World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
OPEN 12—5 THU—FRI
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
2023, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 18 x 12 cm
Published by
After 8 Books / Paris
$53.00 - Out of stock
This third printing of Faux Pas is expanded by new drawings and texts, including the previously unpublished lecture on drawing. The volume gathers a significant selection of Sillman’s essays, reviews and lectures, most of them made specially for the book. It aims at revealing the originality of Sillman’s reflection as she addresses the possibilities of art today, favouring wrestling over dandyism, forms over symbols, with critical sense and humour.
Since the 1970s, Sillman – a beloved and key figure of the New York art scene – has developed a singular body of work that includes large-scale gestural paintings blending abstraction with representation, as well as zines and iPad animations.
Over the past decade, Sillman has also produced stimulating essays on the practice of art or the work of other artists: for example, re-evaluating the work of the abstract expressionists with a queer eye; elaborating on the role of awkwardness and the body in the artistic process; and discussing in depth the role and meanings of colour and shape.
Based in New York City, Amy Sillman (born 1955) is an artist whose work consistently combines the visceral with the intellectual. She began to study painting in the 1970s at the School of Visual Arts and she received her MFA from Bard College in 1995. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Biennial in 2014 and the Venice Biennale in 2022; her writing has appeared in Bookforum and Artforum, among other publications. She is currently represented by Gladstone Gallery, New York.
1968, English
Hardcover (clothbound w. dust jacket), 132 pages, 28.5 x 22.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Rudy Komon Gallery / Woollahra
$90.00 - In stock -
First edition of the 1968 hardcover catalogue raisonné of etchings by Australian painter and printmaker Fred Williams (1927—1982). Profusely illustrated with 73 plates and 273 figures of beautiful reproductions on warm print stock gathering together a complete collection of graphic works by one of Australia’s most important artists, and one of the twentieth century's major landscapists. Compiled by James Mollison with an introduction by fellow Australian painter John Brack. This major, now collectible, volume was produced on the occasion of a survey of William's etchings held at the Rudy Komon Gallery in 1968.
Very Good copy with Average dust jacket with creases and tears though mostly all present, now preserved in removable mylar wrap.
1992, English
Softcover, 24 x 29.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Kunstmuseum Den Haag / Netherlands
$140.00 - Out of stock
Lovely over-sized landscape exhibition catalogue designed by Sol LeWitt and published in conjunction with his exhibition of drawings, 1958—1992, held at Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 1992. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and b/w, accompanied by texts by Rudi Fuchs, Franz W. Kaiser, Trevor Fairbrother. All texts in English. Includes 270 works illustrated, and checklist of the exhibition. Edited by Susanna Singer. This major survey exhibition later traveled to the UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and the USA between 1993—1995.
Very Good copy. Light cover tanning.
1980, English
Fifty looseleaf lithographs in softcover (w. dust jacket) in slipcase, 32 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Estate of Harry Bertoia / Pennsylvania
$1500.00 - In stock -
Magnificent, rare, complete portfolio of fifty unbound plates of drawings by Harry Bertoia (1915–1978), privately published in a limited edition of 500 numbered copies by the Estate of Harry Bertoia, Bally, Pennsylvania, 1980. This work is number 69 from the only edition of 500, printed by A. Colish Inc., of Mount Vernon, New York, under the supervision of Bert Clarke. Fifty offset lithographs printed on Mohawk Superfine Softwhite uncut, untrimmed cover stock, wrapped in original brown heavy handmade paper dust jacket with gilt lettering, housed in original brown cardboard slipcase. The letterpress sections were set in Aldine Bembo and printed on Rives heavy weight mould made paper. The plates were printed by offset on Mohawk Superfine Softwhite cover stock. Designed by Quentin Fiore. Frontispiece photograph of Bertoia by Joseph Seraphin.
