World Food Books

Dada: Art and Anti-Art
by Hans Richter

1965, English
Softcover, 246 pages, 20.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Harry N. Abrams / New York

$30.00 - Out of stock

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First 1965 English edition of German Dada painter, graphic artist, avant-garde film producer, and art historian, Hans Richter's important book of the Dada movement. "Where and how Dada began is almost as difficult to determine as Homer's birthplace" writes Hans Richter, who was associated with Dada from its early days. The noted artist and film-maker records here the history of that boisterous and fantastic movement, from its beginnings in wartime Zurich to its collapse in the Paris of the 1920s Dada invited the world to misunderstand it and fostered all kinds of confusion; nearly fifty years later its contradictions still intrigue us.

By skilful quotation from manifestoes and other documents of the time Professor Richter re-creates the events of those turbulent days. Looked at in retrospect Dada's role in the development of modern art seems inevitable, and the creative force of its planned outbursts can now be perceived: Dada led on from Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism, and in its turn prepared the way for Surrealism. Dada was enlivened by extravagant, bizarre personalities: Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray. Today the wheel has turned again; the gestures and provocations of the original movement reappear, hardly changed, in such forms as Pop art. The final section discusses this phenomenon.

"Mr.Richter, one of the original adherents of Dada, describes their attitude in a first-rate history, as objective and sober as the laughter was once derisive."—THE TIMES OF LONDON

Very Good copy, light wear to extremities, tanning to covers.

File under: Hans Richter Tristan Tzara Francis Picabia Hans Arp Kurt Schwitters Marcel Duchamp Max Ernst Man Ray Raoul Hausmann George Grosz Giorgio de Chirico Marcel Janco Hans Richter Tristan Tzara Louis Aragon Andre Breton André Breton Richard Huelsenbeck Philippe Soupault Harry N. Abrams / New York Dada Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Painting Drawing Performance / Dance / Theater Photography Sociology / Politics Protest / Revolt Art 'Pataphysics / Oulipo

Semiotext(e) Vol. II, No. 3, 1977 — Anti-Oedipus: From Psychoanalysis to Schizopolitics
Sylvère Lotringer; Gilles Deleuze; Felix Guattari

1977, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 21.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$200.00 - Out of stock

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Rare copy of this remarkable issue of the original Semiotext(e) journal, published and edited by Sylvère Lotringer between 1974—1985, with later book-length issues appearing in the 1990s. This key issue, Anti-Oedipus: From Psychoanalysis to Schizopolitics, was published hot on the heels of the publication of Deleuze and Guattari's seminal "Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia", published by Viking in 1977. This issue of the journal explores the issues raised by Deleuze and Guattari, whilst searching for their practical applications. Features major contributions by Sylvère Lotringer, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Jean-François Lyotard, Guy Hocquenghem, Antonin Artaud, Jacques Donzelot, John Rajchman, et al.

Founded in 1974, Semiotext(e) began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylvère Lotringer at the Columbia University philosophy department. Initially, the magazine was devoted to readings of thinkers like Nietzsche and Saussure. In 1978, Lotringer and his collaborators published a special issue, Schizo-Culture, in the wake of a conference of the same name he had organized two years before at Columbia University. The magazine brought together artists and thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Kathy Acker, John Cage, Michel Foucault, Jack Smith, Martine Barrat and Lee Breuer. Schizo-Culture brought out connections between high theory and underground culture that had not yet been made, and forged the "high/low" aesthetic that remains central to the Semiotext(e) project.

Very Good copy with some wear and usual tanning to the spine, raw paper stock edges. Spine and binding undamaged.

File under: Antonin Artaud Felix Guattari Gilles Deleuze Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari SylveÌre Lotringer Antonin Artaud Guy Hocquenghem John Rajchman Jean-François Lyotard Jacques Donzelot Ferdinand de Saussure Luce Irigaray Georges Bataille Gerard Bucher Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Anarchism Sociology / Politics Psychoanalysis Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Counterculture Socialism / Communism / Capitalism LGBTQ+ Eros Dada Surrealism Fiction / Poetry

Hannah Höch
Assembled Worlds

2024, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 23 x 17 cm
Published by Scheidegger und Spiess / Zürich

$90.00 - In stock -

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A groundbreaking, richly illustrated book on Hannah Höch’s montages in the context of film and the visual culture of Modernism. Sheds light for the first time on Hannah Höch’s significance as a pioneering artist to confront the industrial age’s flood of images.

Hannah Höch (1889-1978) moved between differing worlds: as an editorial assistant with a major Berlin-based magazine publisher, and as the only woman who could hold her own in the German capital's vibrant Dada scene of the 1920s. Her works dissected a world marked by the catastrophe of the Great War and an intense consumer culture, and reassembled it in revolutionary, poetic, and often ironic ways. Scissors and glue were the weapons of her art of montage, of which she was a coinventor.

Cutting and montage also shaped film, still a new medium in the 1920s, which strongly influenced Höch's art: she understood her assembled pictures as static films. This richly illustrated and expertly annotated book explores comprehensively for the first time Höch's life-long fascination with film and the visual culture of the modern industrial age. Covering her entire career, It demonstrates how montage evolved in a field of tension between artistic experimentation, commercial exploitation, and political appropriation. A text on photomontage by Höch, written in 1948, and a text-collage on the history of montage, in which major protagonists of Modernism and Avant-garde have their say, round out this volume.

Contributors:
Martin Waldmeier is a curator at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.
Nina Zimmer is director of the Kunstmuseum Bern and its affiliate Zentrum Paul Klee.

File under: Hannah Höch Nina Zimmer Maritin Waldmeier Stella Rollig Scheidegger und Spiess / Zürich Art Dada Surrealism Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art

Francis Picabia
The Matthiesen Gallery, London, October—November 1959

1959, English
Softcover (staple bound), 20 pages, 19.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The Matthiesen Gallery / London

$110.00 - In stock -

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Gorgeous and very rare 1959 Francis Picabia exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the solo retrospective show at The Matthiesen Gallery, London, October—November 1959. A catalogue of 56 works, some illustrated with b/w plates, with accompanying text by André Breton. Includes biography.

