World Food Books

Egon Schiele
Expression and Pose

2026, English
Hardcover, 128 pages, 23.5 x 16.8 cm
Published by Belvedere / Vienna

$50.00 - In stock -

Edited by Stella Rollig, Verena Gamper & Franz Smola.
Text by Verena Gamper, Stefanie Jahn, Monika Mayer & Franz Smola.

Egon Schiele's work combines tradition and innovation in equal measure. It demonstrates a high degree of creative innovation and expressive artistry, which, due to its radical nature, exhibits a striking modernity. Schiele creates a completely new image of the body in which expression and pose play essential roles. His paintings of nature and his immediate surroundings, on the other hand, are full of melancholy and symbolism.

This publication explores the many facets of Schiele's personality. These include dramatic events in the life of the exceptional painter, who died at the young age of 28, as well as his literary talent and his undeniable skill as a networker within the Viennese art scene before and during the First World War. By contrast, the pictures he created of nature and his immediate surroundings are steeped in melancholy and symbolism.

File under: Egon Schiele Verena Gamper Stefanie Jahn Monika Mayer Franz Smola Stella Rollig Belvedere / Vienna Painting Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Art Drawing

Man Ray
To create is divine

2026, English
Hardcover, 460 pages, 26.1 x 19.9 cm
Published by Larkin Erdmann Gallery / Zürich Walther König / Köln

$115.00 - In stock -

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This most comprehensive overview of Man Ray's art and life to date features around 150 works, each discussed in detail and fully catalogued. This book on Man Ray brings together works by the artist that range in date from his high school years to works made a few years before his death in 1976. Each work reproduced is discussed in a text by Francis M. Naumann, renowned expert on the work of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, and fully catalogued by Andrew Strauss, director of the Man Ray Expertise Committee in Paris. Together with colour photographs by Eric Lehmann of Man Ray's studio on the Rue Ferou in Paris, the book reflects the enjoyment and endless creativity of the famous surrealist.

Edited by Larkin Erdmann.

File under: Eric Lehmann Man Ray Marcel Duchamp Francis M. Naumann Andrew Strauss Larkin Erdmann Larkin Erdmann Gallery / Zürich Walther König / Köln Surrealism Art Sculpture / Installation Painting Drawing Dada

Sibylle Ruppert
Dark Light on White Shadow

2026, English / German
Hardcover (clothbound), 304 pages, 31 x 25 cm
Published by Distanz / Berlin Kunsthalle Gießen / Gießen

$100.00 - In stock -

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Grotesque and Somber. Dark Light on White Shadow is a retrospective of the largely unpublished oeuvre of Sibylle Ruppert, whose hyperrealistic works were inspired by Marquis de Sade and Georges Bataille.

Edited by Nadia Ismail / Kunsthalle Gießen and Paul J. Walter / Estate Sibylle Ruppert

Sibylle Ruppert (b. Frankfurt/Main, 1942; d. Paris, 2011) turned childhood fears and wartime experiences into art. Born the night of the first massive bombing of Frankfurt Main, she spent her early years between nursery and improvised air-raid shelter. Ruppert's richly detailed drawings, paintings, and collages investigate her traumas and the rifts within us they leave behind. Her works reveal a visual language in which bodies menace one another and fuse to produce grotesque creatures. Drawing inspiration from writers like Georges Bataille, Comte de Lautréamont, and Marquis de Sade as well as the artists Francis Bacon and HR Giger, Rupert created a prolific surreal erotic and dystopian imagery — a singular oeuvre in hues of brown and gray. In 2010, a year before her death, the artist was the subject of a retrospective at the HR Giger Museum in Gruyeres.

The book Dark Light on White Shadow pays fresh homage to her oeuvre, which was displayed at Kunsthalle Gießen in 2023. With essays by Kate Brown, Nadia Ismail, Vera Kattermann, Annekathrin Kohout, and Paul J. Walter.

File under: Sibylle Ruppert H. R. Giger Nadia Ismail Paul J. Walter Comte de Lautreamont Georges Bataille Marquis de Sade Distanz / Berlin Kunsthalle Gießen / Gießen Drawing Art Painting Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Eros Fetishism / BDSM

Hans Bellmer
Ars Erotica (Bellmer-Graphik)

1970, German
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 118 pages, 21 x 17 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Studio 69 / Cologne

$100.00 - In stock -

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First edition, edited and designed by Galerie Sydow's Heinrich Sydow-Zirkwitz, this beautiful book of Hans Bellmer's graphic works was published as a special project between Studio 69 in Cologne and Galerie Sydow in Frankfurt to accompany the exhibition "Ars Erotica" in 1970. Handsomely printed with spot-colour over-printing and illustrated throughout with Bellmer's graphic famous graphic series' "Bellmer à Sade" (1961), "Petite Traité de Morale" (1965) and illustrations for Georges Bataille's "Madame Edwarda" (1965). Includes text by Horst Albert Glaser. A very handsome collection and one of the nicest Bellmer books.

Very Good copy in Good dust jacket with light tanning to spine/edges, dustiness.