"Thirty five years ago in a small beach house by the Pacific Ocean on the Coast of California, this book began to take its form. It was my intent to explore a technical means that would permit me to work with great rapidity. I had done a considerable amount of experimentation with materials that were on hand and processes that would evolve in the course of action. All this points to a technical development needed to permit the fluidity of thought to evolve from page to page without disruption or discontinuity. Speed of execution being essential, it became possible by drawing in the back side of paper using fingers, thumb, palm and various tools made of wood or metal. The ink was rolled on glass. Pressure picked up the ink in a granular way, which I liked. Technique and image were developing along parallel lines, interacting and transmogrifying no end. The whole sequence of fifty pages came into being, in about twenty-four hours of uninterrupted work."—Bertoia
Harry Bertoia (1915—1978) was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer, best known for his iconic Bertoia "Diamond" Chair and monumental architectural sculptures. Born in San Lorenzo, Pordenone, Italy, Bertoia, at age 15, was given the opportunity to move to Detroit with his brother, where he enrolled in technical High School and learned the skill of handmade jewellery making (ca.1930-1936). Harry Bertoia’s oeuvre encompasses sound sculptures, furniture, and jewellery design. A successful designer at the mid-century furniture company Knoll, Bertoia famously designed their “Diamond chair”, a delicate and airy steel-framed chair introduced in 1952 and still sold today. He would later devote his artistic energy towards innovative sculpture, finding ways to bend and stretch metal so that when crossed with wind or touch, it would create different sounds. Many of Bertoia's “tonal sculptures” were commissioned for established institutions and as public art displays. He has also performed concerts with these pieces, even recording a series of albums known as “Sonambient” music. From a young age Bertoia was friends with other prominent designers such as Walter Gropius and Ray and Charles Eames, and he regularly designed jewellery for his friends.
As New copy, only single mark to bottom-right of front dust wrapper that could be intrinsic to the stock, otherwise As New. All contents As New and complete, unhandled, slipcase VG—Near Fine with only one tear to single top edge from shelf handling, otherwise only the lightest wear. "69" neatly penned by marker to slipcase bottom spine. "69" numbered inside the edition, also. A stunning copy.
1984, German
Softcover, 116 pages, 21 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
ABC Verlag / Zürich
$140.00 - Out of stock
The original first Swiss German edition of H.R. Giger's Retrospektive 1964-1984, published by ABC Verlag, Zürich, printed and bound in Switzerland in 1984. H.R. Giger — Retrospektive 1964-1984 presents over 150 artworks, spanning 20 years in the career of the world's most renowned fantasy artist, are gathered chronologically in this one rich and detailed volume. Carefully rendered reproductions of Giger's paintings, drawings, designs, videos, sculptures, costumes and furniture are accompanied by his own commentary and portraits of the artist at work and with Dali, Fuchs, Harry and other colleagues.
Fantastic Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer Hans Rudolf “Ruedi” Giger was born in 1940, the son of a chemist. He spoke of a father who viewed art as a "breadless profession", and strongly encouraged his son to enter into pharmaceutics. Despite this, in 1962, he moved to Zürich, where he studied Architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts until 1970. Giger's style and thematic execution have been hugely influential. His design for the Alien was inspired by his painting Necronom IV and earned him an Oscar in 1980. His books of paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II (1985) and the frequent appearance of his art in Omni magazine continued his rise to international prominence. Giger is also well known for artwork on several music recording albums. His most distinctive stylistic innovation is that of a representation of human bodies and machines in a cold, interconnected relationship, he described as "biomechanical". His paintings often display fetishistic sexual imagery. His main influences were painters Ernst Fuchs and Salvador Dalí. He was also a personal friend of Timothy Leary. Giger suffered from night terrors and his paintings are all to some extent inspired by his experiences with that particular sleep disorder, making his first paintings as a means of art therapy. In 1998 Giger acquired the Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland, and it now houses the H. R. Giger Museum, a permanent repository of his work.
Good—Very Good copy of the original Swiss edition with light cover creasing/corner bump to top-right.
2022, English
Hardcover (clothbound), 96 pages, 20 x 25 cm
Published by
Hatje Cantz / Berlin
$58.00 - Out of stock
Carol Rama is one of the most exciting artistic rediscoveries of the 20th century. Her creative period spanned more than 70 years - tirelessly testing different materials, styles, and media. Among other things, the artist created a body of graphic works and unique watercolors that will be presented at Berlin's Gutshaus Steglitz. This overview publication on the work of the self-taught artist is being published at the same time. The Italian artist received attention for her unique oeuvre only at an advanced age and posthumously. In the 1940s, Rama caused a sensation with the permissive and, at the time, progressive portrayal of her protagonists. In her late work she returned to the depictions of her youth.
