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.
1966, German
Softcover, 106 pages, 23 x 13.5
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Städtisches Museum / Leverkusen
$65.00 - Out of stock
First edition Bernard Schultze exhibition catalogue published in 1966 to accompany the exhibition "Bernard Schultze" at the Städtisches Museum Schloß Morsbroich, Leverkusen. A beautiful catalogue printed on various paper stocks throughout and lavishly illustrated with an overview of German artist Bernard Schultze's many works in vivid colour and b/w, accompanied by texts from Rolf Wedewer, Peter W. Jansen and Bernard Schultze.
Bernard Schultze (1915–2005) was a German abstract painter and integral figure of the Art Informel movement. He was notably the founder of the Quadriga collective, which included such artists as Otto Greis Karl Otto Götz, and Heinz Kreutz. Characterized by their gestural abstraction, Shultze’s works regularly feature brilliant, fluorescent colors morphing in and out of implied representation, forming fantastical landscapes, figures, and languages. Often highly textural, he is noted for his use of textile and sculptural relief throughout his painting practice. Sadly all of Schultze's early works, produced before 1945, were destroyed as a result of a 1945 air raid on Berlin. On 7 July 1955 he married painter Ursula Bluhm. The artist died in 2005 in Cologne, Germany at the age of 89, having continued painting until the end of his life.
Good copy with previous owner eraser marks to cover. Otherwise Very Good, clean and tightly bound throughout.
2019, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 44 pages,
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery / New York
$50.00 - In stock -
Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Calix, Cup, Chalice, Grail, Urn, Goblet: Presenting the Sexual Essence of Morris Graves, at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, June 15 – August 2, 2019. This exhibition was a seven-decade survey exploring the artist’s symbolic use of vessels in luminous, spiritual works that exemplify the essence of his mystical relationship with nature. From early oil paintings to surrealist works on paper and later quiet still-lifes, the imagery of the chalice is reflective of Graves’s expansive world view. Presenting the Sexual Essence of Morris Graves charts the evolution of this recurring form as a reflection on an artist who sought spiritual life and growth in a world that he felt was defined by disruption and disintegration.
Morris Graves (1910–2001) was a self-taught Modern American painter and member of the Northwest School of Visionary Art. A lifetime traveler, he spent much of his time in Asia, studying in Japan and absorbing ideas and iconography related to Zen Buddhism. In America he spent long periods in semi-isolation, absorbed in nature and his art. He created coded, colourful paintings exploring the spiritual bond he shared with the land and culture of the Pacific Northwest, his birthplace and home. Lauded by critics as a type of modern-day mysticism or “visionary art,” Graves' canvases and works on paper often featured bold depictions of local flora and fauna, contrasted by natural, recognizable forms inspired by the artist’s personal relationship to spirituality. “I paint to rest from the phenomena of the external world—to pronounce it—and to make notations of its essences with which to verify the inner eye,” he once wrote.
Very Good copy.
1994, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 68 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Feature Inc. / New York
$300.00 - Out of stock
The rarely seen, first edition of G.B. Jones' artist book, published in the US in 1994 and seized at the border and officially banned in Jones’ native Canada.
G.B. Jones (b. 1965) is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, and founding member of Canadian queer punk band Fifth Column (K Records/Outpunk/Kill Rock Stars/et al). She published legendary queercore fanzine J.D.s (Juvenile Delinquents) with fellow queer filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, which regularly featured her iconic Tom Girl drawings. According to novelist Dodie Bellamy, G.B. Jones' drawing "co-opts the male-on-male objectifying gaze of gay erotica and converts it to a female-on-female gaze." Depicting autonomous women through fantasies of bikers, punks and degenerates in the style of and situations similar to those drawn by Tom of Finland, her Tom Girls are "unapologetic, thrillingly anti-assimilationist." Compiling a scrapbook curriculum vitae of her work to date, this wonderful book presents the Tom Girl series of drawings alongside stills from videos, excerpts from J.D.s zines, gig flyers, photos and essays and commentaries by Dennis Cooper, Vaginal Davis, Dodie Bellamy, Kevin Killian, Caroline Azar, Johnny Noxzema, and others. The essential book on the artist.
Very Good, beautiful copy of the very first banned edition. Possibly in 1996 more were printed (also barely exist), but this is definitely the original 1994 print, exceptionally rare.
