mainstream fashion.
From London’s Kensington Market to Manchester’s Affleck’s Palace, this book offers a look into the culture that shaped ideas of self-expression. PRELUDE marks a movement that continues to challenge norms.
Publisher: Cultural Traffic, London, 2024 Size: A4 - Pages: 32 Graphic Design: Nicolás Meza Printed by: Angel Press, UK Edition: First Edition, 300 copies Binding: Centre sewn and wrapped Printing: Digital print on 120gsm Stardream Silver, including insides and dust jacket
2016, English
Softcover, 376 pages, 22 x 28.5 cm
Ed. of 1500,
Published by
Cultural Traffic / London
Dashwood Books / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
Foreword by Toby Mott
Designed by Jamie Andrew Reid
Edition of 1,500
Showboat: Punk / Sex / Bodies delves into the intersection of sex and punk, exploring how each influences and is influenced by the other. As a radical subculture, punk enjoyed the freedom to address sex openly, unencumbered by mainstream censorship. This uninhibited expression of sexuality imbued punk with its rawness and immediacy.
Spanning from 1972 to the present day, Showboat offers a chronological exploration of the dynamic relationship between punk and sex. Drawing from The Mott Collection, the exhibition features original posters, flyers, record covers, photographs, and ephemera. Additionally, contributions from notable figures such as Julie Burchill, Paul Cook, Vivien Goldman, Eve Libertine, Bruce LaBruce, Amos Poe, Richard Prince, and Will Self provide further insight into this captivating intersection.
1972, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
The Seventies Press / Minnesota
$35.00 - In stock -
Rare inaugral issue of The Seventies, Spring 1972, "The Three Brains", edited by American poet, essayist, and activist, Robert Bly (1926 –2021), featuring the poetic works, criticism, essays of Federico Garcia Lorca, Cesar Vallejo, Blas de Otero, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Jerome Rothenberg, Shinkichi Takahashi, John Weiners, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tom Pickard, and others. Lots of bi-lingual Spanish and English, with many works translated to English from Spanish here for the first time.
Good copy, with wear to cover edges, some marking/stains.
2023, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 224 pages, 29 x 29 cm
Published by
George Schwarz and Charis / East Sydney
$190.00 - In stock -
Powerful Paradise the Art of George Schwarz and Charis is an artists book, a collaboration between George Schwarz, his partner Charis, Linda Dement and Craig Judd. It is an introduction to a wonderful life and to beautiful, complex and intriguing art. Ernest Georg Schwarz and Charis Elizabeth McKittrick enjoy a unique partnership beginning 1964. The word collaborators in this case is an inadequate descriptor. In their presence one is witness to but a force of nature, a swirling vortex of creative mutuality. Simultaneously lovers, artists, apiarists, activists, authors, film and wine makers, 'Powerful Paradise' is a celebration and a legacy.
This extremely limited hardcover edition is the first survey of the couple's life in art, the last survivors of bohemian Kings Cross. Creators of the first Australian hardcore sex films to be passed by the censors (and also refused classification), George and Charis were ahead of the curve in every aspect of their practice. This volume features the only writing covering their film output, extensive photographic work and global travels. Simultaneously erotic, taboo, progressive, liberated; lives dedicated to their work and one another and perhaps too provocative/evocative for the Australian art establishment.
1985 / 2001, English
Softcover, 148 pages, 11.4 x 17.2 cm
Published by
Autonomedia / New York
$29.00 - In stock -
"A Blake Angel on Bad Acid" — Robert Anton Wilson
"Fascinating..." — William Burroughs
"Who is Hakim Bey? I love him!" — Timothy Leary
Back in print — the underground cult bestseller and first book by anarchist writer and poet Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson) published in 1991 by Autonomedia. Originally published in 1985 and circulated in the underground via small private and pirate editions, these texts were an inspiration for a generation of troublemakers and idealists. Both celebrated in the punk underground (where the original book has become a seminal text) and denounced in some anarchist circles, the book has proved itself as both influential and relevant to multiple generations of dreamers, agitators, and activists.