2009, English
Hardcover, 550 pages, 22 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$420.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the scarce, highly sought after, and most comprehensive book ever published on American artist Paul Thek, published in 2009 by MIT Press. Edited by Harald Falckenberg and Peter Weibel, this enormous 550 page monograph contains more than 300 works by this groundbreaking artist, documenting his journey from legendary outsider to central figure in many contemporary art movements.
Paul Thek occupied a place between high art and low art, between the epic and the everyday. During his brief life (1933-1988), he went against the grain of art world trends, humanizing the institutional spaces of art with the force of his humor, spirituality, and character. Twenty years after Thek's death from AIDS, we can now recognize his influence on contemporary artists ranging from Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman to Matthew Barney, Mike Kelley, and Paul McCarthy, as well as Kai Althoff, Jonathan Meese, and Thomas Hirschhorn. This book brings together more than 300 of Thek's works—many of which are published here for the first time—to offer the most comprehensive display of his work yet seen. The book, which accompanies an exhibition at ZKM ? Museum of Contemporary Art presenting Thek's work in dialogue with contemporary art by young artists, includes painting, sculpture, drawing, and installation work, as well as photographs documenting the room-size environments into which Thek incorporated elements from art, literature, theater, and religion. These works chart Thek's journey from legendary outsider to foundational figure in contemporary art. In their antiheroic diversity, Thek's works embody the art revolution of the 1960s; indeed, Susan Sontag dedicated her classic Against Interpretation to him. Thek's treatment of the body in such works as “Technological Reliquaries,” with their castings and replicas of human body parts, tissue, and bones, both evoke the aura of Christian relics and anticipate the work of Damien Hirst. The book, with more than 500 images (300 in colour) and nineteen essays by art historians, curators, collectors, and artists, investigates Thek's work on its own terms, and as a starting point for understanding the work of the many younger artists Thek has influenced.
Essays by Jean-Christophe Ammann, Margrit Brehm, Bazon Brock, Suzanne Delehanty, Harald Falckenberg, Marietta Franke, Stefan Germer, Kim Gordon, Roland Groenenboom, Axel Heil, Gregor Jansen, Mike Kelley, John Miller, Susanne Neubauer, Kenny Schachter, Harald Szeemann, Annette Tietenberg, Peter Weibel, Ann Wilson.
Good copy with tanning to spine, some bumping and waving from storage. Clean throughout.
2000, English
Hardcover, 120 pages, 22.3 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
The Drawing Center / New York
Merrell Publishers / London
$140.00 - Out of stock
Beautiful hardcover volume exploring every aspect of the art of the celebrated Belgian/French writer and artist Henri Michaux, published to accompany the major exhibition Untitled Passages, curated by Catherine de Zegher and Florian Rodari for The Drawing Centre, New York. Untitled Passages by Henri Michaux investigates Michaux’s graphic works in tandem with his poetic practice, addressing the artist-poet’s research into the passages between “writing” and “drawing”, taking its title from Michaux’s extensive body of untitled drawings and from Passages, his book of poetic writings. Profusely illustrated with an interview with Michaux by John Ashbery. Edited with texts by Catherine de Zegher, also Raymond Bellour, Henri Michaux, Laurent Jenny, Florian Rodari, Richard Sirburth.
Fine copy, almost As New. Out-of-print.
2001, English
Softcover, 83 pages, 22 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Skira / Milan
The Drawing Center / New York
$400.00 - In stock -
Rare, first-ever English translation of this Michaux classic, very quickly out-of-print and sought after.
One of the key works of the poet and artist Henri Michaux (1899-1984) whose original approach intertwines the written word with his visionary paintings and drawings.
First published in 1972, this English language translation of Henri Michaux’s celebrated book Émergences- Résurgences has been published on the occasion of the exhibition Untitled Passages by Henri Michaux organized by The Drawing Center in New York.
Part essay, part poem—by turns lyric, ekphrastic, didactic, gnomic, and comic—it is also one of Michaux’s most sustained self-portraits.
Very Good copy. Tanned.