1952, French
Softcover, 26 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Gariel-Giraud / Paris
$350.00 - Out of stock
First, very rare 1952 edition of this important piece of art history, considered the manifesto of "L'art Informel". Published in an edition of only 1000 copies, Michel Tapié's book Un Art Autre (Art of Another Kind) defined a tendency in postwar European painting that he saw as a radical break with all traditional notions of order and composition—an art that worked through ‘paroxysm, magic, total ecstasy’. This dominant trend of abstract art in the 1940s and 1950s was characterised by an improvisatory approach and highly gestural technique, much aligned with America's Abstract Expressionism. In describing such work he used the term art informel (from the French ‘informe’, meaning unformed or formless), and presented the exemplary works of Wols, Herni Michaux, Jean Dubuffet, Mark Tobey, Jackson Pollock, Pierre Soulages, Georges Mathieu, Ruth Francken, René Guiette, Victor Brauner, Alfonso A. Ossorio, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jean Fautrier, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Karel Appel, Mario Sironi, Camille Bryen, Alberto Burri, Hans Hofmann, Claire Falkenstein, Slavko Kopač, Germaine Richier, Graham Sutherland, Sam Francis, Mark Rothko, Gianni Dova, Jaroslav Serpan, André-Pierre Arnal, Roger-Edgar Gillet, Lucio Fontana, Roberto Matta, Eduardo Paolozzi, Willem de Kooning, and more.
Very Good copy with tanning from age and light spotting. Beautifully preserved copy.
2020, English
Hardcover, 288 pages, 24.1 x 29.2 cm
Published by
National Gallery of Art / Washington
$120.00 - Out of stock
Text by Harry Cooper, Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene, Kate Nesin. Contributions by Jennifer Roberts, Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman, Rirkrit Tiravanija.
A sweeping retrospective of Philip Guston’s influential work, from Depression-era muralist to abstract expressionist to tragicomic contemporary master
Philip Guston—perhaps more than any other figure in recent memory—has given contemporary artists permission to break the rules and paint what, and how, they want. His winding career, embrace of “high” and “low” sources, and constant aesthetic reinvention defy easy categorization, and his 1968 figurative turn is by now one of modern art’s most legendary conversion narratives. “I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening in America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything—and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?”
And so Guston’s sensitive abstractions gave way to large, cartoonlike canvases populated by lumpy, sometimes tortured figures and mysterious personal symbols in a palette of juicy pinks, acid greens, and cool blues. That Guston continued mining this vein for the rest of his life—despite initial bewilderment from his peers—reinforced his reputation as an artist’s artist and a model of integrity; since his death 50 years ago, he has become hugely influential as contemporary art has followed Guston into its own antic twists and turns.
Published to accompany the first retrospective museum exhibition of Guston’s career in over 15 years, Philip Guston Now includes a lead essay by Harry Cooper surveying Guston's life and work, and a definitive chronology reflecting many new discoveries. It also highlights the voices of artists of our day who have been inspired by the full range of his work: Tacita Dean, Peter Fischli, Trenton Doyle Hancock, William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, David Reed, Dana Schutz, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Thematic essays by co-curators Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene and Kate Nesin trace the influences, interests and evolution of this singular force in modern and contemporary art—including several perspectives on the 1960s and ’70s, when Guston gradually abandoned abstraction, returning to the figure and to current history but with a personal voice, by turns comic and apocalyptic, that resonates today more than ever.
2020, English
Hardcover, 272 pages, 21.7 x 28 cm
Published by
Hatje Cantz / Berlin
Moderna Museet / Malmö
$100.00 - In stock -
Rewriting the History of Abstract Painting.
Once considered an outsider artist, after her show at the Guggenheim Museum was seen by more than half a million visitors, Hilma af Klint firmly established her place in art history. She has also been the subject of documentary films and biographies. In 2013, Iris Müller-Westermann organized the first retrospective exhibition of af Klint’s work. Now she presents us with the latest information and research in an extensive survey show, which she curated together with Milena Høgsberg, at the Moderna Museet in Malmö. Of crucial importance is the issue of spirituality in af Klint’s painting—how the artist managed to translate both the material and the immaterial world into a pictorial vision. The accompanying exhibition catalogue investigates, from a variety of perspectives, the question of how this trailblazing abstract artist linked her painting to a higher consciousness. Essays by art historians, a quantum physicist, a spiritual teacher, and an historian of theosophy and esotericism, among others, provide insights into a world beyond the visible which fascinates us now even more than ever.