Francis Picabia (1879—1953) was a Cuban-French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, typographist and provocateur closely associated with Dada. A friend to fellow iconoclasts Duchamp, Breton, Tzara, and Man Ray, Picabia's discordant, self-contradicting art, in which wispy watercolours, pin-up girls and mechanical pistons could hang side by side, had a clear conviction: to crush distinctions between high and low, elegance and kitsch, and to force us all to the limits of taste. When considering the many styles that Picabia painted in, observers have described his career as "shape-shifting" or "kaleidoscopic". After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism. “The Cuban who out-cubed the Cubists”, his highly abstract planar compositions were colourful and rich in contrasts. He was one of the early major figures of the Dada movement in the United States and in France, publishing his Dada periodical 391 with Duchamp before denouncing Dada in 1921 in favour of the development of Surrealism. "If you want to have clean ideas, change them like shirts."—Picabia. From 1922, Breton's relaunched Littérature magazine featured cover artwork every issue by Picabia that drew on religious imagery, erotic iconography, and the iconography of games of chance. In 1925, Picabia returned to figurative painting, his "Monster" period, followed by his "Transparencies" series (1927—1930) and his then abhorred pin-up girl/"Nazi porn" paintings, all highly influential on contemporary German painters such as Sigmar Polke. Picabia would soon turn his back on the art establishment altogether.

Very Good copy with light shadow from sticker to top-left of cover, two National Gallery of Victoria stamps.

File under: Francis Picabia Andre Breton The Matthiesen Gallery / London Painting Surrealism Drawing Out-of-print / Rare Art Dada

Francis Picabia
Litterature

2018, English
Hardcover (die-cut linen-bound), 64 pages, 22.9 x 29.9 cm
Ed. of 500,
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Small Press / New York

$115.00 - In stock -

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Limited to 500 copies, and now out-of-print, Litterature pairs excerpts from Francis Picabia’s (1879–1953) novel Caravanserail with nine drawings and seventeen studies he created for the cover of André Breton’s Litterature journal between 1922 and 1924. This beautifully produced linen-bound book—whose front cover features circular die-cuts derived from one of Picabia’s dice drawings—offers a celebration of subversive play and fluid forms.

Originally produced as potential covers for André Breton's 1920s Surrealist literary journal, Littérature, the twenty-six subversive—at the time, even scandalous—Francis Picabia drawings that are collected in this remarkable new limited edition from Small Press Books had been sealed in an envelope (dated August 8, 1923) and forgotten for decades until Breton's daughter, Aube Breton-Elléouët, unearthed and exhibited them in 2008. Of the original group, only nine of these playfully insurgent works were actually published by Breton. According to a 1922 letter from fellow Dadaist Marcel Duchamp to Breton, American retailers considered Picabia's cover graphics far too salacious to be displayed on their newsstands. Thus Duchamp was forced to become the journal's only American micro-distributor, circulating it among likeminded friends until its demise in 1924.

Edited by Stephanie LaCava. Translated by Lauren Elkin. Design by Eric Wrenn Office.

File under: Francis Picabia Marcel Duchamp Andre Breton Small Press / New York Dada Art Painting Drawing Fiction / Poetry Surrealism

Max Ernst

1960, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 106 pages, 26.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Misuzu Shobo / Tokyo

$100.00 - In stock -

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First edition of this lovely 1960 hardcover monograph published in Tokyo on the German Surrealist Max Ernst (1891—1976), as part of a Misuzu Shobo series on Modern European and American artists issued for Japanese readers. With accompanying text by Japanese poet, critic and fellow Surrealist artist Shūzō Takiguchi. A prolific and highly original painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet, Ernst's various works are surveyed (paintings, collages, and frottages dating upto the late 1950s) herein generously in colour and b/w reproductions. Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada and Surrealism movements.

Very Good copy with some internal blank stock paper tanning. Dust Jacket with some wear and tear to extremities, all preserved in mylar wrap. A lovely copy of this uncommon title.

File under: Max Ernst Shūzō Takiguchi Shūzō Takiguchi Misuzu Shobo / Tokyo Surrealism Dada Painting Out-of-print / Rare Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Art Drawing

Hannah Höch

2022, English
Softcover, 256 pages, 21 x 26 cm
Published by Prestel / Munich

$70.00 - In stock -

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Now available in paperback, this book on the celebrated Dada artist Hannah Höch explores her use of collage as the artistic medium of choice for both satire and poetic beauty.

World-renowned for her work during the Weimar period, Hannah Höch was a pioneer in many aspects, both artistic and cultural. She was the lone woman of the Berlin Dada movement - the riotous form of art that deconstructed sound, language, and images to re-assemble them into new objects, texts and meanings. Höch was a pivotal force in the development of collage, paving the way for today's ubiquitous image editing techniques. A determined believer in women's rights, Höch questioned conventional concepts of partnership, beauty and the making of art, her work presenting acute critiques of racial and social stereotypes, particularly that of her native Germany.

Focusing on Höch's collages, this book examines the artist's career from the 1920s to the 1970s, charting her oeuvre from early works influenced by fashion and mass media, through to her later compositions of lyrical abstraction. It reveals her rapid development of a personal style, which was both humorous and often moving, but also offered critical commentary on society at a time of tremendous social change.

Included are essays that examine themes such as the concept of the "New Woman" and the legacy of German colonialism. Featuring international scholarship on a groundbreaking artist, this volume brings together important source texts and reference material, which were first translated into English for the original edition of this book.

Dawn Ades is Professor Emerita of the History and Theory of Art at the University of Essex, and Professor of Art History at the Royal Academy. She is a former Trustee of Tate and Fellow of the British Academy.

Daniel F. Herrmann is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Projects, The National Gallery.

Emily Butler is a curator, writer and translator, currently Mahera and Mohammad Abu Ghazaleh Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery.