File under: Hans Bellmer Heinrich Sydow-Zirkwitz Horst Albert Glaser Georges Bataille Comte de Lautreamont Studio 69 / Cologne Art Out-of-print / Rare Eros Drawing Surrealism Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque

Edvard Munch
1863—1944

1959, German
Softcover (staple-bound), 44 pages, 20 x 19.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Kongresshalle / Berlin

$50.00 - In stock -

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Lovely 1959 catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Edvard Munch 1863—1944, at the Kongresshalle Berlin, September—October, 1959, a very significant exhibition of the Norwegian painter's graphic works, profusely b/w illustrated throughout. Munch produced a substantial body of work using intaglio techniques—such as etching, drypoint, and aquatint—on copper plates. Beginning in 1894, he embarked on engraving directly onto copper and, largely self-taught and without formal instruction, created numerous masterpieces in this medium. Texts in German on alternating paper stocks throughout the galleries, plus a full catalogue of exhibited works.

Very Good copy, light wear.

File under: Edvard Munch Kongresshalle / Berlin Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Drawing Painting Out-of-print / Rare

MD72—Door Slamming Festival (2007–2018)
Edited by Alexander Schröder, Dominic Eichler, Marianna von Palombini

2026, English / German
Softcover, 560 pages, 29.7 x 22.5 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$100.00 - In stock -

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This anthology tells the story of the influential Berlin exhibition space MD72 between 2007 and 2018, featuring more than 70 exhibitions. Over 190 contemporary artists, designers, curators, and writers are featured in this anthology. MD72 was founded by the gallerist and collector Alexander Schröder; its events reflected the repercussions of contextual art and post-institutional critique, as well as the cultural conditions of post-reunification Berlin shaped by post-feminism, postcolonial thought, and queer strategies. In addition to extensive visual documentation of exhibitions and artworks, the book offers a compendium of eyewitness accounts, essays, exhibition notes, interviews, excerpts, and commentaries from a wide range of authors.

Features: David Adamo, Jana Euler, Mark Leckey, Yves Saint Laurent, Michael Sanchez, Kai Althoff, Matias Faldbakken, Ang Lee, Peter Saville, Mathis Altmann, Barney Farmer, Lee Healey, Gunter Lepkowski, Magnus Schaefer, Tariq Alvi, Keith Farquhar, David Lewis, Mathias Schormann, Art & Language, Paul Feigelfeld, Klara Lidén, Alexander Schröder, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Valentina Liernur, Yasmine Schroeder-Elgarafi, Red Krayola, Marta Fontolan, Beca Lipscombe, Nora Schultz, Charles Asprey, Catherine Francblin, Hilary Lloyd, Elfie Semotan, Atelier E.B, Andrea Fraser, Hannes Loichinger, Gedi Sibony, Lutz Bacher, Luca Frei, Stefan Lux, Katharina Sieverding, Nairy Baghramian, Gelatin, Danny McDonald, Eric Banks, General Idea, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Leith, Amy Sillman, Dirk Bell, Isa Genzken, Eric N. Mack, Avery Singer, Kirsty Bell, Liam Gillick, Lucy McKenzie, Andreas Slominski, Sean Snyder, Bernadette Corporation, Marc Glöde, René Magritte, Gerry Bibby, Julian Göthe, Victor Man, Lucie Stahl, Julien Binet, Goldin+Senneby, André Masson, Frank Stella, BLESS, Fanny Gonella, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mladen Stilinović, Anna Blessmann, Isabelle Graw, Nick Mauss, Josef Strau, Peter Saville, Wade Guyton, Ken Okiishi, Studio Manuel Raeder, Juliette Blightman, Florian Hecker, Birgit Megerle, Juergen Teller, Cosima von Bonin, Manfred Hermes, John Miller, Philippe Thomas, Mark Borthwick, Georg Herold, Pierre Molinier, Simon Thompson, Michael Bracewell, Charline von Heyl, Sarah Morris, Torey Thornton, Janet Burchill, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Ariane Müller, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jennifer McCamley, Ull Hohn, Jill Mulleady, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tom Burr, Yngve Holen, Jeanette Mundt, Rosemarie Trockel, David Bussel, Karl Holmqvist, Geoff Nees, Donald Urquhart, Caroline Busta, Judith Hopf, Georgie Nettell, Mona Vătămanu, Florin Tudor, Michael Callies, Alex Hubbard, Albert Oehlen, Donna Huddleston, Roberto Ohrt, Francesco Vezzoli, Sergej Jensen, Alex Israel, Ken Okiishi, Danh Vo, Ellen Cantor, Robert Jarosz, Henrik Olesen, Heinz Peter Knes, Merlin Carpenter, Sergej Jensen, Paulina Olowska, Steven Warwick, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Helen Johnson, Dietrich Orth, Michal Wasaznik, Alan Charlton, Stefan Kalmár, Daniel Pies, Marianna von Palombini, Scott Cameron Weaver, Doryun Chong, Tobias Kaspar, Manfred Pernice, Hannah Weinberger, Claire Fontaine, KAYA, Kerstin Brätsch, Kirsten Pieroth, Thilo Wermke, Anne Collier, Debo Eilers, Falke Pisano, Stephen Willats, Carole Condé, Karl Beveridge, Annette Kelm, Simon Popper, Susanne M. Winterling, John Kelsey, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Ashes Withyman, Isabelle Cornaro, Pierre Klossowski, Stephen Prina, David Woodard, Enrico David, John Knight, Mark Prince, Christopher Wool, Jacques de Koning, Valérie Knoll, Josephine Pryde, Cerith Wyn Evans, Gigiotto Del Vecchio, Jutta Koether, Manuel Raeder, Alex Zachary, Mark Dion, Stefan Korte, Reena Spaulings, Heimo Zobernig, Eliza Douglas, Andrzej Kostenko, Jeroen de Rijke, Lukas Duwenhogger, Christian Kracht, Willem de Rooij, Alexander Schröder, Martin Ebner, Kitty Kraus, Martha Rosler, Dominic Eichler, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Annette Ruenzler, Marianna von Palombini, Florian Zeyfang, Colin de Land, J. St. Bernard, Dominic Eichler.