HILMA AF KLINT (1862–1944) studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. She turned to abstraction in the wake of her profound exploration of spirituality and theosophy. She is regarded as a pioneer of abstract art.
Edited by Iris Müller-Westermann, Milena Hoegsberg, text(s) by Ernst Peter Fischer, Ylva Hillström, Milena Hoegsberg, Anne Sophie Joergensen, Caroline Levander, Hedvig Martin, Iris Müller-Westermann, Tim Rudboeg, graphic design by Patric Leo
2001, English
Hardcover, 184 pages, 29 x 21 cm
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
$45.00 - In stock -
Hardcover artist's book by the great Robert MacPherson (b. 1937, Brisbane, Queensland), published on the occasion of the major solo exhibition at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2001. Profusely illustrated throughout with colour, landscape-orientated reproductions of MacPherson's classic, expansive series of drawings of drovers. All deliberately executed as if by the hand of a ten-year-old, over a 20-year period Robert MacPherson made these in the guise of his alter ego, Robert Pene, a grade 4 student at St Joseph’s Convent, Nambour, Queensland. Robert Pene has an obsession: he endlessly catalogues boss drovers in portraits that vividly evoke the resilient, determined spirit of the rugged individuals responsible for moving thousands of livestock and teams of stockmen and cooks along the great pastoral stock routes of Australia, travelling over vast distances from station to market, or finding feed and water in times of drought. The drovers series is an ongoing theme having detained MacPherson throughout much of his career as an artist.
Over the course of his 40-year career, Robert MacPherson has explored the philosophical propositions of what constitutes a work of art. He often incorporates familiar imagery, everyday materials and visual elements from daily life, honouring the beauty of the mundane. MacPherson’s fascination with systems of objects and language is manifested through broad fields of knowledge, including art history and social history, biology and mythology.
As New.
2019, English
Softcover (leporello folded guide w. illustrations), 15 x 10 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Belgian Pavilion La Biennale Di Venezia / Venice
$10.00 - In stock -
Visitor's Guide (English edition) published to accompany the presentation "Mondo Cane" by Belgian art duo Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys for the 2019 Venice Biennale. This staple-bound booklet presents all the characters featured in "Mondo Cane" together with their biographies. Highly recommended.
The Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter (b. 1965) and Harald Thys (b. 1966) have collaborated for more than two decades on artworks in a variety of media, including film, photography, drawing, painting, and sculpture; they are known for thought-provoking works, often imbued with an antic sense of humor. Depression, autism, power games, psychosis, sexual tensions and idolatry are just a few of the interests that Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys have cited as crucial to their dark repertoire. The pair was selected to represent Belgium at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Its title, "Mondo Cane", refers to a 1962 Italian film that documented-in a style intended to provoke Western audiences-cultural practices from around the world.
2019, English / French / German / Dutch / Italian
Softcover, 224 pages, 21 x 25.5 cm
Published by
Yale University Press / New Haven
$69.00 - In stock -
The provocative and often comic Belgian art duo Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys present in book form their collaborative contribution to the 2019 Venice Biennale
The Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter (b. 1965) and Harald Thys (b. 1966) have collaborated for more than two decades on artworks in a variety of media, including film, photography, drawing, painting, and sculpture; they are known for thought-provoking works, often imbued with an antic sense of humor. Depression, autism, power games, psychosis, sexual tensions and idolatry are just a few of the interests that Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys have cited as crucial to their dark repertoire. The pair was selected to represent Belgium at the 2019 Venice Biennale, and this book accompanies and documents their exhibit, also titled Mondo Cane. The book is composed of a series of original, illustrated texts, written alternately in English, French, German, Dutch, and Italian. The texts are intended to evoke a variety of human conditions in an environment reminiscent of present-day Europe. Its title refers to a 1962 Italian film that documented-in a style intended to provoke Western audiences-cultural practices from around the world. Lavishly illustrated and designed by the artists themselves, this book both reflects de Gruyter and Thys's contribution to the Venice Biennale and is a work of art in its own right.