2015, English
Hardcover, 192 pages, 22.86 x 3.18 x 31.12 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
National Portrait Gallery / London
$150.00 - Out of stock
First edition hardcover catalogue — an acclaimed book published to accompany an acclaimed exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, in 2015.
Since his death at the age of sixty-four in 1966, Alberto Giacometti has become recognised internationally as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century and sales of his sculptures now achieve record-breaking prices. Belonging to no particular artistic movement, he developed through cubist and surrealist phases and later attained a mature, individual idiom whose preoccupation with the depiction of a human presence in an enveloping space may be seen in relation to contemporary existentialist concerns with defining the place and purpose of man in a godless universe.
Taking its title from Jean-Paul Sartre, who described Giacometti's endeavor to give "sensible expression" to "pure presence," this book explores the artist's work in relation to existentialist ideas. Spanning painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking, Giacometti's oeuvre ranges from surrealist objects to images of the human figure, with portraits of particular individuals at the center.
This book looks at the various phases of the artist's career and explores in detail his depiction of his main sitters, including his mother; Diego his brother; his wife Annette; Jean Genet the playwright; Caroline, a prostitute; and his friends Yanaihara and Lotar. Early drawings, paintings and sculptures of family members and his own image demonstrate Giacometti's awareness of Post-Impressionist and Divisionist styles.
From 1946 Giacometti resumed painting and depicting individuals became central to his work. After 1954, when he began making sculpture from life, his portraits expressed a dialogue between painting and sculpture.
As New copy, first edition, out-of-print.
2017, English
Softcover, 256 pages, 22 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Tate Gallery / London
$80.00 - In stock -
Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) is one of the few artists of the last century whose work is almost more recognizable than his name. His distinctive elongated figures are well known, and appear in major museum collections worldwide. However, the story of Giacometti’s evolution, from his first professional works of art through his surrealist compositions to the emergence of his mature style, has rarely been explored fully and in depth. This comprehensive overview of his career focuses on the art, the people, and the events that influenced him, and on the original and experimental way in which he approached and developed his work. An illustrated glossary of texts on his life and art is accompanied by a plate section of strikingly beautiful illustrations of his sculptures, paintings, and drawings as well as sketchbooks, decorative works, photographs, and studio ephemera, much of which have never been published before. This accessible survey is the definitive resource for fans of the artist.
Out-of-print, first edition, Very Good copy with light cover wear.
2015, English
Hardcover (cloth-bound), 248 pages, 18 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Mousse Publishing / Milan
$400.00 - Out of stock
The great hardcover monographic book on the work of Giorgio Griffa, edited by Andrea Bellini, that very quickly disappeared from print and became understandibly collectible. This most comprehensive English-language book on the artist, published on the occasion of the cycle of exhibitions dedicated to the work of Giorgio Griffa (Turin, 1936) (Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serralves, Porto; Bergen Kunsthall; and Fondazione Giuliani, Rome) aims—through a series of essays by Andrea Bellini, Luca Cerizza, Laura Cherubini, Martin Clark, Suzanne Cotter, and Chris Dercon, a conversation between Griffa and Hans Ulrich Obrist, and a selection of artist’s writings and a chronology compiled by Marianna Vecellio—to highlight the very diverse features and extraordinary richness of Griffa’s paintings. Profusely illustrated throughout.
“Giorgio Griffa is one of the least-known Turin-born artists of the Arte Povera generation. Another precious ‘secret’ that the city of Turin, discreet and haughty as ever, has managed to keep under wraps—in this case for almost half a century. From the immediate post-war period, a singular group of young artists in the city helped write the history of European art in the second half of the twentieth-century. Together with now universally acclaimed figures, such as Alighiero Boetti, Giuseppe Penone, Giulio Paolini, Giovanni Anselmo, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio, and Mario and Marisa Merz, there were also other leading artists in Turin, who have only recently begun to receive the international attention they deserve. Here I am thinking of the likes of Piero Gilardi, Gianni Piacentino, Carol Rama, Salvo, and Aldo Mondino, but also of the eccentric and eclectic Carlo Mollino. Griffa was one of the most discreet and isolated in this group of young people who revolved around Sperone’s gallery. He immediately showed an exclusive interest in painting, while his companions mainly moved out towards sculpture and installation from the mid-sixties.”—Andrea Bellini
Fine copy, almost As New.