File under: David Adamo Jana Euler Mark Leckey Kai Althoff Matias Faldbakken Mathis Altmann Barney Farmer Tariq Alvi Klara Lidén Art & Language Red Krayola Nora Schultz Andrea Fraser Gedi Sibony Lutz Bacher Luca Frei Katharina Sieverding Nairy Baghramian Gelatin General Idea Amy Sillman Dirk Bell Isa Genzken Eric N. Mack Avery Singer Liam Gillick Lucy McKenzie Andreas Slominski Sean Snyder Bernadette Corporation René Magritte Gerry Bibby Julian Göthe Victor Man Lucie Stahl Goldin+Senneby André Masson Frank Stella BLESS Gordon Matta-Clark Mladen Stilinović Nick Mauss Josef Strau Wade Guyton Ken Okiishi Juliette Blightman Florian Hecker Birgit Megerle Cosima von Bonin John Miller Philippe Thomas Georg Herold Pierre Molinier Charline von Heyl Sarah Morris Janet Burchill Ariane Müller Wolfgang Tillmans Ull Hohn Jill Mulleady Rirkrit Tiravanija Tom Burr Yngve Holen Jeanette Mundt Rosemarie Trockel Karl Holmqvist Judith Hopf Mona Vătămanu Florin Tudor Alex Hubbard Albert Oehlen Francesco Vezzoli Sergej Jensen Alex Israel Danh Vo Ellen Cantor Henrik Olesen Merlin Carpenter Paulina Olowska Marc Camille Chaimowicz Helen Johnson Alan Charlton Tobias Kaspar Manfred Pernice Hannah Weinberger Claire Fontaine KAYA Kerstin Brätsch Kirsten Pieroth Anne Collier Debo Eilers Falke Pisano Stephen Willats Carole Condé Karl Beveridge Annette Kelm Susanne M. Winterling Genesis Breyer P-Orridge Isabelle Cornaro Stephen Prina Enrico David John Knight Josephine Pryde Cerith Wyn Evans Jutta Koether Mark Dion Reena Spaulings Heimo Zobernig Eliza Douglas Jeroen de Rijke Lukas Duwenhogger Willem de Rooij Martha Rosler Mierle Laderman Ukeles Florian Zeyfang Atelier E.B. Yves Saint Laurent Peter Saville Kitty Kraus Ian Hamilton Finlay Keith Farquhar Beca Lipscombe Hilary Lloyd Danny McDonald Manuel Raeder Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley Jennifer McCamley Juergen Teller Heinz Peter Knes Pierre Klossowski Christopher Wool Georgie Nettell Mark Borthwick Simon Thompson Alexander Schröder Dominic Eichler Marianna von Palombini Michael Sanchez Lee Healey Gunter Lepkowski Magnus Schaefer David Lewis Mathias Schormann Paul Feigelfeld Valentina Liernur Yasmine Schroeder-Elgarafi Marta Fontolan Charles Asprey Catherine Francblin Elfie Semotan Hannes Loichinger Stefan Lux Eric Banks Kirsty Bell Marc Glöde Julien Binet Fanny Gonella Anna Blessmann Isabelle Graw Manfred Hermes Michael Bracewell Torey Thornton Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz David Bussel Geoff Nees Donald Urquhart Caroline Busta Michael Callies Donna Huddleston Roberto Ohrt Robert Jarosz Heinz Peter Knes Steven Warwick Dietrich Orth Michal Wasaznik Stefan Kalmár Daniel Pies Scott Cameron Weaver Doryun Chong Thilo Wermke Simon Popper John Kelsey Ashes Withyman Pierre Klossowski David Woodard Mark Prince Jacques de Koning Valérie Knoll Gigiotto Del Vecchio Alex Zachary Stefan Korte Andrzej Kostenko Christian Kracht Annette Ruenzler Colin de Land J. St. Bernard Martin Ebner Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith Walther König / Köln Group Shows / Collections Painting Art Sculpture / Installation Drawing Photography

Rosemarie Trockel

2026, English
Softcover, 276 pages, 27.9 x 22.2 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$145.00 - In stock -

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Edited with text by Susanne Pfeffer. Text by Valeria Gordeev, Quinn Latimer, Christoph Menke, Cord Riechelmann, Ann-Charlotte Gunzel.

From “knitting pictures” to upside down palm trees and mannequin heads in glass boxes, Trockel’s caustic oeuvre defies classification.

Finally here, the enormous MMK catalogue! German multimedia artist Rosemarie Trockel rose to fame in the 1980s with her “knitting pictures” made with industrial weaving machines. In 1999 she was the first woman to exhibit at the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The brutality and absurdity of normative regimes emerge openly in the work of Rosemarie Trockel. Definitions, restrictions, paternalism, and violence due to gender become visible and transparent. Her advance is a risky, courageous, combative, and humorous one. In all media—drawing and painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and film—Trockel’s sociological gaze is as much directed at social regimes and political structures as it is at nature. Her observations and studies of processionary caterpillars, starlings, chickens, or lice, while scientifically sound and precise, always include her own critical gaze as a vital component. She appropriates the ambivalences in her work, capturing them decidedly.