2004, French / English
Softcover, 224 pages, 21 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Editions Bricolage / Montreuil
$65.00 - Out of stock
The handsome bilingual first edition of the scarcely circulated “Recreational Discography” from Paris, brimming with an incredible technicolour selection of home made record sleeves - a collection that began in 1996 as both a documentary and collectional work. The book is composed entirely of different iconographic montages made from record sleeves and CD jackets. The distinctive feature: these covers, be they 45s, 33s, or CDs, mostly found at flea markets, have all been redesigned or modified by anonymous individuals/previous owners, sometimes using the original sleeve art as a starting point. The meandering imaginations of anonymous bricolers and music fans invites the viewer into a stereographic experience seldom captured in any other record collection.
2019, English
Softcover, 20 pages, 16.5 x 23.6 cm
Published by
Innen Books / Zürich
$28.00 - Out of stock
"EYƎ Mix" is a new publication by Japanese artist/musician EYE, published in 2019 by Innen Books on the occasion of TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2019 at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, July 12 – July 15, 2019.
EYƎ is a Japanese vocalist and visual artist, best known as co-founder of the influential rock music band Boredoms and Naked City. He has changed his stage name several times, from Yamatsuka Eye, to Yamantaka Eye, to Yamataka Eye and now simply calls himself EYƎ.
EYƎ is a member of the bands Hanatarash, UFO or Die, Puzzle Punks, Noise Ramones and Destroy 2. He is notorious for his vast, confusing discography and countless guest appearances. Notable collaborations include his work with Nam June Paik, Sonic Youth, Yamamoto Seiichi & Yamazaki Maso, Bill Laswell's Praxis and John Zorn's groups Naked City and Painkiller.
As well as his music, EYƎ is famous for his mixed-media style of art that utilises airbrush, marker pen and collage, amongst other materials. His artworks have adorned a number of records, including the majority of Boredom’s releases and, perhaps more famously, Beck's Midnite Vultures. Drawing as much from Japanese mythology as from his musical influences, his work aims to complement the music as well as to provide another dimension to the sound.
2019, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 24 pages, 13 x 19 cm
Ed. of 200,
Published by
Innen Books / Zürich
Nieves / Zurich
$18.00 - In stock -
"The Rock T" is a limited edition publication by Japanese artist/musician EYE. Published in 2019 by Innen Books and Nieves in Zürich in an edition of 200 copies only on the occasion of TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2019 at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, July 12 – July 15, 2019.
EYƎ is a Japanese vocalist and visual artist, best known as co-founder of the influential rock music band Boredoms and Naked City. He has changed his stage name several times, from Yamatsuka Eye, to Yamantaka Eye, to Yamataka Eye and now simply calls himself EYƎ.
EYƎ is a member of the bands Hanatarash, UFO or Die, Puzzle Punks, Noise Ramones and Destroy 2. He is notorious for his vast, confusing discography and countless guest appearances. Notable collaborations include his work with Nam June Paik, Sonic Youth, Yamamoto Seiichi & Yamazaki Maso, Bill Laswell's Praxis and John Zorn's groups Naked City and Painkiller.
As well as his music, EYƎ is famous for his mixed-media style of art that utilises airbrush, marker pen and collage, amongst other materials. His artworks have adorned a number of records, including the majority of Boredom’s releases and, perhaps more famously, Beck's Midnite Vultures. Drawing as much from Japanese mythology as from his musical influences, his work aims to complement the music as well as to provide another dimension to the sound.
2019, English
Softcover, 278 pages, 16 x 24 cm
Published by
Koenig Books / London
$90.00 - In stock -
The extraordinary artist and intellectual Wolfgang Paalen (1905-1959) moved too fast for art history, which is only now beginning to catch up with his many accomplishments. Born in Vienna, he moved to Paris in 1929, where he affiliated with the Surrealists. The artist’s original contribution to Surrealism were his so-called ‘Fumage pictures’. In these he painted hallucinatory motifs using candle smoke, some of which he continued associatively with oil paint, others he left in their own right. A member of the Abstraction-Création group in the mid 1930s, Paalen’s pictures and texts provided both support and inspiration for young representatives of American Abstract Expressionist painting such as Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. He went into exile in Mexico in 1939 (at the invitation of Frida Kahlo), where he promoted the surrealist cause and edited the influential art magazine DYN. After the war he moved to San Francisco, forming the Dynaton Group with Gordon Onslow Ford and Lee Mullican.