2017, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 21 x 14.85 cm
Published by
kiddiepunk / Paris
$59.00 - Out of stock
A reprint of Kiddiepunk's first-ever anthology, "Kiddiepunk Collected 2011-2015" presents ten out-of-print and sought-after Kiddiepunk publications in one 288-page volume. Included are works by Peter Sotos, Dennis Cooper, Thomas Moore, O.B. De Alessi, Scott Treleaven, Michael Salerno, Ken Baumann and Steven Purtill.
Once again out-of-print, limited stock!
1999, English
Softcover, 128 pages, 24 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Creation Books / London
The Tears Corporation / London
$45.00 - In stock -
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) remains the most inspirational, provocative and challenging figure in world-wide contemporary culture. His trajectory extends from the Surrealist movement, to the Theatre of Cruelty, to the lunatic asylums of France, and finally back to Paris and the most astonishing period of his work.
For the first time, the book gives a full and authoritative account of Artaud's film projects, and his conception of Surrealist cinema. It examines his unique series of drawings of the fragmented human body, begun in the ward of a lunatic asylum and finished in a state of furious liberation. Finally, the book captures Artaud's ultimate experiment with the screaming body in the form of his censored recording To Have Done With The Judgement Of God - an experiment which is unprecedented in the history of art, and which ultimately decimates that history.
The Screaming Body is an essential resource and inspiration for those engaged in creating the definitive culture of our time, in film, art, music and writing.
Very Good copy, light wear.
Signed offset printed poster (80 x 59 cm)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
$900.00 - In stock -
Rare and signed vintage Jannis Kounellis (1936—2017) litho/serigraph print poster. Possibly an Italian museum artist's edition, although we have never seen another like it available. Beautifully large print in offset halftone with over-print of black square and "KOUNELLIS". Hand signed in pencil in the lower right by Jannis Kounellis, Greek Italian artist and forefather of the Arte Povera movement. Since the 1960s Kounellis investigated the alienation inherent in contemporary society, juxtaposing the materials of mass urban and industrial civilization with symbols and values of the pre-industrial world.
A stunning collector's item, ready to frame.
Dimensions : 80 x 59 cm.
Very Good condition, well preserved.
1997, English
Softcover, 86 pages,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art / Connecticut
$55.00 $30.00 - Out of stock
First 1997 edition of Bruce Nauman 1985—1996 Drawings, Prints, and Relate Works, published on the occasion of an exhibition held May 4 to Aug. 31, 1997 at Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art February 27-April 19, 1998. Illustrated throughout in colour an b/w with many of Nauman's works accompanied by a prologue by Jill Snyder and with a sixteen-page essay by Ingrid Shaffner, "Circling Oblivion/Bruce Naumann through Samuel Beckett", plus a checklist of all works.
Good—Very Good copy.
2022, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 376 Pages, 22.8 x 15.2 cm
Published by
Zone Books / New York
$72.00 - In stock -
Francisco de Goya and the Art of Critique probes the relationship between the enormous, extraordinary, and sometimes baffling body of Goya’s work and the interconnected issues of modernity, Enlightenment, and critique. Taking exception to conventional views that rely mainly on Goya’s darkest images to establish his relevance for modernity, Cascardi argues that the entirety of Goya’s work is engaged in a thoroughgoing critique of the modern social and historical worlds, of which it nonetheless remains an integral part. The book reckons with the apparent gulf assumed to divide the Disasters of War and the so-called Black Paintings from Goya’s scenes of bourgeois life or from the well-mannered portraits of aristocrats, military men, and intellectuals. It shows how these apparent contradictions offer us a gateway into Goya’s critical practice vis-à-vis a European modernity typically associated with the Enlightenment values dominant in France, England, and Germany. In demonstrating Goya’s commitment to the project of critique, Cascardi provides an alternative to established readings of Goya’s work, which generally acknowledge the explicit social criticism evident in works such as the Caprichos but which have little to say about those works that do not openly take up social or political themes. In Francisco de Goya and the Art of Critique, Cascardi shows how Goya was consistently engaged in a critical response to—and not just a representation of—the many different factors that are often invoked to explain his work, including history, politics, popular culture, religion, and the history of art itself.