Essays that redefine the psychogeographical nooks of autonomy. Recipes for poetic terror, anarcho-black magic, post-situ psychotropic surgery, denunciations of spiritual addictions to vapid infotainment cults — this is the bastard classic, the watermark impressed upon our minds. Where conscience informs praxis, and action infects consciousness, T.A.Z. is beginning to worm its way into above-ground culture. This book offers inspired blasts of writing, from slogans to historical essays, on the need to insert revolutionary happiness into everyday life through poetic action, and celebrating the radical optimism present in outlaw cultures. It should appeal to alternative thinkers and punks everywhere, as it celebrates liberation, love and poetic living.
This new edition contains the full text of "Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism", the complete "Communiques of the Association for Ontological Anarchy", and the new long essay "The Temporary Autonomous Zone", and a new preface by the author.
Very Good copy with some light wear.
2002, Japanese / English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket + obi), 132 pages, 37.2 x 26.1 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bunyusha / Tokyo
$220.00 - Out of stock
Beautiful, over-sized hardcover first edition of IZUMI,this bad girl., the stunning collection of Araki's photographic collaborations with Japanese sci-fi author, actress and countercultural icon, Izumi Suzuki. A gorgeous example of Araki's early work and one of his most sought after books, now long out-of-print. Because of Izumi's relationship with Araki, the photos are particularly intimate, capturing the singular, but tragically short life of Suzuki. The iconoclastic Izumi debuted as a writer at the age of 20. From the stage (as a member of Shuji Terayama's underground theatre troupe Tenjo Saijiki), the screen (as "pink" film actress), the image (as model and muse to photographer Nobuyoshi Araki), the page (as celebrated pop culture essayist and proto-cyberpunk author), through to the life between with marriage to free jazz alto-saxophonist Kaoru Abe and suicide at age 36 — Izumi's was a life as adventurous and tumultuous as the art she made and the counterculture she inhabited. She took her own life in 1986, leaving behind a decade’s worth of groundbreaking and influential writing.
"Izumi has been, still is THE woman in A's heart"—Nobuyoshi Araki
Very Good copy in dust jacket and obi.
1984, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. metallic obi + poster), 96 pages, 27.2 x 21.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Doremi Music / Japan
$180.00 - In stock -
The super rare Visual of Heavy Metal (The Heavy Metal Music Encyclopedia), published in Japan in one small edition in 1984! No text fluff, this book is cover-to-cover blazing full-colour reproductions of Heavy Metal album art, published at the height of metal's international break-out. NWOBHM, Speed Metal, Hard Rock, Glam Metal, Thrash... UK, USA, Sweden, France, Australia, Canada... Iron Maiden, Ethel The Frog, Mercyful Fate, Anvil, Exciter, Girl School, Black Sabbath, Samson, The Rods, Venom, Mother's Finest, Killer Dwarfs, Alkatrazz, Praying Mantis, Riot, Cloven Hoof, Gotham City, Raven, Witchfynde, Ostrogoth, Satan Jokers, Satan, Demon Eyes, Chateaux, Blaspheme, Fist, Sortilège, Pink Fairies, Anthrax, Queensrÿche, Heavy Pettin, Alaska, Helstar, Ratt, AC/DC, Jack Starr, Gamma, H-Bomb, Virgin Steele, Black Alice, Spider Force, Dio, Maccoy, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Band Of Joy, Scorpions, Wild Dogs, Kiss, Def Leppard, Alvin Lee, Heaven, Sledgehammer, Electric Sun, Colosseum II, Harman Rarebell, Tank, Pantera, Tokyo Blade, The Michael Schenker Strife Group, Budgie, Wolf, Nazareth, Status