This beautiful catalogue is dedicated to all of the artist’s creative periods. His long-standing interest in collecting and researching the indigenous art of British Columbia and Mexico as well as his literary work are also illuminated in more detail. Includes texts by Dawn Ades, Colin Browne, Timur Alexander ElRafie, Markus Hallensleben, Christian Kloyber, Andreas Neufert, Stella Rollig, Franz Smola.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Wolfgang Paalen (1905–1959): An Austrian Surrealist in Paris and Mexico at Belvedere, Vienna (4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020).
1971, French
Softcover, 48 pages, 22 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Orangerie des Tuileries / Paris
$35.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this lovely, simple catalogue published in 1971 on the occasion of Max Ernst's 80th anniversary exhibition at Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris. 40 works illustrated in b/w with some colour. Full catalogue of exhibited works.
Good copy. Some age spotting to both covers, otherwise very good throughout.
2020, English
Hardcover, 224 pages, 24.8 x 30.5 cm
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$118.00 - Out of stock
An in-depth look at these two American artists, who explored issues of sexuality and feminism in the 1960s and 1970s in their sculpture and photography.
This major hardcover book, produced to accompany an exhibition, offers the first opportunity to appreciate the resonances between the studio practices of Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke. Both artists found themselves drawn to unconventional materials, such as latex, plastics, erasers, and laundry lint, which they used to make work that was viscerally related to the body. They shared an interest in repetition to amplify the absurdity of their work. These repeated forms--whether Hesse's spiraling breast or Wilke's labial fold--sought to confront the phallo-centricism of twentieth-century sculpture with a texture that might capture a more intimate, psychologically charged experience. Eleanor Nairne, the curator of the exhibition, writes the lead essay, followed by texts by Jo Applin and Anne Wagner. An extensive chronology by Amy Tobin includes primary-source materials, which bring a new history of how both artists' work sits in relation to the wider New York scene. Also included are excerpts of both artists' writing.
About The Author
Eleanor Nairne is an art historian and curator at Barbican Art Gallery. Her recent exhibitions include Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017) and Imran Qureshi: Where the Shadows Are So Deep (2016). Jo Applin is the head of the history of art department at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Anne Wagner is Chair Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. Amy Tobin is a lecturer in the department of history of art at the University of Cambridge and curator at Kettle's Yard.
2014, Japanese / French
Softcover, 240 pages, 25 x 25 cm
Published by
Asahi Shimbun / Japan
$70.00 - Out of stock
Major monographic catalogue on the work of Balthus, published in 2014 for the great travelling retrospective exhibition in Japan, "The Last Master of the 20th Century".
Starting with pages reproducing Balthus' 40 plates for "Mitsou: Quarante Images par Baltusz", a book published in 1921 by Rotapfel-Verlag of Erlenbach-Zürich and Leipzig that included a preface by Rainer Maria Rilke, this entire catalogue is lavishly illustrated with colour reproductions of over 100 paintings and drawings from every stage of his career, including some never before published, alongside the artist's belongings works.
Along with the many reproductions of Balthus' works, each accompanied by texts and details, the book includes a chronology, bibliography, list of exhibitions, photographic portraits and pictures of Balthus' studio and works in progress throughout the years. The book takes an in-depth look at the life of this great European painter, with many essays in Japanese and French.
Throughout his career, Balthus rejected the usual conventions of the art world. He insisted that his paintings should be seen and not read about, and he resisted any attempts made to build a biographical profile. A telegram sent to the Tate Gallery as it prepared for its 1968 retrospective of his works read: "NO BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS. BEGIN: BALTHUS IS A PAINTER OF WHOM NOTHING IS KNOWN. NOW LET US LOOK AT THE PICTURES. REGARDS. B."
Balthus (February 29, 1908 – February 18, 2001), was a Polish-French modern artist born in Paris to Polish expatriate parents. His given name was Balthasar Klossowski - his sobriquet "Balthus" was based on his childhood nickname, alternately spelled Baltus, Baltusz, Balthusz or Balthus. His father, Erich Klossowski, was an art historian who wrote a noted monograph on Daumier. His older brother was the philosopher and artist Pierre Klossowski. An unusual figure in the history of twentieth century painting, Balthus both traveled among and drew upon the work of other major artists of his time, while at the same time following a unique individual trajectory. He was mentored by, friends of, and/or even collaborated with seminal creative figures from different eras, including Antonin Artaud, André Breton, and Rainer Maria Rilke, while cultivating his own highly refined style of dreamlike, classically-informed painting. The scenes he usually depicted were very ordinary bourgeois interiors or outdoor settings, which nonetheless managed to reveal the heightened inner states of his subjects as well as the states of mind of those who might be viewing them.