“This is a landmark study that will change the terms in which Goya’s art will henceforth be understood.”—Peter de Bolla
“One doesn’t need to be a Frankfurt School buff to acknowledge that Anthony Cascardi has written the most convincing account of Goya’s work—all of Goya, the religious frescoes, the court paintings, and the tapestry cartoons as well as the Caprichos, the Disasters of War, and the black paintings in the Quinta del Sordo—using the lens of Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of the Enlightenment. An enlightening study indeed, which stops short of wanting to illuminate what in Goya should remain steeped in darkness.” —Thierry de Duve, Evelyn Kranes Kossak Professor of Art History, Hunter College
“In this deeply reflective and thorough study, Cascardi blows the lid off standard accounts of Goya’s extraordinary art, demonstrating that both the ‘painter of light’ and the ‘painter of darkness’ theses fall way short of the artist’s immersion in the culture of his time. In chapter after chapter, Cascardi argues that Goya was involved in a critique of the world he lived in—its politics, religious belief, ethics, history—and, at the same time, of the means of representation at his disposal. This is a landmark study that will change the terms in which Goya’s art will henceforth be understood.” —Peter de Bolla, Professor of Cultural History and Aesthetics, University of Cambridge
2005, English
Hardcover, 240 pages, 21.6 x 25.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Drawing Center / New York
Yale University Press / New Haven
$520.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this quickly out-of-print and highly sought after hardcover volume published by Yale in 2005 to accompany the major travelling exhibition, 3 x an Abstraction, presenting the extraordinary work of three important women artists whose innovative ideas and approaches to drawing had a significant impact on the history of modern abstraction. Hilma af Klint (Sweden, 1862-1944), Emma Kunz (Switzerland, 1892-1963) and Agnes Martin (Canada, b. 1912; U.S. citizenship 1950) approached geometric abstraction not as formalism, but as a means of structuring philosophical, scientific, and spiritual ideas. Using line, geometry and the grid, each of these artists created diagrammatic drawings of their exploration of complex belief systems and restorative practices. Noteworthy among the 150 illustrations in the volume are a large number of works by Hilma af Klint, reproduced here for the first time in a major publication; Emma Kunz's drawings, exhibited in the United States for the first time in 2005; and approximately 20 early works by Agnes Martin. The book also includes writings by each of the artists, an introduction by Catherine de Zegher, seven essays by distinguished contributors, and brief statements from five contemporary artists.
Exhibition schedule: The Drawing Center, New York City, 25 March to 21 May 2005; Santa Monica Museum of Art, 10 June to 13 August 2005; Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense, Denmark, 14 October 2005 to 1 January 2006; The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 24 January to 26 March 2006.
Catherine de Zegher is director of The Drawing Center. Hendel Teicher is an independent scholar and curator who publishes frequently on modern and contemporary art. Contributors include: Bracha Ettinger, Briony Fer, Elizabeth Finch, Adam Fuss, Rosalind Krauss, Birgit Pelzer, Griselda Pollock, Kathryn Tuma, Susan Klein, Richard Tuttle, Cecilia Vicuña, and Terry Winters.
Very Good copy with only light edge wear, light buckling from storage. A very important book that helped introduce the work of Emma Kunz and Hilma af Klint to English audiences.
1981, English
Softcover, 174 pages, 23 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$45.00 $20.00 - In stock -
First 1981 edition of this catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, April 4—May 17, 1981. Heavily illustrated with many works by all artists featured, accompanied by texts by Otto Brecha and Christian Nebehay, this volume explores the radical, shocking and ground-breaking artistic expression of Vienna's "grand three" avant-garde artists at the dawn of the twentieth century. A city bursting with intellectual and sensual energy, Vienna's burgeoning society was constantly at odds with the conservative and often disapproving nineteenth-century culture — Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka often at the center of this controversy. Beautiful examples of their drawings and watercolours in b/w/ and colour throughout.
Good copy with wear to delicate spine and small tear to top of spine cover edge. General age and wear.
2022, English
Hardcover, 168 pages, 24 x 30 cm
Published by
RM / Barcelona
$110.00 - Out of stock
A significantly expanded hardcover edition of Carrington's acclaimed Tarot series, featuring new archival images and research.