Quo, Judas Priest, Icon, Torch, British Lions, Rush, Pandemonium, Crucifixion, Thin Lizzy, Victim, Accept, Trouble Manillaroad, Witch Killer, Crawler, Faithful, Breath, Gary Moore, Trance, Silver Mountain, Slayer, Hawkwind, Helix, The Handsome Beats, Motorhead, Tank, Warrior, Manowar, Picture, Ufo, Rainbow, Alcatrazz, High Power, Warning, Battle Axe, Victim, W.A.S.P., Tsunami, Metallica, Cirith Ungol, Molly Hatchet, Biscaya, Meat Loaf, Bernie Tormé, Talas, Sinner, Chariot, Alien, Thor, Mad Max, Sad Iron, Grave Digger, Mass, Rick Derringer, Santer, Warning, Witchfinder, Be Bop Deluxe, Force, Blue Oyster Cult, Dark Wizard, Twisted Sister, Faithful Breath, Dark Heart, Thunder Fire, Cutty Sark, Night Wing, Cross Fire, Demon, Ostrogoth, Spartan Warrior, Voivod, Joshua, Omen, Elf, Uriah Heep, John Cale, Ian Gillan Band, Cozy Powell, Status Quo, Ted Nugent, Krokus, White Snake, Twisted Sister, Triumph, Wild Dogs, Steeler, Culprit Exciter Randy Hansen, Chris Spedding, Mama's Boys, Acid, Legs Diamond, Le Mans, Killer, Holocaust, Coney Hatch, Dark Star, Waysted, Brian May, Vic Vergat, Robin Trower, Quiet Riot, Ozzy Ozbourne, Gary Moore, Axewitch, Pretty Maids, Grim Reaper, Blade Runner, Black Angels, Captain Beyond, and so many more! Compiled by Masateru Makino. No text, only catalogue data for each LP, full index, appendix, colophon. An excellent reference and visual onslaught.
Very Good copy with gold obi (obi has damage) and promotional book shop poster inserted.
2001, English / German
Hardcover (w. textured vinyl covering), 144 pages, 27.5 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Gestalten / Berlin
$180.00 - Out of stock
First 2001 edition of Gestalten's milestone photo book collection of Martin Eberle's Temporary Spaces series created in the 1990s—a time when clubs and quasi-clubs were helping to define the image of a reunited Berlin.
Berlin's club scene is an international benchmark for improvised coolness and defined by its software: people, fashion, music, performance and drama.
Spanning over a period of 10 years, Martin Eberle's stunning photographs are the first to document of these locations as they really are. By radically reducing them to their hardware, the empty space, juxtaposing run-down facades and lovingly crafted interiors (from improvised to hysterically glamorous) with architectural brutality, he perfectly captures their legendary, ramshackle hipness.
Filling and contrasting this vague unreal, static void are personal anecdotes by well-known promoters and club patrons who have already "collapsed in pretty much every corner".
Encased in tactile white reptile print, Temporary Spaces simultaneously serves as the nostalgic documentation of a spectacular era, a personal photo album and an uneasy declaration of love for the transience and enthusiasm reverberating in the clean accuracy of these pictures.
Text in English and German by Heinrich Dubel.
Very Good copy.
1999, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fringecore / Belgium
$70.00 - In stock -
First edition of Cinema Contra Cinema is a collection of essays and interviews by cult author Jack Sargeant on the vertiginous extremes of underground cinema. Published in 1999 in Belgium, the book includes underground filmmakers, Bruce La Bruce, Beth B, David Cronenberg, M. Henry Jones, Jeff Keen, Harry Smith, Marne Lucas, Raymond Pettibon, Eric Brummer, Boyd Rice, David Alan Clarke, Craig Baldwin, Vivien Dick, Jeff Krulik, Huck Botko, Beat Takashi, as well as newcomers such as Tyler Hubby, Modi and Peter Strickland. Plus essays on David Cronenberg's Crash, Bruce La Bruce's Hustler White, Mark Heynar's award-winning Affliction and Blunt Cut's De Leiber Rausch. Fully illustrated with many rare and previously unseen photographs.