File under: Hannah Hoch Hannah Höch Dawn Ades Daniel F. Herrmann Prestel / Munich Art Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Dada Surrealism

MAX ERNST
1983/1984

1983, Japanese / German / English
Softcover, 164 pages, 24 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Yomiuri Shimbun / Tokyo

$60.00 - In stock -

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Scarce Japanese catalogue on the work of German artist Max Ernst, published to accompany the major retrospective exhibition that travelled Japan 1983—1984.

With an introduction by German art historian Werner Spies, in German and Japanese, this profusely illustrated book is quite a valuable volume on Ernst as it concentrates its pages on a huge collection of his lithography, frottage, collage, etching, and other graphic works, rather than his more well-known works in painting and sculpture, bringing to the surface many lesser-seen works of the artist. Over 300 colour and black and white reproductions, including biography and bibliography. Texts in Japanese and German, with titles and introduction in English.

Max Ernst (1891—1976) was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism.

Good copy with wear and creasing to corners, general wear and tear to cover extremities. Spine uncreased and tightly bound.

File under: Max Ernst Werner Spies Yomiuri Shimbun / Tokyo Art Out-of-print / Rare Sculpture / Installation Surrealism Painting Dada

Man Ray
1890–1976 Genius of light

2024, English
Softcover, 232 pages, 29.8 x 24.8 cm
Published by Silvana / Milan Palais Lumière / Évian-les-Bains

$85.00 - Out of stock

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Man Ray occupies a prominent place in the history of 20th-century art. A versatile artist, who lived mainly in Paris, he is best known as a photographer. Indeed, he was one of the first to use photography, not as a simple means of reproduction, but as a genuine creative medium, turning the technique into an art form. Some of his photographs, such as Le Violon d’Ingres (1924) and Noire et blanche (1926), have achieved iconic status.

Born in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) on 27 August 1890, Emmanuel Radnitsky, known as Man Ray (as in a ray of light), actively participated in the intellectual and artistic circles of New York. He discovered the European avant-gardes and befriended Marcel Duchamp who opened the doors of Dadaism to him and welcomed him to Paris in July 1921.

At the heart of Parisian artistic life, he participated in the innovative experiments of the Dadaists and Surrealists, met with painters, poets and intellectuals, and became famous for his portraits. He developed a career as a fashion photographer, notably for designers Paul Poiret and Elsa Schiaparelli. A tireless experimenter, he rediscovered the technique of “photograms” (abstract silhouettes of objects) that Tristan Tzara named “rayographs” and in 1929, with his new partner Lee Miller, developed the “solarization” technique. In 1940, after the fall of France, Man Ray left for the United States and met Juliet Browner, who became his wife and muse. He returned to Paris in 1951 and lived there until his death in 1976.
Man Ray is renowned for having revolutionized the art of photography, but he was also a painter, draughtsman, assembler of objects, sculptor, writer and filmmaker. It is this protean artist that we seek to discover or re-discover, through a true panorama of his works, which will enable us to comprehend Man Ray’s creative process and the importance of his art.

Edited by Robert Rocca, Pierre-Yves Butzbach.
Texts by Robert Rocca, Pierre-Yves Butzbach, Serge Sanchez, Man Ray, Sylvie Gonzalez, Laurence Benaïm, Marie-Pierre Ribère, Jean-Michel Bouhours.

File under: Man Ray Marcel Duchamp Lee Miller Juliet Browner Robert Rocca Pierre-Yves Butzbach Serge Sanchez Man Ray Sylvie Gonzalez Laurence Benaïm Marie-Pierre Ribère Jean-Michel Bouhours. Silvana / Milan Palais Lumière / Évian-les-Bains Surrealism Dada Photography Sculpture / Installation Painting Drawing Art

OBJECT & IDEA
New Work by Australian Artists

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

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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.

File under: John Armstrong Tony Coleing Aleks Danko Nigel Lendon Ti Parks Imants Tillers Peter Cripps Brian Finemore Gregory Heath Ian Millis John Stringer Graeme Sturgeon NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) / Victoria Australian Art Sculpture / Installation Dada Conceptual Art Out-of-print / Rare Art Group Shows / Collections Minimal Art

Man Ray
[1890—1976]

1990, Japanese / French / English
2 volumes in cardboard slipcase (w. exhibition flyer); volume 1 68 pages (colour ill.) volume 2 196 pages (b/w ill.), 22.5 x 29.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Sezon Museum of Art / Tokyo

$100.00 - Out of stock

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Wonderful, visually exhaustive two-volume boxset catalogue for the traveling exhibition in Japan in 1990—1991, held on the centenary of Man Ray's birth.

Each volume of this Japanese publication on the American artist Man Ray serves as a wonderful index of his incredible lifetime of work. Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Man Ray was a renowned representative of avant-garde photography in the 20th century and is considered as the pioneer of Surrealist photography. A major contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media including drawings, objects and films, but considered himself a painter above all. Volume One compiles many examples of his diverse non-photographic works, reproducing his many paintings, drawings, objects, prints and book editions in full colour. Volume Two (the heavier of the two volumes) focuses on his prolific photographic work, copiously illustrated with a huge catalogue of beautifully reproduced monochromatic works throughout his entire career — Paris, America, Dada, Surrealism and beyond — showcasing his significant contribution to the evaluation of photography as a form of modern art.

Accompanying texts by Merry Foresta, Lucien Treillard, Toshiharu Ito in Japanese, French and English. Primarily in Japanese language. Includes full biography, bibliography and catalogue of all works.

Good—VG copy. Light wear/age/foxing to slipcase and covers otherwise Very Good in general.
1991 exhibition flyer at Seibu laid in.