The comprehensive exhibition and catalogue displays works from all periods of Rosemarie Trockel’s oeuvre, from the 1970s to the new works created especially for the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt.

File under: Rosemarie Trockel Susanne Pfeffer Valeria Gordeev Quinn Latimer Christoph Menke Cord Riechelmann Ann-Charlotte Gunzel Walther König / Köln Sculpture / Installation Art Painting Drawing Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Film / Video Photography Conceptual Art

Pierre Klossowski
Hommage a Klossowski

1988, Japanese / English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 70 pages, 21 x 19 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo

$100.00 - In stock -

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Wonderful and very rarely seen hardcover Japanese publication on the work of the great Pierre Klossowski. Features an extensive selection of his paintings and drawings reproduced in full-colour and black and white, alongside texts, biography and photographic portraits of Klossowski. Published by Atelier Peyotl and printed in Tokyo in 1988 on the occasion of a major exhibition at The Seed Hall, Seibu Shibuya. First printing in original illustrated dust jacket.

Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) was a significant and influential philosopher, writer, translator and artist who befriended Georges Bataille and formulated an original stance on many theological issues, as well as the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade. His first novel, Roberte, ce soir, appeared in 1954 as a limited edition containing six of his own erotic illustrations, after he rejected drawings by his younger brother, the painter Balthus. Following the encouragement of Robert Lebel, Andre Masson and Alberto Giacometti, Klossowski held his first exhibition in Paris in 1956, and subsequently produced numerous life-size drawings of erotic scenes imbued with mythological, allegorical and philosophical connotations. By the 1970s, he had won the acclaim of such eminent thinkers as Maurice Blanchot, Michel Butor, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Felix Guattari. Of Klossowski, Gilles Deleuze once said, "That bodies speak has been known for a long time."

Very Good copy in Good dust jacket with some rubbing to front print, light wear.

File under: Pierre Klossowski Pierre Klossowski Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo Art Drawing Eros Painting Out-of-print / Rare

Eric Stanton
The Dominant Wives & Other Stories

1998, English
Softcover, 576 pages, 20.96 x 15.24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Taschen / Cologne

$55.00 - Out of stock

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First 1998 English language edition of The Dominant Wives & Other Stories, Eric Stanton's brick-sized collection of his highly prized femdom Stantoons.

That bottom won’t spank itself!

20 stories from America’s premier fetish artist Eric Stanton (1926–1999) was America’s premier fetish artist, a man of very particular tastes, as all fetishists are. Most keep their work and sex preferences separate, but Stanton made his desires the center of his art, pouring his passions onto the page. These preferences included, in no particular order, female dominance, female fighting, mixed gender wrestling, and face sitting.

Perhaps if the man born Ernest Stanzoni in New York City, 1926, had grown taller, all would have been different. As happened, he topped out around 5’5” (165 cm), making him smaller and weaker than many women, and rather than bemoan this shortcoming, he chose to eroticize it. Then, like Robert Crumb and Tom of Finland to follow, he put his fantasies on paper.

Stanton produced paperback book covers, magazine illustrations, comics and even wrestling and smother videos, but what he is best known for is his Stantoons: self-published 16- to 28-page booklets produced between 1982 and his death in 1999. These booklets best represent Stanton’s rich and complex fantasy life, as well as the lives of his fans, whose fantasies he also incorporated. This new edition of The Dominant Wives & Other Stories, brings together the finest of the Stantoons, along with Stanton’s most famous series for Irving Klaw: Bound in Leather, parts 1 and 2. Done in pencil, pen and ink, gouache and mixed media, these 20 stories represent the best of Stanton, who himself represents the best of fetish.

Good—VG copy with some light edge wear an minor buckling (common due to size)

File under: Eric Stanton Eric Stanton Taschen / Cologne Fetishism / BDSM Eros Out-of-print / Rare Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Art Drawing

Pierre Molinier
by Jean-Luc Mercié

2010, English
Hardcover, 400 pages, 24 x 31 cm
Published by Les Presses Du Reel / Paris Mennour / Paris

$150.00 - In stock -

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The Molinier bible! A mammoth, crucial 400 page book on the method and genesis of Pierre Molinier's provocative, gender-bending photos and artwork. Beautifully printed and prodigiously illustrated with over 800 pictures, mostly unpublished, numerous documents, manuscripts and letters, a complete (nearly 100-page) chronology, a critical biography, and a text by Jean-Luc Mercié.Molinier. Essential publication on Molinier, the most comprehensive to date, and a must for any fan.

Rare English edition translated from the French by Edward Penwarden.

Pierre Molinier is an unknown of worldwide renown. Every book and every exhibition on the body, gender confusion or sexual excess seems to feature at least one work by this artist whose “genius” was acclaimed by André Breton in a memorable text published in 1956. But the bulk of his work has remained inaccessible. A number of pictures have never been shown and a corpus of only 160 prints has been published. The ensemble revealed by the artist's archives is much more extensive. It includes numerous proofs made to prepare his photomontages and working prints given to friends, but also notebooks and personal letters. Here, precise links emerge between his paintings, photographs and scandalous life. The myth carefully constructed by the artist begins to crumble before the reality of the work.