"The subject matter is excremental, the approach obsessional and the result a kind of pervo-deviant tribute to the spirit of Georges Bataille...serious research activity."—Steve Beard, iD
"The complex critical apparatus of Foucault's Language, Counter-Memory, Practice with the sensibilities of a Todd Browning movie."—Ken Hollings, The Wire
"The post-punk Parker Tyler."—Michael Simmons, LA Weekly
VG copy with light wear to cpver/extremities.
2020, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 148 pages, 30 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Fukkan / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
Wonderful hardcover limited re-issue (also now out-of-print) of Shuji Terayama’s extraordinary 1975 art photobook “Phototheque imaginaire de Shuji Terayama Les Gens de la Famille Chien-Dieu”, an imaginary photo collection of the prolific Japanese avant-garde writer, film maker, poet, photographer, and anarchist, and his "people of the Chien Dieu family." A stunning photomontage collection that perfectly embodies the irreverent spirit of Terayama and his experimental theatre troupe, Tenjō Sajiki, full of bizarre, surrealist, imagery and sexuality, perfectly in harmony with the radical work of his Provoke peers. Terayama’s works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Led by Terayama and active between 1967—1983, Tenjō Sajiki's members included Kohei Ando, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi.
"Terayama’s eclectic work focuses on issues of sexuality, normatised values, traditions, and conventions – breaking (or ignoring) the latter in terms of form and style. This eccentric, dazzling mix of photography, written text, irony, remix, originality, narrative and subconsciousness dives into legends and memories to form its absurd scenery."
From Bertolotti’s Book of Nudes: “The photographs were reproduced in the manner of an old souvenir album…’ as framed photos of staged portraits and’ fake period postcards, with addresses and stamps in their proper place, and they were accompanied by a series of poems and handwritten annotations that emphasized the artist’s intention of mixing expressive language with sophisticated photomontages.”
Very highly recommended. As New.
1997, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 220 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
Tsukasa Shobo / Tokyo
$45.00 - Out of stock
No. 32 (May 1997) of Bizarre Magazine, Japan's first glossy magazine devoted fully to all things "bizarre culture" and the new fetish subculture that exploded in the 1990's, published by manga (and SM Fan) publisher Tsukasa Shobo from 1990—2000s.
"Fetish, bondage, psycho eros, and body arts".
Profusely illustrated throughout with glossy colour and b/w photoshoots styled with fetish fashion materials and costume — models and Japanese AV/pink film idols in rubber, pvc, leather, boots, high heels, corsets, etc. covering all manner of fetishes and cos-themes from cyberpunk to medical, body art, cross-dressing, lesbianism, fem-dom, scene reports from around the world, dominatrix profiles and interviews, lots of manga, articles, stories, advice columns, DIY tutorials, and packed with wild ads for sex clubs, dungeons, bars, bookstores, video catalogues, toys, fashions, reviews of cult books and film, european imports, classifieds, all heavy with illustrations and hundreds, if not thousands of photographs. This issue includes contributions by ORGANIZER's Kyoshi Ikejiri, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Yokoyama Kouji, Mikio Tanaka, heavy metal artist Wes Benscoter, costume designer Yukiko, continued special feature on Japanese cyberpunk-horror film Rubber's Lover by Shozin Fukui (964 Pinocchio), plus hentai sex, diary of a female bondage artist, Practical Scat University, trans men, coverage of fetish film, fetish parties, brothels, bizarre photo galleries, etc. Much like SM Sniper, Bizarre Magazine favoured the exploration of new innovations of fetish and underground sex culture, emphasising the work of the models, stylists, make-up artists, and fashion designers, as much as the writers or photographers, encompassing the entire "new wave" of SM counterculture embedded in underground music, film, fashion and visual art at the dawn of the 90's.
Cover statement: "BIZARRE is not S&M. For the above reason, we produced this magazine. This magazine is the first magazine of BIZARRE in Japan. BIZARRE is based on FETISHISM. Bondage, too, is a kind of fetishism in the field of BIZARRE. Costume and material are the most important. For instance, they are leather, rubber, P.V.C. and satin corset, high heels, boots and so on."