File under: Man Ray Marcel Duchamp Sezon Museum of Art / Tokyo Surrealism Dada Out-of-print / Rare Sculpture / Installation Art Photography Eros

Putting My Foot In It: A Novel
by René Crevel

1992, English
Softcover, 173 pages, 24 x 15 cm
Published by Dalkey Archive Press / US

$32.00 - Out of stock

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English edition of this 1933 classic surrealist novel by René Crevel (1900-1935), a bisexual communist dadaist who suffered a traumatic religious upbringing and suffered from tuberculosis. Crevel is considered to be one of the most important writers of surrealist fiction, a true genius of the movement. Translated by Thomas Buckley, this edition includes Ezra Pound's well-known essay on Crevel as a foreword, and an introduction by Edouard Roditi.

Imagine, if you can, Freud and Proust sitting down for a chat with Zippy the Pinhead and the marquis de Sade. Then, just when things are starting to get a bit silly, in walks Karl Marx with a dead serious face to deliver a vitriolic diatribe. After he has finished his speech, Jacques Lacan enters and slips a couch under the narrator, who begins psychoanalyzing himself and his text. Zippy soon prevails, however, and the narrative has turned into a political allegory with characters out of Felix the Cat: a surrealist, graphic (historiographic, geographic, pornographic) version of The Romance of the Rose. Rene Crevel's 1933 novel Putting My Foot in It (Les Pieds dans le plat) has long been considered a classic of the surrealist period, but has never been translated into English until now. Loosely structured around a luncheon attended by thirteen guests, the novel is a surrealistic critique of the intellectual corruption of post-World War I France, especially the capitalist bourgeoisie and its supporter, the Catholic Church. The novel begins with an account of the family of the major character, known as the "Prince of Journalists." This bizarre family - the grandparents a soldier and a sodomized woman, the parents an orphaned epileptic and a hunchback - is matched by Crevel's bizarre syntax and vocabulary: nouns that initially appear legitimate, intact, and respectable, soon decompose into obscene epithets, making other nouns, both common and proper, suspect. The story continues in this way to deconstruct itself on many levels - literary, semantic, psychological, ideological - until the final chapter, when the luncheon degenerates in a way reminiscent of a Bunuel film and all of the novel'scharacters appear in a dirty movie entitled The Geography Lesson, a final metaphor for the corruption of European society between the world wars.

File under: René Crevel René Crevel Thomas Buckley Ezra Pound Edouard Roditi Dalkey Archive Press / US Fiction / Poetry Surrealism Dada

Documenta 5
by Harald Szeemann

1972, German / English / French
Vinyl ring-binder (screen printed w. design by E. Ruscha), 650 pages +, 32 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by documenta / Kassel

$500.00 - Out of stock

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Scarce copy of the only edition of the most elaborately designed, and lowest circulated Documenta catalogue, conceived by curator Harald Szeemann to accompany the fifth edition of Documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition held in Kassel, Germany.

Subtitled "100 Days of Inquiry into Reality -- Today's Imagery," curated by the team of Harald Szeemann, Jean-Christophe Ammann and Arnold Bode, Documenta 5 followed a lineage of comprehensive shows documenting conceptually and minimally charged artworks curated by Szeemann including Live in Your Head (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969), and Happenings and Fluxus (Kunstverein, Köln), 1970. The largest, most expensive and most diverse of any exhibition anywhere, Documenta 5 was criticized in 1972 as being “bizarre…vulgar…sadistic” by art critic and essayist Hilton Kramer and “monstrous… overtly deranged” by art historian and art critic Barbara Rose, yet it still resonates today as one of the most important exhibitions in history. Featuring the works of over 170 artists and an equally expansive variety of materials and subjects drawn from popular cultural materials, architecture, science fiction, kitsch objects, film, advertising, children's art, etc. in addition to the more anticipated international survey of new painting and sculpture - Documenta 5 valiantly attempted to bridge the gap between art, culture, science and the broader society. This massive tome is housed in the iconic orange vinyl-covered, two-ring binder screen printed with the famous ant design by Edward Ruscha. The binder holds a tabbed index of illustrated artist's pages and associated texts and material, largely in German, but also many in English. All registers are present apart from the usual missing 19-25 which were not directly integrated into the catalogue and had to be ordered by the visitor separately to become their own contribution. This very complete copy also includes the additional 80 page, hole-punched Documenta 5 guide book, with floor plans, complete listing of exhibited artworks, list of exhibitions, bibliography, and many gallery, museum and other related advertisements. More than a catalogue, this publication is a piece of art history in itself.

Includes artists: Vito Acconci, Vincenzo Agnetti, Peter Alexander, John de Andrea, Giovanni Anselmo, Arbeitszeit, Archigram, Chuck Arnoldi, Art & Language, Richard Artschwager, Michael Ashkin, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Georg Baselitz, Lothar Baumgarten, Robert Bechtle, Gottfried Bechtold, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Karl Oskar Blase, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Christian Boltanski, Claudio Bravo, George Brecht, K.P. Brehmer, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Günter Brus, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Michael Buthe, James Lee Byars, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Castelli, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Chuck Close, Tony Conrad, Ron Cooper, Bill Copley, Joseph Cornell, Robert Cottingham, Paul Cotton, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, David Deutsch, Jan Dibbets, Herbert Distel, Gino de Dominicis, Marcel Duchamp, John Dugger, Don Eddy, Franz Eggenschwiler, Ger van Elk, Richard Estes, Luciano Fabro, John C. Fernie, Robert Filliou, Jud Fine, Joel Fisher, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Hamish Fulton, Franz Gertsch, Gilbert & George, Ralph Goings, Hubert Gojowczyk, Dan Graham, Walter Grasskamp, Nancy Graves, Hans Haacke, Duane Hanson, Guy Harloff, Michael Harvey, Haus-Rucker-Co, Auguste Herbin, Eva Hesse, Rebecca Horn, Jean Olivier Hucleux, Douglas Huebler, Jörg Immendorff, Will Insley, Rolf Iseli, Ken Jacobs, Neil Jenney, Alfred Jensen, Jasper Johns, Joan Jonas, Max G. Kaminski, Howard Kanovitz, Edward Kienholz, Imi Knoebel, Christof Kohlhofer, Jannis Kounellis, Tom Kovachevich, Piotr Kowalski, David Lamelas, Barry Le Va, Jean LeGac, Alfred Leslie, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Ingeborg Luscher, Inge Mahn, Robert Mangold, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Etienne Martin, Richard McLean, David Medalla, Fernando Melani, Jim Melchert, Mario Merz, Gustav Metzger, Bernd Minnich, Malcolm Morley, Ed Moses, Bruce Nauman, Hermann Nitsch, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Blinky Palermo, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, A.R. Penck, Giuseppe Penone, Vettor Pisani, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Posen, Markus Raetz, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Klaus Rinke, Dorothea Rockburne, Peter Roehr, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Ulrich Ruckriem, Robert Ryman, John Salt, Salvo, Lucas Samaras, Paul Sarkisian, Jean-Frederic Schnyder, Ben Schonzeit, Werner Schroeter, HA Schult, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Fritz Schwegler, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Allan Shields, Katharina Sieverding, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Klaus Staeck, Paul Staiger, Jorge Stever, Robert Strubin, Paul Thek, Wayne Thiebaud, Andre Thomkins, David Tremlett, Richard Tuttle, Ben Vautier, W + B Hein, Franz Erhard Walther, Robert Watts, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, John Wesley, H.C. Westermann, William Wiley, Rolf Winnewisser, Tom Wudl, Klaus Wyborny, La Monte Young, Peter Young, Gilberto Zorio.

