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:
W—F 12—6 PM
Sat 12—5 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
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.
2024, English
Softcover, 272 pages, 27 x 20 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$105.00 - In stock -
For more than 35 years, Jochen Lempert’s photographs have stood out as a singular oeuvre within contemporary art. The trained biologist’s gaze is marked by constant wonder. At first, and not without irony, at the history and forms (and warps) of our cultural fascination for the inexhaustible potential of plants and animals. He is increasingly interested in the phenomena of perception and how it is translated into images, to the life forms of flora and fauna and their analogies to his own creative process. For all their photographic minimalism - always captured with the simplest means of an analogue camera or light-sensitive paper – Jochen Lempert's pictures are full of poetic power and a profound knowledge of the Natural Sources of our existence. Along with the purist and reduced hanging of his works in exhibitions, artist's books are one of his favourite ways of presenting his work. Following the publication of "Phenotype" in 2013 by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, "Natural Sources" is Jochen Lempert's second major artist's book.
English edition, with accompanying text book with essays by Claire Le Restif, Frédéric Paul, Kathrin Schönegg, Florian Ebner.
Jochen Lempert (1958, Moers, Germany) lives and works in Hamburg. He studied biology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn (1980–1988), where he researched the fauna, ecology, and reproduction of dragonflies (Odonata) in rainforest waters in Liberia, West Africa. Between 1978 and 1989 he formed the experimental film collective Schmelzdahin with Jochen Müller and Jürgen Reble, examining the possibilities of combining celluloid film and chemical processes, including bacterial cultures. In 1990 he was awarded the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation Grant for Contemporary Photography, one of Germany’s most prestigious prizes since 1982. He has also received the Ars Viva – Photography prize (1995) and the Camera Austria Award for Contemporary Photography (2017). His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2022); Portikus, Frankfurt (2022); Kunsthaus Wien, Vienna (2018); the Izu Photo Museum, Japan (2016–2017); Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2013); the Rochester Art Center, Minneapolis (2012); and the Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2010).
2024, English
Hardcover, 128 pages, 28.5 x 20.5 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$65.00 - In stock -
Edited by Anne Stenne, Helene Gamst.
Text by Pierre Huyghe.
Installation and sound artist Pierre Huyghe leads his colleagues through a labyrinthine, liminal exhibition across Okayama
As Artistic Director of the 2019 Okayama Art Summit, artist Pierre Huyghe (born 1962) convened 18 artists to create a labyrinth of interventions across the city. From sappy pink swimming pools to woodland video installations, Huyghe and his collaborators transform everyday locations into liminal spaces, turning a walk through the city into a constantly fluctuating journey. Together, the entity of this “snake” of artworks alters the city of Okayama through invisible presences, different intelligent forms and chemical, biological and algorithmic processes. This artist’s book assembled by Huyghe includes conceptual text and images that guide the reader through the exhibition’s experience.
Artists include: Tarek Atoui, Matthew Barney, Etienne Chambaud, Paul Chan, Ian Cheng, Melissa Dubbin, Aaron S. Davidson, John Gerrard, Fabien Giraud, Raphaël Siboni, Elizabeth Hénaff, Eva L'Hoest, Fernando Ortega, Sean Raspet, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Pamela Rosenkranz.
2024, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 24.1 x 17.8 cm
Published by
Atelier Editions / Los Angeles
$74.00 - In stock -
Black Mountain College (BMC) was a wellspring of 20th-century creative unorthodoxy. Through deep original research, this title follows renegade students, faculty & farmers as they establish a campus farm in the 1930s, build a better farm in the 1940s and watch it all collapse in the 1950s. In these engrossing pages, we encounter the extraordinary folk whose endeavours on the land helped shape the Black Mountain College of myth and extraordinary reality.From its founding in 1933 and over its celebrated 23-year history, the small liberal arts school in rural North Carolina attracted a remarkable number of famous and soon-to-be famous artists, writers and visionaries including Anni and Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Ray Johnson, Charles Olson and M.C. Richards. The exploits of these BMC cultural luminaries have been recounted time and time again.David Silver’s fascinating new book offers a very different perspective. The farm was vital to BMC. Throughout the Depression and World War II it provided vital sustenance, while serving as a testing ground for self-sufficiency, communal living and collaboration—the most precious and precarious ingredient at the college.
David Silver (born 1968) is professor and chair of environmental studies at the University of San Francisco. He teaches classes on urban agriculture, hyperlocal food systems and food, culture and storytelling.
1968 / 1969, Japanese / French
4 Vols., softcover, approx. 1000 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo
$350.00 - Out of stock
Complete 4 issue run of Le Sang Et La Rose — a masterpiece of the Japanese underground! Opening with Kishin Shinoyama's photographic portraits of Yukio Mishima depicted as Saint Sebastian and onward through one thousand pages exploring the outer limits of subversive human potential!
Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose was a groundbreaking, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The fourth final issue, and rarest of the four, edited by critic Masaaki Hiraoka and designed by self-taught painter, graphic designer and political activist, Kiyoshi Awazu (!) The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.
Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force.
Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.
All Good—VG copies with general wear and age.
Vol 1 with bumping and open chip to top of spine.
1971, Dutch / English
Softcover (2 volumes), 232 pages + 96 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sonsbeek / Arnhem
$140.00 - In stock -
Scarce Sonsbeek '71 complete 2 volume catalogue set, published in conjunction with exhibition held at Sonsbeek Park, Arnhem, June 19 - August 15, 1971. Sonsbeek Park had been the site of international sculpture exhibitions periodically from 1949. The concept of sonsbeek '71, which was described in the catalogue as an adventure and a dynamic manifestation, was both revolutionary and controversial. It made a radical departure from the usual format by expanding the conceptual and physical territory "beyond the boundaries" and commissioning site-specific works that appeared throughout all of Holland. Along with sculpture, installation, environmental works, and performances, the exhibition aimed to make visitors aware of the influence of (new) communication technologies, such as the telephone and the telex machine, on the perception of space, distance and time. An on-site film and audio studio produced new video works and an offset printing press where artists' plans could be printed was installed, with new artists' publications being sponsored by the exhibition (such as Ruscha's Dutch Details; the artist's book statement reproduced herein). This catalogue itself becomes a vital element of the conceptual activity, reproducing documentation of the works, statements, drawings, instructions, and many artist page-works created specifically for the publications. Edited by Geert van Beijeren and Coosje Kapteyn, with texts (in English and Dutch) by art historian Willem A. L. Beeren and others.
Participating artists include Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Carl Andre, Ben d`Armagnac, Richard Artschwager, Bruce Baillie, Douwe Jan Bakker, Joseph Beuys, Ronald Bladen, Boezem, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren, Javacheff Christo, Tony Conrad, Hanne Darboven, Walter de Maria, Ad Dekkers, Jan Dibbets, Ger van Elk, Pieter Engels, Groep Enschede, E. R. G., Hans Eykelboom, Barry Flanagan, Hollis Frampton, Ernie Gehr, Dan Graham, Robert Grosvenor, Michael Heizer, Douglas Huebler, Ken Jacobs, joepat, Donald Judd, On Kawara, W. Knoebel, Hans Koetsier, Axel van der Kraan, Peter Kubelka, George Landlow, Standish Dyer Lawder, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Moving Mass, Yutaka Matsuzawa, Mario Merz, Moore, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Robert Nelson, Groep Noord-Brabant, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Panamarenko, Egbert Philips, Emilio Prini, Klaus Rinke, Peter Roehr, Ulrich Rückriem, Edward Ruscha, Fred Sandback, Jean-Michel Sanejouand, Wim T. Schippers, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Eric Siegel, Tony Smith, Robert Smithson, Kenneth Snelson, Michael Snow, Ellen Edinoff, Koert Stuyf, Shinkichi Tajiri, Sajiki and Yokoyama Tenjo, Carel Visser, Andre Volten, Hans de Vries, Lex Wechgelaar, Lawrence Weiner, Joyce Wieland.
Very Good copies each, with light wear/tanning/creasing, otherwise tight and well preserved.
1969, English
Softcover (stiff-boards, staple-bound), 34 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Gandalf's Garden / London
$140.00 - In stock -
Rare original copy of issue 5 of the legendary Gandalf's Garden magazine from 1969, an important piece of Britain's underground press, issue featuring Soft Machine by drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt, poetry by Joan Baez, psychedelic artwork by Hans-Joachim Zeidler and John Hurford, "Mind Revolution", Cornwall free press, Meher Baba, communes, Middle-earth, cosmic magazines, record reviews (Third Ear Band, Marc Bolan, etc.), and much more. The "Mystical Scene Magazine" was published by Gandalf's Garden, a mystical community and shoppe based in World's End, Chelsea, which flourished at the end of the 1960s as part of the London hippie-underground movement. Edited by Muz Murray and a huge cast of commune contributors and artists, the magazine emphasised the mystical interests of the period, before 'New Age' was a thing — meditation, psychedelics, back-to-the-land ideology, occultism, cosmic rock... The magazine emerged in 1968 publishing 6 issues, all beautifully designed using different colours of ink and various coloured paper stocks throughout each issue. Each issue was heavily illustrated and filled with articles, poetry, interviews, letters, reports and reviews, and, much like fellows of the underground press such as The International Times and OZ, included a healthy dose of satire and "Earthly Revolution".
Very Good copy of the scarce publication, rubbing/pinching to spine, general wear and light marking.
1975 / 1995, English
Softcover, 320 pages, 23.5 x 15.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Pimlico Books / London
$40.00 - In stock -
1995 UK second edition of Australian philosopher Peter Singer's groundbreaking book, Animal Liberation, first published in 1975. Considered to be the founding philosophical statement of the ideas behind the animal liberation movement, Animal Liberation exposed the realities of life for animals in factory farms and testing laboratories and provided a powerful moral basis for rethinking our relationship to them.