18+ ONLY
Average copy due to some scunching to the lower par of the back cover and last few pages, otherwise Good copy rest.
1992, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 210 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Shishobo / Tokyo
Tsukasa Shobo / Tokyo
$65.00 - Out of stock
May 1992 issue of Bizarre Magazine, Japan's first glossy magazine devoted fully to all things "bizarre culture" and the new fetish subculture that exploded in the 1990's, published by manga (and SM Fan) publisher Tsukasa Shobo from 1990—2000s. "Fetish, bondage, psycho eros, and body arts". Profusely illustrated throughout with glossy colour and b/w photoshoots styled with fetish fashion materials and costume — models and Japanese AV idols in rubber, pvc, leather, boots, high heels, corsets, etc. covering all manner of fetishes and cos-themes from cyberpunk to medical, body art, cross-dressing, lesbianism, fem-dom, scene reports from around the world, dominatrix profiles and interviews, lots of manga, articles, stories, advice columns, DIY tutorials, and packed with wild ads for sex clubs, dungeons, bars, bookstores, video catalogues, toys, fashions, reviews of cult books and film, european imports, classifieds, all heavy with illustrations and hundreds, if not thousands of photographs. Each issue was overseen by a rotating group of editors, this issue including material by Kinichi Tanaka, Junji Ito, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Nao Saejima, Seiu Ito, Domu Kitahara, Issei (Kobe Cannibal) Sagawa, Yukinori Fukushima, Ryuko Yano, Mika Mori, Hiroko Mugibayashi, and many more... Much like SM Sniper, Bizarre Magazine favoured the exploration of new innovations of fetish and underground sex culture, emphasising the work of the models, stylists, make-up artists, and fashion designers, as much as the writers or photographers, encompassing the entire "new wave" of SM counterculture embedded in underground music, film, fashion and visual art at the dawn of the 90's.
Cover statement: "BIZARRE is not S&M. For the above reason, we produced this magazine. This magazine is the first magazine of BIZARRE in Japan. BIZARRE is based on FETISHISM. Bondage, too, is a kind of fetishism in the field of BIZARRE. Costume and material are the most important. For instance, they are leather, rubber, P.V.C. and satin corset, high heels, boots and so on."
18+ ONLY
Very Good copy.
1987, English
Softcover, 233 pages, 22 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
RE/SEARCH / San Francisco
$75.00 - In stock -
"Dazzling deceptions and provocative put-ons from some of the most outrageous artists and personalities living today. Spontaneous, improvised craziness from the Underground in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and points in between. This book opens up a whole new territory of fun and pleasure."
The cult classic and most iconic of the RE/Search publications, PRANKS! A prank is a trick, a mischievous act, and a ludicrous act. Although not regarded as poetic or artistic acts, pranks constitute an art form and genre. Here, a wild chorus of pranksters such as Mark Pauline, Timothy Leary, Monte Cazazza, Boyd Rice, Abbie Hoffman, Jello Biafra, Joe Coleman, Richard Meltzer, Karen Finley, John Waters and Henry Rollins challenge the sovereign authority of words, images and behavioral convention. Some tales are bizarre, as when Boyd Rice presented the First Lady with a skinned sheep's head on a platter. This iconoclastic compendium will dazzle and delight all lovers of humour, satire and irony. A great quotations section is also included.
Contributions from: Mark Pauline, Boyd Rice, Henry Rollins, Joey Skaggs, Ed Hardy, Michael Bidlo, Jello Biafra, Abbie Hoffman, Bruce Conner, Monte Cazazza, Timothy Leary, Paul Krassner, John Day, Karen Finley, Richard Meltzer, Alan Abel, Jeffrey Vallance, John Waters, Earth First!, Paul Mavrides, Mark Mccloud, Kerri Kwinter, Robert Delford Brown, John Cale, Danny Kelly, Frank Discussion, David Levi Strauss, Bruno Richard, Mal Sharpe, Bob Zoell, Joe Coleman, Michael Osterhout, Jerry Casale, John Trubee, Carlo Mccormick, Erik Hobijn, Barry Alfonso, Harry Kipper, and more…
Very Good copy, signed by V. Vale. 1987 edition but re-print ?