Catalogue also includes Bob Projansky and Seth Siegelaub's "The Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement." This "Agreement form has been drafted by Bob Projansky, a New York lawyer, after my [Siegelaub] extensive discussions and correspondence with over 500 artists, dealers, lawyers, collectors, museum people, critics and other concerned people involved in the day-to-day workings of the international art world. The Agreement has been designed to remedy some generally acknowledged inequities in the art world, particularly artists' lack of control over the use of their work and participation in its economics after they no longer own it. The Agreement for has been written with special awareness of the current ordinary practices and economic realitites of the art world, particularly its private, cash and informal nature, with careful regard for the interests and motives of all concerned. It is expected to be the standard form for the transfer and sale of all contemporary art, and has been made as fair, simple and useful as possible. It can be used either as presented here or slightly altered to fit your specific situation. If the following information does not answer all your questions consult your attorney." -- from Agreement's cover. Copies of the contract are individually included in English, Germany, and French editions.

Very Good, complete (as issued) copy. Very minor wear.

File under: Vito Acconci Vincenzo Agnetti Peter Alexander John de Andrea Giovanni Anselmo Arbeitszeit Archigram Chuck Arnoldi Art & Language Richard Artschwager Michael Ashkin John Baldessari Robert Barry Georg Baselitz Lothar Baumgarten Robert Bechtle Gottfried Bechtold Joseph Beuys Karl Oskar Blase Mel Bochner Alighiero Boetti Christian Boltanski Claudio Bravo George Brecht Marcel Broodthaers Stanley Brouwn Günter Brus Daniel Buren Victor Burgin Michael Buthe James Lee Byars Pier Paolo Calzolari Luciano Castelli Chuck Close Tony Conrad Ron Cooper Bill Copley Joseph Cornell Robert Cottingham Paul Cotton Hanne Darboven Walter De Maria David Deutsch Jan Dibbets Herbert Distel Gino de Dominicis Marcel Duchamp John Dugger Don Eddy Franz Eggenschwiler Ger van Elk Richard Estes Luciano Fabro John C. Fernie Robert Filliou Jud Fine Joel Fisher Terry Fox Howard Fried Hamish Fulton Franz Gertsch Gilbert & George Ralph Goings Hubert Gojowczyk Dan Graham Walter Grasskamp Nancy Graves Hans Haacke Duane Hanson Guy Harloff Michael Harvey Haus-Rucker-Co Auguste Herbin Eva Hesse Rebecca Horn Jean Olivier Hucleux Douglas Huebler Jörg Immendorff Will Insley Rolf Iseli Ken Jacobs Neil Jenney Alfred Jensen Jasper Johns Joan Jonas Max G. Kaminski Howard Kanovitz Edward Kienholz Imi Knoebel Christof Kohlhofer Jannis Kounellis H.C. Westermann William Wiley Rolf Winnewisser Tom Wudl Klaus Wyborny La Monte Young Peter Young Gilberto Zorio Franz Erhard Walther Robert Watts William Wegman Lawrence Weiner John Wesley Tom Kovachevich Piotr Kowalski David Lamelas Barry Le Va Jean LeGac Alfred Leslie Richard Long Ingeborg Lüscher Inge Mahn Brice Marden Yoko Ono Dennis Oppenheim Blinky Palermo Panamarenko Giulio Paolini A.R. Penck Giuseppe Penone Vettor Pisani Sigmar Polke Stephen Posen Markus Raetz Arnulf Rainer Gerhard Richter Klaus Rinke Dorothea Rockburne Peter Roehr Allen Ruppersberg Edward Ruscha Reiner Ruthenbeck Ulrich Ruckriem Robert Ryman John Salt Salvo Lucas Samaras Paul Sarkisian Jean-Frederic Schnyder Ben Schonzeit Werner Schroeter HA Schult Rudolf Schwarzkogler Fritz Schwegler Richard Serra Paul Sharits Allan Shields Katharina Sieverding Robert Smithson Michael Snow Keith Sonnier Klaus Staeck Paul Staiger Jorge Stever Robert Strubin Paul Thek Malcolm Morley Ed Moses Bruce Nauman Hermann Nitsch Claes Oldenburg Agnes Martin Etienne-Martin Richard McLean David Medalla Fernando Melani Bernd and Hilla Becher K. P. Brehmer Christo & Jeanne-Claude Seth Siegelaub Harald Szeemann Jean-Christophe Ammann Bob Projansky Arnold Bode documenta / Kassel Art Group Shows / Collections Out-of-print / Rare Objects / Ephemera / A/V Arte Povera Conceptual Art Feminism Theory / Essay Architecture / Interior Performance / Dance / Theater Fluxus Dada Curatorial Film / Video Minimal Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Painting Photography Pop Art Sculpture / Installation Counterculture Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Are You All Crazy?
by René Crevel