The British-born Mexican surrealist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) spent a lifetime exploring the esoteric traditions of diverse cultures, and incorporated their ideas and symbols into her artistic and literary oeuvre. Tibetan Buddhism, the Kabbalah, ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian magic, Celtic mythology, witchcraft, astrology and the Tarot were filtered through her feminist lens to create a visionary, woman-centered worldview.
Carrington created a spectacular Major Arcana Tarot deck sometime during the 1950s, laying gold and silver leaf over brilliant color. Exhibited for the first time during her centennial exhibition Leonora Carrington: Magical Tales in 2018, this extraordinary work was a revelation for the public and inspired the publication of The Tarot of Leonora Carrington.
This second, considerably expanded edition--encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive reception of Fulgur's publication in 2020--explores further the central position that the Tarot held in Carrington's work. The volume includes an introductory text by her son Gabriel Weisz Carrington, who recalls his mother's long involvement with the Tarot, followed by a revised and more extensive essay by scholar Susan Aberth and curator Tere Arcq, including detailed analysis of each card: their color symbolism, their relationship to other works and their iconographic origins in ancient esoteric beliefs, including the Mesoamerican influences of her adopted country.
This new edition also reproduces previously unpublished photographs and images, as well as exciting new research into Carrington's influences, emphasizing the authors' claim that her work on the Major Arcana represents an esoteric roadmap to Carrington's feminist vision and wish for a new global gender equality toward a better ecological future for our planet.
2009, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 184 pages, 30 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) / Melbourne
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery / New Plymouth
Len Lye Foundation Collection / New Plymouth
$90.00 - In stock -
Rare first hardcover edition of this monograph on New Zealand-born experimental film maker and kinetic artist Len Lye (1901-1980), published on the occasion of a major retrospective, organised by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (New Plymouth, New Zealand), the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work to date. Edited by Wystan Curnow and Tyler Cann with texts by Alessio Cavallaro, Tylar Cann, Rhana Devenport, Roger Horrocks, Guy Brett, Wystan Curnow, Tessa Laird, Evan Webb, plus chronology, bibliography, lexicon, and much more. Lavishly illustrated throughout. An incredible reference book on this important artist.
Drawing from the Len Lye Foundation Collection and Archives and featuring materials never exhibited before the exhibition and book follows the technical processes and conceptual threads that run through Len Lye’s artistic career, from his earliest sketches, paintings and batiks of the 1920s, through to his photographic work, experimental and documentary films, and astounding motorised steel sculptures from the 1960s and 1970s. Also featured is a wide range of the artist’s notebooks and working materials.
The New Zealand-born Len Lye (1901-1980) is one of the most innovative artists of the modernist era, and a seminal figure in the history of the moving image. Beginning in the 1930s he developed techniques of making films without a camera, applying hand-painted imagery directly to the film strip. Combining these vibrant abstractions with rhythmic Cuban jazz, works such as A Colour Box (1935) have become touchstones for the medium of film as an artistic expression. Lye’s film Free Radicals (1957) is perhaps the culmination of a body of film work that influenced successive generations of experimental filmmakers, including Norman McClaren and Stan Brakhage.
As the ubiquity of the moving image in contemporary culture drives a re-appraisal of its history, the critical recognition of Lye’s films has increased. Less well-known is the diverse range of media, styles and places in which the artist worked. Lye left New Zealand in his early twenties, travelled throughout the South Pacific, and lived for extended periods in Australia and Samoa before settling in London and then, at the close of World War II, New York. As a writer, painter, and kinetic sculptor, as well as in his work in photography, documentary and experimental film, Lye traversed the boundaries of media as readily as he crossed continents.
Informed by his longstanding interest in non-western and prehistoric art, Lye attempted to cut through distinctions of modern and ancient, technological and biological forms. Films such as Tusalava (1929) and Trade Tattoo (1937) share patterns and techniques derived from traditional bark-cloth and batik painting. Lye’s dynamic kinetic sculptures reference dance and the body as much as mechanical technology. Lye’s work consistently makes porous the barriers between different media: his films tend toward paintings or drawings, while his sculptures often evoke the condition of film. In each, Lye was concerned with the encounter between the viewer’s physical body and the raw materials of light, movement and sound. Len Lye stages this meeting in a vivid mix of film and flashing metal.