1980, Japanese
Softcover, 132 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$500.00 - In stock -
Absolutely incredible, super rare, ultra collectible first edition of the first Namio Harukawa art book, published in Japan in 1980 by leading SM magazine SM Collector and their publishing house, Sun. An absolute treasure of vintage Namio Harukawa femdom works, released a full 20 years prior to his "Big Girl Love / My Fair Fat Lady" (2000) and 32 years before his late "Garden of Domina". By 1980 Namio was already a prolific master of fetish illustration, contributing to countless cult SM magazines. Lavishly illustrated throughout in colour and black and white with gorgeous reproductions on various paper stocks, including full-colour fold-out poster, this volume introduces so many early works never seen in any later monographs with a diverse array of "femdom" fetishes and narratives, including all his SM magazine work through to the establishment of his iconic face-sitting queens. A breath-taking, comprehensive collection that is a must for any fan of Harukawa or erotic illustration, period. Appropriately this "treasured art collection" was named "Chijin No Ai" ("A Fool’s Love") by Harukawa, after Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s novel featuring Naomi, the sadistic heroine whose name was adopted by Harukawa. Cannot recommend this book more.
Namio Harukawa (1947—2020), a pseudonymous Japanese fetish artist best known for his masterful pencil works depicting female domination ("femdom"), with erotic asphyxiation through facesitting appearing as a frequent subject of his art. Born 1947 in Osaka, Japan, Harukawa’s distinctive penname combines the name of film actress Harukawa Masumi with an anagram of Naomi, the sadistic heroine in Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s novel "Chijin no ai / A Fool’s Love". While in high school, Harukawa began contributing work to the readers’ column of leading postwar Japanese SM pulp magazine "Kitan Club". Since then, Harukawa’s drawings of male masochism have lovingly portrayed noble, voluptuously beautiful women and the men who serve them as human furniture. An extraordinary and prolific artist who remained committed to the regime of “absolute Ganmen Kijo Shugi (facesitting principle)” throughout his artistic life, Namio Harukawa passed away on April 2020, he was 72 years old.
Very Good copy, beautifully preserved, only light cover wear.
1996, Japanese
Softcover, 30 bound postcards, 15.5 x 11.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Little More / Tokyo
$500.00 - In stock -
Very rare early book of portraits of Tokyo teenagers by leading Japanese photographer Takashi Homma (b. 1962 in Tokyo, Japan). This special publication features around 30 selected photographs of Homma's iconic and very influential early 1990's photography bound into one volume in the form of thick perforated postcards. These images of Tokyo teens, along with images of their bedrooms and Shibuya / Harajuku street surrounds, are emblematic of Homma's work of the period, known in the West through Purple magazine, etc. Following in the spirit of Provoke photographers such as Araki, Moriyama, and Nakahira, Homma created a new photographic expression for Tokyo at the end of the century. Homma's photography would become a great influence on the fashionable 1990's girly photo boom of Hiromix and Yurie Nagashima, etc.
Fine—As New copy, all postcards still bound, vinyl cover sticker still attached as issued.
1984, Japanese
Softcover, 208 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Gay / Tokyo
$60.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of the February 1984 issue 22 of Tokyo's The Gay, one of the best and lesser-known of Japan's gay magazine scene of the 1970s—1980s, with this issue including a special feature on the reality of the gay scene in New York Manhattan, New York interviews with editors of The Advocate, Christopher Street, and The National Gay Task Force Report (NGTF founded by gays rights activist Bruce Voeller in 1973), an exclusive interview with Japanese cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima, and much more, alongside explicit nude photo shoots of young Japanese men in colour and b/w, illustrations, gay fiction, news, movie reviews, ads, classifieds, articles, essays and other interviews. Packed!
Very Good copy.