2023, English
Softcover, 198 pages, 20.4 x 12.7 cm
Published by Snuggly Books / UK

$40.00 - In stock -

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René Crevel (1900-1935), a bisexual communist who suffered from tuberculosis, was one of the most important surrealist authors, a true genius, and possibly the best writer of surrealist fiction, and no other of his works of fiction is more surreal than Are You All Crazy?-originally published in 1929 and here presented for the first time in English in a superb translation by Sue Boswell. In this feverish, full-speed-ahead novel of out-and-out madness, we meet a redhead who gives birth to a blue child, hear the naughty song of the pigtail-pullers, visit the Sexual Institute of Dr Optimus Cerf-Mayer, attend an eonism séance, and witness a fifty-kilo rat disembowelling a fakir.

Are You All crazy? is a subversive masterpiece and a work of deep psychological interest, which, although puzzling in the utmost in its excesses of satirical bravado, certainly must be acknowledged to be one of the great European novels.

File under: Sue Boswell René Crevel Snuggly Books / UK Fiction / Poetry Surrealism Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Dada

Environments and Happenings
Edited by Adrian Henri

1974, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 21 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Thames and Hudson / London

$30.00 - Out of stock

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Environments and Happenings by painter and poet Adrian Henri, published by Thames & Hudson in 1974, forms one of the first mainstream book surveys to trace the phenomenon of environmental/performative/total living artworks that became prevalent in the 1960s/70s. This historical study is profusely illustrated in colour and b/w with many international works from Fluxus to Zero to Dolle Mina to Nouveau Réalisme to Provo to Gutai to The Situationists and much more. Includes the works of Joseph Beuys, Clarence Schmidt, Ray Johnson, Öyvind Fahlström, Paul Thek, Yves Klein, Allan Kaprow, Hans Haacke, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Guerllia Art Action Group, Daniel Spoerri, Wolf Vostell, Gustav Metzger, Peter Kuttner, Jackson Pollock, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Robert Morris, Situationist International, Ferdinand Kriwet, Klaus Rinke, Duane Hanson, A-Yo, Meret Oppenheim, Space Structure Workshop, Ferdinand Cheval, Dolle Mina (Mad Mina), Robert Smithson, Jeff Nuttall, Stefan Wewerka, Christo, Dennis Oppenheim, Vladimir Tatlin, Provo, Barry Flanagan, Andy Warhol, Meredith Monk, Atsuko Tanaka, Kazuo Shiraga, Ed Keinholz, Yayoi Kusama, Piero Gilardi, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Claes Oldenburg, Les Levine, James Rosenquist, Red Grooms, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Eduardo Paolozzi, and many many more. Includes reproductions of performance scripts, partial chronology, etc.

Very Good copy, previous owner name to front endpaper.

File under: Guerilla Art Action Group Joseph Beuys Clarence Schmidt Ray Johnson Öyvind Fahlström Paul Thek Yves Klein Hans Haacke Kurt Schwitters Marcel Duchamp Guerllia Art Action Group Daniel Spoerri Wolf Vostell Gustav Metzger Peter Kuttner Jackson Pollock Alison Knowles Dick Higgins Robert Morris Situationist International Ferdinand Kriwet Klaus Rinke Duane Hanson A-Yo Meret Oppenheim Space Structure Workshop Ferdinand Cheval Dolle Mina (Mad Mina) Robert Smithson Jeff Nuttall Stefan Wewerka Christo Dennis Oppenheim Vladimir Tatlin Provo Barry Flanagan Andy Warhol Meredith Monk Atsuko Tanaka Kazuo Shiraga Ed Keinholz Yayoi Kusama Piero Gilardi Niki de Saint-Phalle Jean Tinguely Claes Oldenburg Les Levine James Rosenquist Red Grooms Tom Wesselmann George Segal Eduardo Paolozzi Allan Kaprow Adrian Henri Thames and Hudson / London Sculpture / Installation Out-of-print / Rare Performance / Dance / Theater Fluxus Arte Povera Conceptual Art Art Dada Counterculture Curatorial Group Shows / Collections Painting Pop Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Surrealism Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Sound / Music

Genpei Akasegawa
1985-1990 : From the Perspective of Genpei Akasegawa

2023, Japanese
Softcover, 168 pages, 20.5 x 20.5 cm
Published by Ribonsha / Japan

$70.00 - In stock -

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Photo book of works by Japanese avant-garde artist and writer, Genpei Akasegawa (1937—2014), refreshing his legacy as an artist who pioneered ways of thinking about art under capitalism that still feel like trenchant critiques decades later.

Genpei Akasegawa was not only an artist who successfully transitioned from the avant-garde to the broader realm of popular culture but also an award-winning writer and photographer. He emerged in the Japanese art scene in the 1960s. Best known internationally as a member of the influential, anti-art collective Hi-Red Center (1963–64), Genpei Akasegawa is one of the all-time trickster figures of Japanese art history. The famous Model 1,000-Yen Note Incident (1963), which involved a real-life police investigation and trial, solidified his reputation as an inspired conceptualist. In 1986, Akasegawa, and his collaborators, including the Japanese architect Terunobu Fujimori, formed a new group called the Rojō Kansatsu Gakkai (Street Observation Society). Within this group, Akasegawa showcased a series of photographs featuring Tokyo's bizarre and overlooked architectural features. These structures, referred to by Akasegawa as 'Thommasons', were often disregarded by society but were repurposed by Akasegawa as objects of artistic value.