An inveterate seducer, thoroughgoing fetishist, unrepentant transvestite and inadvertent bisexual, to the very last Molinier remained haunted by two obsessions: pleasure, meaning immediate access to la petite mort, and “leaving a trace in the infinity of time.” This book charts the aesthetic incarnation of his passions. Its 819 photographs, most of them never published before, reveal the method, shed light on the procedures and give details of the origin and alchemy of his latent or composed images. Finally, an exhaustive chronology offers a new biography of Molinier, based on his letters: for it is in the intimacy of these writings that the shaman's heart beats closest to the truth.

In a career shared between the university (fifteen years) and publishing (twenty) Jean-Luc Mercié has written widely on painting and photography. This monograph is his fourth book about Pierre Molinier, the master from Bordeaux.

Born 1900 in Agen (France), Pierre Molinier, surrealistic painter and photographer, a precursor to body art, died in 1976 after having thought out radical and pornographic artwork.

File under: Pierre Molinier Jean-Luc Mercié Edward Penwarden Les Presses Du Reel / Paris Mennour / Paris Art Surrealism Eros LGBTQ+ Performance / Dance / Theater Photography Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Painting Drawing Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art

Pierre Klossowski: L'énoncé dénoncé
by Bernard Lamarche-Vadel

1998, French
Softcover, 140 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Marval / Paris

$55.00 - In stock -

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"Looking at a painting by Klossowski is to turn oneself into its victim."

First edition 1998 French paperback study of Pierre Klossowski by French writer, poet, art critic and collector, Bernard Lamarche-Vadel (1949—2000). Heavily illustrated throughout with many fine examples of Klossowski's artworks in colour and b/w, plus biography, portraits, history of exhibitions, and more.

"The great master of heresy desires first and places the observer of his works at the center of their mechanisms. This device lends itself to the description of the great and redoubtable logic of the images that place us on the threshold of the secret of Roberte. Scandalous and classic Klossowski's work is one of the most enigmatic of the twentieth century because it is primarily a process the enigma of which is the subject."

Bernard Lamarche-Vadel (1949—2000) was a French writer, poet, art critic and collector. The son of a veterinarian, self-taught, his tastes for art and literature earned him a paternal anathema. A graduate from the École pratique des hautes études in art sociology (1970), he subsequently taught at the Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne University and then at ICART in 1979. A poet and short stories writer, Bernard Lamarche-Vadel bega writing art criticism in the 1970s and founded the magazine Artistes. He became a prolific writer on the arts, publishing many books and organising exhibitions. He appareared in L'Argent (1983) by Robert Bresson. In 2000, at age 50, he committed suicide in his castle of La Rongère. His photographic collection is archived at Musée Nicéphore-Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône. An exhibition devoted to his work as an art critic was presented in 2009 by the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Very Good copy with some laminate peeling to the covers, tanned edges.

File under: Pierre Klossowski Bernard Lamarche-Vadel Marval / Paris Drawing Eros Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Philosophy Art

Pierre Klossowski

1991, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket and slipcase), 168 pages, 26 x 29.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo

$160.00 - In stock -

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The incredible and rarely seen 1991 Japanese slipcased, hardcover edition of Jacques Henric's monographic volume on the great Pierre Klossowski. One of the most comprehensive books ever published on the artist, with beautiful large reproductions of artworks in colour and b/w heavily featured throughout, alongside Henric's text (here translated into Japanese from the original French) with a full catalogue of works and bibliography. First printing in original dust jacket, illustrated slipcase, beautifully printed in Italy and bound in Japan.

Jacques Henric (b. 1938) is a French literary critic, essayist and novelist.

Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) was a significant and influential philosopher, writer, translator and artist who befriended Georges Bataille and formulated an original stance on many theological issues, as well as the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade. His first novel, Roberte, ce soir, appeared in 1954 as a limited edition containing six of his own erotic illustrations, after he rejected drawings by his younger brother, the painter Balthus. Following the encouragement of Robert Lebel, Andre Masson and Alberto Giacometti, Klossowski held his first exhibition in Paris in 1956, and subsequently produced numerous life-size drawings of erotic scenes imbued with mythological, allegorical and philosophical connotations. By the 1970s, he had won the acclaim of such eminent thinkers as Maurice Blanchot, Michel Butor, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Felix Guattari. Of Klossowski, Gilles Deleuze once said, "That bodies speak has been known for a long time."

Fine As New copy of book and dj, preserved in Good slipcase with some wear and bumps.

File under: Pierre Klossowski Jacques Henric Pierre Klossowski Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo Painting Eros Drawing Art Out-of-print / Rare

Hans Bellmer

1972/2006, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket, slipcase, obi), 92 pages, 31 x 25 cm
Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha / Tokyo

$140.00 - In stock -

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2006 facsimile edition of this wonderful 1972 slip-cased hardcover monograph on German artist Hans Bellmer, considered one of the most important representatives of Surrealist Art. Bound in brown cloth and wrapped in illustrated original dust-jacket, this heavily illustrated book surveys Bellmer's incredible paintings, drawings, photography and sculptural dolls through beautiful colour and monochrome gravure reproductions, with alongside various texts, biography, bibliography and portrait of the artist. Published as volume 2 of the deluxe La Septième Face du Dé series by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in Japan in the 1970s, all later re-printed in the 2000s. All editions now out-of-print.

German artist Hans Bellmer (1902 – 1975), was best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. "Bellmer was born in the city of Kattowitz, then part of the German Empire (now Katowice, Poland). Up until 1926, he'd been working as a draftsman for his own advertising company. He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party by declaring that he would make no work that would support the new German state. Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany. Bellmer was influenced in his choice of art form by reading the published letters of Oskar Kokoschka (Der Fetisch, 1925).