"I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always with a slight touch of mystery in my paintings." - Balthus
2015, English
Softcover, 108 pages, 21 x 29.7 cm
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$37.00 $25.00 - In stock -
Collection of graphic and textual work by Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, dating from the seventies up till 2015. Compiled and designed by Julie Peeters, enriched with translations of facsimile material and a large amount of personal comments from the artist on the selected work. Published in conjunction with the exhibition Serving Compressed Energy with Vacuum in Kunstverein München from 25 April - 14 June 2015.
Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven (also known as AMVK) was born in Antwerp and lives in Antwerp and Berlin. She studied graphic design at the Fine Arts Academy in Antwerp and has been prolific in her output of drawings and other works on paper and synthetic material, as well as short videos, since the early eighties. Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven has been fascinated for a long time with the representation in the mass media of images of women, of interiors, of the kinetic powers of any kind of language. She investigates supra-moral connections in contemporary society s.a. between sex and technology. Her work connects different knowledge systems, explores the areas of the unconscious, and looks at moral aberrations or the obscene from a female point of view. In the nineties, hand-made paper works gave way to computer graphics, while text has always featured alongside images, underlining the message of Van Kerckhoven’s proud, sometimes exhibitionist female figures like song-lyrics. Music plays an important role in Van Kerchkoven’s creative production in parallel to her visual output, and she and Danny Devos have stood as a key pair of the Antwerp experimental music scene under the band name Club Moral (1981–now). Since 1982 she is represented by Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp, Belgium. And since 1999 also by Galerie Barbara Thumm in Berlin.
Since 2005 she is working on a conceptual and pictorial trialogue between the mystic Marguerite Porete, the hermetic Giordano Bruno and the philosopher Herbert Marcuse.
In 2015 she will be the subject of two major solo shows at Kunstverein München and Castillo/Corrales, Paris c/o Yale Union, Portland.
2014, English
Hardcover, 155 pages, 18 x 23 cm
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
MUMA / Victoria
$25.00 - In stock -
First major monograph on the work of Australian artist Stuart Ringholt, published by Monash University Museum of Art and The Institute of Modern Art.
As part of his diverse artistic practice, Stuart Ringholt leads audiences on naturist gallery tours, anger workshops, and participatory performances that invoke embarrassment, fear, laughter, and love. He also makes videos, absurdist sculptures, painted mirrors, and collages.
Ringholt has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; and Club Laundromat, New York. His major group exhibitions include Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2014); The Last Laugh, apexart, New York (2013); and dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel, Germany (2013). He is currently a PhD candidate at Monash University and is represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane.
Kraft features contributions by Amelia Barikin, Aileen Burns, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Charlotte Day Robert Leonard, Johan Lundh, and Stuart Ringholt.
2017, English / German
Softcover, 280 pages, 24 x 32 cm
Published by
Centre d’Art Contemporain / Genève
Musée régional d’art contemporain Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerrannée
Spike Island / Bristol
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$99.00 $20.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Reto Pulfer, Nikola Dietrich
Texts by Anselm Franke, Benoît Maire, Reto Pulfer
In the style of a catalogue raisonné, Reto Pulfer’s comprehensive monograph, Zustandskatalog: Catalog of States and Conditions, follows the artist’s work over the past fifteen years. Excerpts from the artist’s novels as well as insightful texts by Anselm Franke and Benoît Maire are juxtaposed with 475 documentary photographs of Pulfer’s technical drawings, one-off exhibitions, large-scale installations, and performances. Categories such as living ceramics, food advice, ghostology, synesthesia, and transformation are woven throughout the book, giving unique insight into the ideas and imagination that are part of the work itself.
Published in collaboration with Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève; Musée régional d’art contemporain Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerrannée, Sérignan; Spike Island, Bristol; Centre international d’art et du paysage de l’île de Vassivière; Fórum Eugénio de Almeida, Évora
Design by HIT
Softcover, 120 pages, 190 x 270 mm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$32.00 $15.00 - Out of stock
German sculptor and draughtsman Julian Gothe (born 1966) explores the rhetoric of theatre presentation, with precise and angular wood and metal structures that evoke furniture and stage sets. Influenced by the decorative arts and furniture design, Göthe's work moves ambivalently between elegance and danger in the assumption that every object has a soul. Julian Göthe's works can be found in the collection of the Pinakothek der Moderne, the Goetz Collection and the Kunstsammlung NRW.