Very Good copy in VG—Near Fine dust jacket. Only light storage buckling, otherwise as new.
2007, English
Hardcover (w/ 2 cd), 452 pages, 23 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain / Paris
Éditions Xavier Barral / Paris
$350.00 - In stock -
The first major collection of artwork by the acclaimed movie director David Lynch. Rare English-language first hardcover edition of this long out-of-print, comprehensive book, complete with double-CD accompaniment — an interview with David Lynch in which the artist provides a veritable commentary on his works.
Spanning a period of forty years, David Lynch's widely respected films and television series include Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive. However, his prolific visual art production, which began even before his films, has rarely been seen.
In 2007, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain presented The Air is on Fire, an expansive retrospective exhibition portraying the multiple facets of David Lynch’s art. It was the first time that the artist exhibited such an extensive number of paintings, photographs, drawings, experimental films, and sound creations.
This lavishly illustrated, deluxe volume unveils David Lynch’s little known yet highly prolific artistic production — a reference work that covers the artist’s different fields of creation: painting, photography, drawing, and motion pictures. His visual creations are aesthetic echoes of his films that offer a new look at his work and the opportunity to plunge deeper into his personal world. Includes many texts and an interview with Lynch. The book is accompanied by the seldom present 2 x audio commentary cds.
Very Good—Near Fine copy. Only some storage buckling and a tiny bit of light wear to the lower front cover, otherwise As New and complete. This is the original printing from the museum, in the English version, scarcer still.
1996, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 232 pages, 30 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Richter Verlag / Dusseldorf
$200.00 - In stock -
Rare first hardcover edition of Brice Marden — Work Books 1964-1995, published by Harvard University Art Museum and Richter Verlag on the occasion of the major travelling exhibition of 1997—1998 (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Wexner Center for the Arts, The State University of Ohio, Harvard University Art Museum). Profusely illustrated throughout presenting the comprehensive and important workbooks and sketchpads of American minimalist Brice Marden (b. 1938) together in one volume. With illustrated essays by Dieter Schwarz and Michael Semff. With an exhibition history, bibliography, biography, and list of works. Bi-lingual texts in German and English.
Brice Marden (b. 1938) is an American artist known for his subtle explorations of colour and gestural lines. Marden, who rose to prominence in 1960s New York, is renowned for an ever-evolving abstract practice with roots in Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, and calligraphic traditions. Throughout his lyrical canvases, Marden paints colourful networks of serpentine lines that flow hypnotically throughout the picture plane. He sometimes replaces his paintbrush with a stick, giving his lines a more organic appearance. Such interest in line, gesture, and material experimentation is at the heart of Marden’s drawing and painting practices; early in his career, he painted with a kitchen spatula.
First hardcover edition, VG—Near Fine. VG—NF dust jacket.
2012, English
Hardcover, 288 pages, 22.5 x 27 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Yale University Press / New Haven
$120.00 - In stock -
Now out-of-print, this is the first monograph on the influential 20th-century artist Alighiero e Boetti and his groundbreaking works.
Alighiero e Boetti (1940-1994) has emerged as one of the most significant figures of postwar European art whose practice is having an unfolding impact on younger artists. His powerful influence can be attributed to the material diversity of his work, its conceptual ingenuity, and his political sensibility. His work, though usually associated with the Italian Arte Povera group and Conceptual Art, has never quite fit into these contexts. Boetti ceased making Arte Povera–type objects in 1969 after a few years of association with the group, and his later choice of materials (embroidery, calligraphy, mosaic, kilims) put a gulf between his work and that of most artists of the 1970s and 1980s.
Boetti had an idiosyncratic style of working, and he often collaborated with or commissioned others to execute his ideas, including his celebrated maps of the world, colorfully embroidered by women in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He tended to create several divergent bodies of work at once in series that he continued throughout his life. Alighiero e Boetti is the first monograph covering the whole career of this crucial artist to be published in English. Rather than present a linear account of the artist's creative practice, the book contains linked chapters that expound on the key subjects of Boetti's art and position this work in relation to that of his European and American contemporaries.