Fine copy.

File under: Hans Bellmer Unica Zürn Kawade Shobo Shinsha / Tokyo Eros Out-of-print / Rare Surrealism Drawing Art Photography

The Sacred Conspiracy : The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acephale and Lecturers to the College of Sociology
by Georges Bataille

2018, English
Hardcover, 480 pages, 17.4 x 23.2 cm
Published by Atlas Press / London

$74.00 - In stock -

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Georges Bataille's secret society, long the stuff of legend, is now revealed in its texts, meditations, rules and prohibitions.

This book recounts what must be one of the most unusual intellectual journeys of modern times, in which the influential philosopher, cultural theorist and occasional pornographer Georges Bataille (1897-1962), having spent the early 1930s in far-left groups opposing the rise of fascism, abandoned that approach in order to transfer the struggle onto "the mythological plane."

In 1937, Bataille founded two groups in order to explore the combinations of power and the "sacred" at work in society. The first group, the College of Sociology, gave lectures that were intended to reveal the hidden undercurrents within a society on the verge of catastrophe. The second group was Acéphale, a genuine secret society and anti-religion whose emblem was a headless figure that, in part, represented the death of God. Until the discovery a few years ago of the group's internal papers (which include theoretical texts, meditations, minutes of meetings, rules and prohibitions and even a membership list), almost nothing was known of its activities.

This book is the first to collect a representative selection of the writings of Bataille, and of those close to him, in the years leading up to World War II. The texts published here comprise lectures given to the College of Sociology by Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris, essays from the Acéphale journal and a large cache of the internal papers from the secret society. A desperate narrative unfolds, wherein Bataille risked all in a wholly unreasonable quest--with a few fellow travelers, he undertook what he later described as a "journey out of this world."

Additional texts by Roger Caillois, Pierre Klossowski, Michel Leiris, and by Georges Ambrosino, Pierre Andler, Michel Carrouges, Jacques Chavy, Jean Dautry, Henri Dobier, Henri Dussat, Imre Kelemen, Jean Rollin, Patrick Waldberg.
And with drawings by André Masson

Highest recommendation!

File under: Pierre Klossowski André Masson Georges Bataille Roger Caillois Michel Leiris Pierre Klossowski Georges Ambrosino Pierre Andler Michel Carrouges Jacques Chavy Jean Dautry Henri Dobier Henri Dussat Imre Kelemen Jean Rollin Patrick Waldberg Atlas Press / London Philosophy Theory / Essay Surrealism Occult / Esoterica Art Fiction / Poetry Drawing Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Anthropology

Joseph Beuys and History
by Daniel Spaulding

2026, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 264 pages, 24 x 15.2 cm
Published by Princeton University Press / New York

$60.00 - In stock -

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A groundbreaking study of one of the most important and influential artists of the postwar period

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) was one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century—and one of the most controversial. Working in Germany in the aftermath of World War II, he explored a radically expanded concept of art through a practice that ranged from performative actions to large-scale sculptural ensembles. While some contemporaries found his claim that “everyone is an artist” liberating, even revolutionary, others accused him of fostering a dangerous cult of personality. In Joseph Beuys and History, the first rigorous art historical study of the artist in English, Daniel Spaulding presents a striking new interpretation of Beuys’s work and career.

By putting Beuys in the context of Germany’s postwar recovery, Spaulding shows that the artist’s superimposed biological, political, and economic metaphors offered a powerful way to think about the trajectory of human freedom, the place of art in capitalist modernity, and the possibility of an ecological aesthetics. At the same time, his oeuvre’s disquieting echoes of the Nazi past suggest that not everything could be reconciled in what Beuys called “social sculpture.”

A definitive account of an often-misunderstood figure, Joseph Beuys and History proposes an ambitious rewriting of the dominant narrative of modern and contemporary art, drawing from Marxian value-form theory, Hans Blumenberg’s “metaphorology,” and ecological thought. Precisely because Beuys went to the extremes of art, the book demonstrates, he belongs at the center of its history.

“Joseph Beuys and History will become the standard work on the artist, transforming the study of Beuys—and much else besides. In this original account, Daniel Spaulding demonstrates that Beuys performs a kind of ‘sympathetic magic’ in his art, figuring political economy as an organism. It is a stunning argument, innovative and resonant, with ramifications that extend far beyond Beuys.”—Hal Foster, Princeton University

“Meticulously researched, historically astute, and theoretically advanced, Daniel Spaulding’s Joseph Beuys and History is the most serious study yet of the artist and his work. Unlocking the hermeticism and mythologies of his controversial but influential oeuvre in terms of its metaphors and materialities, this compelling book will become the new standard account of Beuys.”—André Rottmann, European University Viadrina

File under: Beuys Joseph Beuys Daniel Spaulding Princeton University Press / New York Art Conceptual Art Performance / Dance / Theater Sculpture / Installation Fluxus Sociology / Politics Drawing Arte Povera

Sergei Eisenstein And The Anthropology Of Rhythm
by Marie Rebecchi and Elena Vogman

2017, English
Softcover, 128 pages, 17 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Nero / Rome

$200.00 - In stock -

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The unfinished works of Sergei Eisenstein are traversed by aesthetic, anthropological, and political questions.