This new publication is the first comprehensive catalogue on the work of Julian Göthe.
It presents an overview of his work and is published on the occasion of Julian Göthe's
solo exhibition at Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover. The publication is produced in collaboration with Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln and Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover.
2014, English
Hardcover, 144 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 27.5 x 26.5 cm
Published by
JRP Ringier / Zürich
$90.00 $60.00 - Out of stock
Since the 1970s, in collaboration with renowned printers and publishers, Richard Tuttle has created a diverse printed oeuvre. In sensitively exploiting the unique possibilities of printmaking to make process, materials and actions visible, Tuttle explores the complexity of printmaking processes. "Prints" is the first monograph on Tuttle's printmaking. Edited by Christina von Rotenhan this publication introduces not only the artist's unique approach to printmaking with profound scholarly essays and catalogue entries for selected prints between 1973 and 2013, but also reveals Tuttle's deep interest in the collaborative nature of printmaking.
The timing of the publication is important as Richard Tuttle has also been invited to realize an installation in the Tate’s Turbine Hall. The large-scale installation will provide a powerful counterpoint to the more intimate works from his printed oeuvre.
Published with Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick.
2018, English
Hardcover, 456 pages, 17.5 x 24.5 cm
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
Sternberg Press / Berlin
ACCA / Melbourne
$40.00 $30.00 - Out of stock
This publication Lines towards Another accompanied the exhibition Drawings and correspondence, held at the IMA 24 March–2 June 2018. The exhibition surveys the central role drawing plays in Tom Nicholson’s engagement with contemporary political realities in Australia and beyond.
This is the first monograph of Nicholson’s work, edited by Amelia Barikin and Helen Hughes, and co-published by the IMA, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and Sternberg Press. Tony Birch, Bridget Crone, Jacqueline Doughty, Anthony Gardner, Anneke Jaspers, Ryan Johnston, John Mateer, Shelley McSpedden, Mihnea Mircan, Grace Samboh, Ann Stephen, and the editors themselves give compelling insight into Nicholson’s diverse material approach, political practice, and historical context.
2020, English / German
Softcover (dust-jacket), 600 pages, 30 x 24 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
Kunstmuseum Den Haag / Netherlands
$110.00 - Out of stock
A 600-page compendium of paintings, sculptures and more from the beloved neoexpressionist polymath A.R. Penck. This elaborately designed volume features over 200 of A.R. Penck's (1939-2017) paintings, drawings and sculptures, some of them reproduced here for the first time. Together, they provide a retrospective of an artist who paved the way for a new concept of art in Germany after World War II. A. R. Penck – How it works’ is impressive proof that Penck was an artist who sought freedom and found it.
English and German text.
Accompanies the exhibition ‘A.R Penck’, 7 Apr -10 May 2020, Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
A.R. Penck, pseudonym of Ralf Winkler (Dresden, October 5, 1939 – Zurich, May 2, 2017), was a German painter, graphic artist, sculptor and jazz drummer. Penck was counted among the “De Nieuwe Wilden”, which included artists such as Georg Baselitz, Martin Kippenberger, Rainer Fetting, Jörg Immendorff and Markus Lüpertz. In the 1980s he gained worldwide fame with his paintings, which are based on pictograms, graffiti and primitive representations of human figures and totem-like shapes. Penck’s sculpture, although less known, shares the same primitive themes as his paintings and drawings. He often used everyday materials such as wood, bottles, cardboard boxes, cans, masking tape, aluminum foil, wire. The sculptures are coarse assemblies, roughly painted.
2018, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 26.7 x 22 cm
Published by
Koenig Books / London
Mamco / Genève
WIELS / Brussels
$85.00 - Out of stock
This catalogue provides the most comprehensive overview of the artist’s oeuvre, from the late 1970s until 1987, as well as more recent drawings and notes Daniëls has produced since 2007.
Including historic paintings as well as works never previously reproduced, this richly illustrated publication recounts the development of Daniëls’ visual language, while exploring the effects of repetition and variation inherent in his work.
A wide selection of drawings completes the presentation, offering a closer understanding of the evolution of his vocabulary.
Accompanies the exhibition René Daniëls: Fragments from an Unfinished Novel, 07 Sep 2018 – 06 Jan 2019, Wiels, Brussels and Feb- May 2019, MAMCO, Geneva.