Keiko Toyoda, of Shiseido Gallery, invited six midcareer artists to select photographs from 40,000 unexhibited 35mm reversal film prints, shot between 1985 and 2006, which Akasegawa kept carefully filed in his study. Shuta Hasunuma, Zon Ito, Sachiko Kazama, Yuko Mohri, Yuta Nakamura and Yasuhiro Suzuki each chose around 20 prints each, presented in this first survey book of Akasegawa's photography, from his ‘Hyperart Thomasson’ project of the 1970s onward: photographs of functionless objects embedded and preserved in everyday spaces despite their lack of utility, to capturing everything from odd lines scored into a patch of green asphalt to table settings and cat portraits (in pre-meme-era 1993).

In addition to his artistic work, Akasegawa was also a prolific writer and critic, having authored over 20 publications on art and culture.

File under: Genpei Akasegawa Ribonsha / Japan Japanese Photography Conceptual Art Photography Dada Art

Kurt Schwitters 1887—1948

1959, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 16 pages, 20.5 x 10.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by The Arts Council / London

$55.00 - Out of stock

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Lovely rare 1959 catalogue produced on the occasion of the Kurt Schwitters exhibition held by The Arts Council in London. It was in England that the modest and gentle Schwitters spent his last 7 years before he passed away in 1948. Illustrated with a selection of his constructions and collages, his MERZ works, accompanied by an introduction by art historian Alan Bowness, a full catalogue of works and a biographical note, all spread across multiple paper and tissue stocks, exquisitely letter-pressed and printed by Graphis Press in London.

Kurt (Hermann Eduard Karl Julius) Schwitters (1887—1948) was a German artist, one of the great masters of 20th century art. Associated with Der Sturm in Germany, the Dadaists, Constructivists, and Surrealists, Schwitters was a pioneer of abstract art. Working across the fields of poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography, and what came to be known as installation art., he developed his own kind of Modern Art, called MERZ.

Near Fine copy.

File under: Kurt Schwitters The Arts Council / London Dada Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Sculpture / Installation Painting Art

Max Ernst
Una settimana di bonta oi sette elementi capitali

1978, Italian / French
Softcover, 230 pages, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Mazzotta / Milan

$50.00 - Out of stock

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First 1978 Mazzotta edition of this absolute classic of Surrealist collage by Max Ernst, first published in 1934. If the collage technique has become an art, it owes it to a work like this book and of course to Max Ernst, one of the masters of collage and incomparable Surrealist painter. Western art has always tried to tear apart the straitjackets of the imprisoned body with one hand: but no one has succeeded in this insurrection like Max Ernst in the novel-collages he invented and brought to climax between 1929 and 1934. These are images accompanied by rapturous captions and cropped from the illustrations of serial novels from the 19th and early 20th centuries, full of sensual and innocent girls undermined by dark pupils of Sade, and messieurs in black suits and spats who hide shameful foibles, while in the background "the city full of dreams" by Baudelaire trembles and again "the specter lures the passer-by in broad daylight". A dreamlike staging inherited from the feuilletons, therefore, but which Ernst, with his montage made up of mysterious juxtapositions and obscure cuts, the exaltation of chance and the thrill of analogy, with his slow-motion cinema and his comic strip for adults only, has been able to transform into the banner of the perennial revolt of desire.

Bi-lingual texts (French/Italian) by Jarry, Schwob, Breton, Eluard...
A masterpiece.

Very Good copy some edge wear, ageing.

File under: Max Ernst Marcel Schwob Alfred Jarry Paul Eluard André Breton Mazzotta / Milan Surrealism Drawing Painting Art Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Dada

Angura (Underground Theatre) No. 1
May, 1969 (Anti-Theater)

1969, Japanese
Softcover, 128 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo

$360.00 - In stock -

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Very rare copy of the first issue of Angura (Underground Theatre), the "Dramatic Theory Magazine", published in 1969 in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. Strikingly designed by the great Japanese art director Ryōichi Enomoto, this issue's special feature is ‘Anti-Theater’, with contributions by Shūji Terayama, photographer Yoshihiro Tatsuki, artist Jiro Takamatsu, poet Tadaaki Mori, director and cinematographer Sakumi Hagiwara, critic Masaaki Hiraoka, critic Koichi Isoda, actor Shigeomi Satô, 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.

Very Good copy.

File under: Shuji Terayama Shūji Terayama Tenjo Sajiki Tenjō Sajiki Ryōichi Enomoto Yoshihiro Tatsuki Sakumi Hagiwara Jiro Takamatsu Shigeomi Satô Tadanori Yokoo Izumi Suzuki Aquirax Uno Hubert Selby Jr. Koichi Isoda Masaaki Hiraoka Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo Art Out-of-print / Rare Performance / Dance / Theater Periodicals Theory / Essay Film / Video Eros Counterculture Fluxus Surrealism Dada

Traces of Living: Drawings
by Franciszka Themerson

1969, English
Softcover, unpaginated, 31 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Gaberbocchus Press / London

$200.00 - In stock -

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Very rare copy of the first and only 1969 edition of Franciszka Themerson's artist book, Traces of Living: Drawings, self-published by her avant-garde London publishing house, Gaberbocchus Press, founded in 1948 by the artist couple Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, along with translator Barbara Wright and the artist Gwen Barnard. Traces of Living is a gorgeous over-sized album teeming with Themerson's remarkable line drawings. Her experimental drawings became synonymous with the radical originality of the presses book-design, which includes works by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters, Bertrand Russell, Raymond Queneau, and many others. Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi was its flagship publication, published in many editions and still in print. The Gaberbocchus edition is a most apposite evocation of the spirit of Jarry's grotesque fable. The text, which was hand-written directly onto lithographic plates by the translator, Barbara Wright - interspersed with Themerson's conte crayon illustrations - is printed on loud yellow pages. Themerson's contributions as illustrator contributed enormously to the autograph originality of design of Gaberbocchus books. The content of the Themersons' own books were often experiments with language and visual effects. The form was tailored for each publication to support and complement the content, using self-produced paper and other techniques. Apart from appearing in many journals worldwide, several collections of Franciszka Themerson's drawings have been published as books: Forty Drawings for Friends, London 1940-42 (1943), The Way It Walks (1954), Traces of Living (1969) and Music (1998). Themerson's theatre designs included marionette productions of Ubu Roi, Ubu Enchainé and the Threepenny Opera, mostly made for the Marionetteatern in Stockholm, in the 1960s, which toured worldwide for decades, and were rewarded with international acclaim. Many of these were exhibited at the National Theatre in 1993.