First, only edition of this incredible, fast out-of-print book published on the occasion of the exhibition Sergei Eisenstein: The Anthropology of Rhythm, 2017—2018, edited by the curators, art and film historians Marie Rebecchi and Elena Vogman, in collaboration with the artist and typographer Till Gathmann, published by NERO. Copiously illustrated with documents from Eisenstein’s archives that were exhibited for the first time, including notebooks, drawings, film footage and photographs, this book "proposes to explore the intersecting aesthetic, anthropological and political dimensions of three unfinished film projects by Sergei Eisenstein. The Soviet director (b. 1898, Riga — d. 1948, Moscow) is best known today as the paradigmatic author of revolutionary Soviet cinema. Yet there is another face to this Janus-like figure, many of whose unfinished film projects and extensive theoretical works remained unpublished and unknown during his lifetime — and to a certain extent until today. It is this as yet unacknowledged body of work which make up the subject matter of the present book. Focusing in particular on the anthropology of rhythm in Eisenstein’s Mexican project (Que viva Mexico!, 1931–1932), the book follows this thread to two other unfinished projects: the destroyed film Bezhin Meadow (1935–37) and Fergana Canal (1939), which came to a halt before filming even begun".

Fine copy.

File under: Sergei Eisenstein Marie Rebecchi Elena Vogman Nero / Rome Film / Video Drawing Art Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Sociology / Politics

John Wolseley
Patagonia to Tasmania: Origin movement species tracing the Southern Continents

1996, English
Softcover (staple–bound), unpaginated, 30 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Launceston

$20.00 - In stock -

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Scarce copy of the 1988 exhibition catalogue of John Wolseley – Patagonia to Tasmania: Origin movement species tracing the Southern Continents, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania, 1996. Illustrated throughout with paintings, drawings, installation details, photographs, accompanied by "The Anxiety of Clearings" by Paul Carter.

"My work over the last 45 years has been a search to discover how we dwell and move within landscape. I have lived and worked all over the continent from the mountains of Tasmania to the floodplains of Arnhem land. I see myself as a hybrid mix of artist and scientist; one who tries to relate the minutiae of the natural world - leaf, feather and beetle wing to the abstract dimensions of the earth's dynamic systems. Using techniques of watercolour, collage, frottage, nature printing and other methods of direct physical or kinetic contact I am finding ways of collaborating with the actual plants, birds, trees, rocks and earth of a particular place."–John Wolseley

VG–NF copy.

File under: John Wolseley Paul Carter Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Launceston Australian Art Art Drawing Painting Out-of-print / Rare

John Wolseley
Nomadism. Twelve years in Australia - paintings and drawings

1988, English
Softcover (staplebound), 44 pages 30 x 21 cm
Out of print title / used / fine
Published by University of Melbourne / Parkville

$30.00 - In stock -

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Scarce copy of the exhibition catalogue published by University Gallery, University of Melbourne, to accompany the exhibition John Wolseley – Nomadism. Twelve years in Australia - Paintings and Drawings, 1988. Filled with Wolseley's journal entries, heavily illustrated with his paintings, drawings, installation details in colour and b/w, chaptered with printed wax paper throughout.

"This title has been used because it is both a description of the activity this artist engages in, and–perhaps more importantly–the theoretical position which he brings to his work. Not only has he physically travelled all over the continent but he has extended this approach to his art. His work is a theoretical and stylistic wandering between different visual systems and models of reality. The sources of these systems and other influences include such divergent headings as:

An interest in natural sciences and the graphic representation of empirical data.
Genus Loci - spirit of place
Taoism
Garnet Wolseley, his father -a minor figure of the Newlyn School (U.K.) which rejected modernism.
John Ruskin
Gaston Batchelard
Aboriginal religion and art
Gilbert White of Selborne
An inability to stay in one place for more than six months.

NF copy.

File under: John Wolseley University of Melbourne / Parkville Australian Art Art Painting Drawing Out-of-print / Rare

Kumita Ryu (signed)

1974, Japanese
Softcover, unpaginated, 25 x 24 cm
Ed. of 300 copies. Signed by artist,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Kumita Ryu / Tokyo

$250.00 - In stock -

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Very rare 1974 privately–published book of striking erotic drawings by Kumita Ryu (b. 1940), issued by the manga artist in an edition of 300 copies, this copy signed by Kumita. A wild and provocative collection of psychedelic erotic graphite drawings, Kumita's transmogrifying naked bodies metamorphose across the pages into cosmic flowers and nectarous, nebulous alien forms to compliment a collection of poems by Takashi Hasegawa.

Very Good copy with some tanning to edges and some light rippling.

File under: Kumita Ryu Takashi Hasegawa Kumita Ryu / Tokyo Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Out-of-print / Rare Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Drawing Fetishism / BDSM

Michaela Eichwald
Ich kann nicht zulassen, dass...

2001, German
Softcover, 12 pages, 27 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Kunstverein Braunschweig / Germany

$25.00 - Out of stock

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Out of print catalogue from Michaela Eichwald, Ich kann nicht zulassen, dass... 2001 exhibition at Kunstverein Braunschweig Studiogalerie, Germany. Texts by Michael Krebber and Karola Grässlin.

VG copy.

File under: Michael Krebber Michaela Eichwald Karola Grässlin Kunstverein Braunschweig / Germany Art Out-of-print / Rare Painting Sculpture / Installation Drawing

Michaela Eichwald
Gewärtigen Gegenwärtigen. 10 Jahre sind kein Tag. Fettsau. Ausgewählte Beiträge 1989-1999.

2000, German
Softcover, 140 pages, 23 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Daniel Buchholz Galerie / Köln b_books / Berlin

$55.00 - Out of stock

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Scarce early artist's book (10 years is not a fat pig) by German painter Michaela Eichwald, featuring writings and artworks by the artist Michaela Eichwald from the period of 1989-1999, with a preface by fellow artist Kai Althoff.

"A book that belongs in every household."–FAZ

Very Good copy light tanning to boards.

File under: Kai Althoff Michaela Eichwald Daniel Buchholz Galerie / Köln b_books / Berlin Art Painting Drawing Theory / Essay

Érotique du Surréalisme
by Robert Benayoun

1965, French
Hardcover (clothbound), 244 pages, 18 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Jean-Jacques Pauvert / Paris

$55.00 - Out of stock

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First 1965 clothbound edition of Érotique du Surréalisme, Robert Benayoun's study on the importance of the erotic in the surrealist arts, from L'Androgyne to The Sadist, Le Femme-Enfant to the Poetic Machine, surveying Symbolist and Art Brut precursors, and encompassing the multitude manifestations of eroticism across a broad array of visual and poetic works from the surrealist spectrum, even into the influence in film (a field Benayoun was known in). Reproducing poems and quotes throughout, this heavily illustrated volume reproduces many artworks in b/w and colour plates, including works and works by Max Walter Svanberg, Toyen, Hans Bellmer, Friedrich Schröder Sonnenstern, Heinrich Anton Müller, Marcel Duchamp, Jindřich Štyrský, Brancusi, Victor Brauner, Mimi Parent, Andre Masson, Louis Aragon, Yves Tanguy, Valentine Hugo, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Balthus, Rene Magritte, André Breton, Giorgio de Chirico, Henry Fuseli, Dali, Man Ray, Henri Rousseau, Picasso, Miro, Edvard Munch, William Blake, Hieronymus Bosch, Ingrid Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Konrad Klapheck, Francis Picabia, Óscar Domínguez, Jean Benoit, Paul Delvaux, Pierre Molinier, and many more.

Good—Very Good copy with light tanning to spine and general tanning/light wear.

File under: André Breton Louis Aragon Joyce Mansour Hans Bellmer Salvador Dali Robert Benayoun Guillaume Apollinaire Jean-Jacques Pauvert / Paris Eros Fetishism / BDSM Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Poetry Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Surrealism Dada Art Painting Sculpture / Installation Drawing Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Max Walter Svanberg

1976, Japanese
Hardcover (in slipcase with dust jacket), 88 pages, 32 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Seven Sha / Tokyo Kawade Shobo Shinsha / Tokyo

$150.00 - In stock -

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Rare and wonderful 1976 slip-cased hardcover monograph on Swedish surrealist painter, illustrator, and designer, Max Walter Svanberg (1912–1994). Svanberg’s visionary work, heavily praised by André Breton, merged surrealism with the metamorphic female form. His exploration of eroticism and the subconscious, biological, and natural worlds resulted in dreamlike, hybrid figures that intertwined female anatomy with lush flora and fauna. Bound in purple cloth and wrapped in illustrated original dust-jacket, this heavily illustrated book surveys Svanberg's drawings, paintings, and erotic collages through beautiful colour and monochrome gravure reproductions, alongside various texts, biography, bibliography and portrait of the artist — a most complete copy including insert booklet. Published within the deluxe La Septième Face du Dé series by Kawade Shobo Shinsha in Japan in the 1970s after the Editions Filipacchi series. All editions now out-of-print.

Born in Malmö, Sweden, Svanberg was denied admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in 1931, contracted polio in 1934, suffering from paralyzed arms. He founded the Swedish artist group Imaginisterna in 1948, but left them soon after. He also co–founded the Minotaur group. In 1950, he published an album of lithographs. Svangerg’s visual world, unique and quirky in Swedish art life, attracted international attention in the 1940s and 1950s; a fate or happiness few Swedish artists have ever known. In 1953, he was invited to join a surrealist group in Paris led by André Breton. Svanberg exhibited at the Galerie de l’Etoile Scellee in 1955. In 1958, he illustrated an edition of Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations.

VG copy in VG dust jacket with light foxing/rippling in VG slipcase with minor wear, foxing and age.

File under: Max Walter Swanberg Seven Sha / Tokyo Kawade Shobo Shinsha / Tokyo Surrealism Art Eros Drawing Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Painting

Codex Seraphinianus
by Luigi Serafini

1983, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 380 pages (approx), 36 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Abbeville Press / New York

$650.00 - In stock -

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Very rare copy of the first 1983 Abbeville English hardcover edition of the ever mysterious Codex Seraphinianus by Italian artist and designer Luigi Serafini (1949—), a book like no-other. Ever since the Codex Seraphinianus was first published in Italy in limited edition by Franco Maria Ricci in 1981, the book has been recognized as one of the strangest and most beautiful art books ever made. This phantasmagorical visual encyclopedia of an unknown world written in an unknown language has fueled much debate over its meaning. Written for the information age and addressing the import of coding and decoding in genetics, literary criticism, and computer science, the Codex confused, fascinated, and enchanted a generation, including Roland Barthes and Italo Calvino. While its message may be unclear, its appeal is obvious: it is a most exquisite artifact. Blurring the distinction between art book and art object.

Very Good book in Very Good dust jacket with a couple of straches to edges and light wear, preserved in mylar wrap. Light wear to block edge on a few pages.

File under: Luigi Serafini Luigi Serafini Abbeville Press / New York Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Art Drawing Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Occult / Esoterica