Good—Very Good copy with some light spine pinches, markings to covers.

File under: Franciszka Themerson Franciszka Themerson Gaberbocchus Press / London 'Pataphysics / Oulipo Dada Out-of-print / Rare Painting Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Fiction / Poetry Graphic Design / Typography

Semantic Divertissements
by Franciszka Themerson and Stefan Themerson

1962, English
Softcover (staple-bound), unpaginated, 32 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Gaberbocchus Press / London

$350.00 - In stock -

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Exceptionally rare copy of the first and only 1962 edition of wife and husband Franciszka Themerson and Stefan Themerson's experimental artist book, Semantic Divertissements, self-published by their avant-garde London publishing house, Gaberbocchus Press, founded in 1948 by the artist couple, along with translator Barbara Wright and the artist Gwen Barnard. Semantic Divertissements is a gorgeous over-sized album presenting ten collaborative artworks combining Stefan's amusing concrete poetry with Franciszka's whimsical drawings. Married in 1931, the couple begun collaborating together making experimental film, inventing the ‘moving photogram’ as its principal medium. As key catalysts behind a vital film-making avant-garde in 1930s Warsaw, they made five short, lyrical and technically inventive films. The Themerson's own books were often experiments with language and visual effects. The form was tailored for each publication to support and complement the content, using self-produced paper and other experimental techniques. Their radical approach was echoed in the presses original book-design and catalogue, which included works by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters, Bertrand Russell, Raymond Queneau, and many others.

Good—Very Good copy with some light corner bumping, light cover marks and light bug nibbles.

File under: Franciszka Themerson Stefan Themerson Franciszka Themerson Stefan Themerson Gaberbocchus Press / London Fiction / Poetry Dada 'Pataphysics / Oulipo Out-of-print / Rare Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Graphic Design / Typography

Exploits & Opinions Of Dr Faustroll
by Alfred Jarry

2023, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 15 x 20 cm
Published by Exact Change / Boston

$30.00 - Out of stock

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Jarry is best known as the author of the proto-Dada play Ubu Roi, but this anarchic novel of absurdist philosophy is widely regarded as the central work to his oeuvre. Written in 1898 and refused for publication in the author’s lifetime, Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll recounts the adventures of the inventor of ” ’Pataphysics… the science of imaginary solutions.” ’Pataphysics has since inspired artists as diverse as Marcel Duchamp and the ’60s rock band Soft Machine, as well as the mythic literary organization, the Collège de ’Pataphysique. Simon Watson Taylor’s superb annotated translation (which in turn inspired a new French edition of the text) was first published by Grove Press in 1965 as part of their now out-of-print collection, Selected Works of Alfred Jarry. As a result this most important novel by Jarry has never before been published under its own title in English.

“The complement to the Ubu plays… a stupendous effort to create out of the ruins Ubu had left behind a new system of values… Jarry would have found an audience more readily had he written simply a work of science fiction, a symbolist narrative, a bawdy tale, or a spiritual allegory. As it is, Faustroll is [all of these] at the same time”—Roger Shattuck, author of The Banquet Years

File under: Alfred Jarry Alfred Jarry Exact Change / Boston Fiction / Poetry 'Pataphysics / Oulipo Dada Performance / Dance / Theater Art

The Voyage of Horace Pirouelle
by Philippe Soupault

2023, English
Softcover, 72 pages, 17.8 x 11.4 cm
Published by Wakefield Press / Cambridge

$29.00 - In stock -

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Translated, with an introduction, by Justin Vicari.

Conceived in a hospital bed in 1917, then written a few months later after his first and fateful encounter with Lautréamont’s Maldoror, Philippe Soupault’s novella, The Voyage of Horace Pirouelle, preceded the author’s involvement with the Parisian Dada movement and the adventure of surrealism he would later launch with his friends. Inspired by a Liberian schoolmate’s sudden departure for Greenland on a whim and his subsequent disappearance into that distant country, Soupault imagines his alter ego’s adventures as entries in a journal both personal and fictional. Adopted by an Inuit tribe, Pirouelle drifts from one encounter to another, from one casual murder to another, until his life of liberty and spontaneity leads him to stasis at the edge of existence.

Floating between the romantic legacy of Arthur Rimbaud’s abandonment of literature and the banality and loss of personality and morality in the adventurer’s abandonment of society, The Voyage of Horace Pirouelle charts out a troubled tribute to wanderlust and the acte gratuit.

After taking an active part in French Dada, Philippe Soupault (1897–1990) cofounded the surrealist movement with André Breton and Louis Aragon, and authored with Breton The Magnetic Fields, the first official surrealist work. After being expelled from the movement for the crime of being “too literary,” he devoted his life to writing, travel, journalism, and political activity (for which he was put in prison by the collaborationist Vichy government).

File under: Philippe Soupault Wakefield Press / Cambridge Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Surrealism Dada Fiction / Poetry

Arp

1988, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 128 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Rizzoli / New York

$100.00 - In stock -

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First English-language hardcover edition of this major monograph on Jean Arp (1886—1966) published in 1988 by Rizzoli, New York, authored by Serge Fauchereau. Traces the life and career of the Franco-Swiss artist, lavishly illustrated throughout with wonderful colour and b/w reproductions of his collage, graphics, stone and bronze sculptures, and wooden reliefs. Jean Arp, also called Hans Arp, French sculptor, painter, and poet was one of the leaders of the European avant-garde in the arts during the first half of the 20th century, heavily associated with Dada, Surrealism and Abstract art.

Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.

File under: Jean Arp (Hans Arp) Jean Arp Serge Fauchereau Rizzoli / New York Surrealism Art Sculpture / Installation Out-of-print / Rare Dada