"An extraordinary book which has had extraordinary effects. It galvanised a generation to action. Groups sprang up around the world, equipped with a new vocabulary, a new set of ethics and a new sense of mission...Singer's book is widely known as the bible of the animal liberation movement."—Independent on Sunday
Immensely influential and powerful, Animal Liberation is also highly unusual. A comprehensive analysis of conditions in factory farms and animal laboratories, it compellingly argues that we should stop eating meat. A work of philosophy, it includes recipes for vegetarian food. In this revised edition, Peter Singer discusses the evolution of the animal rights movement and the extent to which his own views have changed since first publication. He also graphically updates his account of what is being done to animals in the name of scientific, military and commercial research.
"A reasoned plea for the humane treatment of animals that galvanised the animal-rights movement the way Rachel Carson's Silent Spring drew activists to environmentalism."—New York Times
"Important and responsible...Everyone ought to read it."—Richard Adams, English novelist and writer of the books Watership Down, Maia, Shardik and The Plague Dogs
Good—VG copy with tanned pages (usual with this edition).
2023, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 28 x 21 cm
Published by
Void / Reykjavík—Athens
$89.00 - Out of stock
The Amazon Rainforest—often referred to as 'Lungs of our Planet'—has long been idealised as a dense, green expanse and a pristine sanctuary inhabited by isolated tribes. Terra Vermelha, the culmination of 10-years’ work by photographer Tommaso Protti, presents a raw and unfiltered, alternative portrait of the region. Depicting fields ablaze, the dark river as a conduit for cocaine trafficking and urban areas plagued by violence—the images in the book depict a dystopia, dispelling such romanticised notions.
“As I sat in my hotel room in Marabá, a city in the Amazon state of Parà, Jornal Nacional – Brazil’s flagship news program – transmitted images of the country’s newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro: “The indigenous in their reservations are like animals in a zoo,” he said. It was November 2018. […] It seemed like a threat, an omen of bad times ahead. I felt that the slow-motion social and environmental breakdown I had seen in the previous years in the Amazon was about to get worse.”
“Deforestation, unregulated development, pollution. All of these scenarios are driven by the same forces; poverty, weak institutions, corruption and savage self-interest. More than in other places, in the Amazon region it becomes clear that land is worth more than human life. And on the path towards the destruction of the planet, the first and closest step for mankind is still its own annihilation… The violence consuming the Brazilian Amazon affects us all and sometimes we are even the unknowing perpetrators of it.”
Tommaso Protti (Italy, 1986) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Tommaso Protti has documented the intersecting social and environmental crises plaguing the Amazonian states of Brazil, where the photographer has been based for almost a decade. He started his career as a photographer in 2011 after graduating in Political Science and International Relations. Since then, he has devoted himself on creating his own long-term projects focusing on themes such as crime, the environment, and rural conflict. His work has been featured in global publications and exhibited worldwide.
“This is the Brazilian Amazon today, where indigenous communities are fighting for survival in the face of rampant deforestation. What follows is a dense, disorientating and elliptical reportage that riddles through a conflict-stricken hinterland, unravelling – in the dead of night – stories about savage land-grabs, forest fires and brutal gang murders. […] Needless to say, few publishers could have taken us into the Amazon’s heart of chaos as nightmarishly as Void have.”—Alessandro Merola, 1000 Words
2023, English
Softcover, 72 pages, 10.8 x 17.6 cm
Published by
Common Room / Naarm
$18.00 - Out of stock
The essays in this reader chart archipelagos of related beings and stories places: ceremonial-political structures, display territories, languages, materials and experiences of sensuality that constitute international Indigenous art and thought today. These texts situate reflections and propose avenues for Indigenous renaissances spanning the Great Ocean basin and its shores.
Introduction by Cara Kirkwood.
2023, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 21.6 x 15.2 cm
Published by
The Song Cave / New York
$55.00 - In stock -
Mystical and everyday reveries from the visionary American modernist.
In the early years of the 20th century, Charles Burchfield painted mystic and visionary landscapes, and with some of his contemporaries, including Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe and Grant Wood, can be seen to have built the foundations of a particularly North American sensibility that critic Dave Hickey said "continues to evoke an unrepentant, gnostic vision of this vast, rolling, abandoned continent—America without Europe—America without Americans—a massive, alluring kingdom."
For nearly his entire life, Burchfield also kept a journal. Over 54 years, he filled nearly 10,000 pages. To call this journal epic would be an understatement. A masterpiece whose bulk has remained unread, it is a handwritten tome that combines elements of the American nature journal with a dash of 19th-century spiritual autobiography. It is a record of a man who spent much of his life looking at and considering the sky.
In this comparatively small selection pulled from the original 62 volumes, we find Burchfield writing about sitting in the grass with his wife to nap and watch the sunset. He writes about the elation he feels at seeing the first flowers in the spring. He writes about the rain, wind and sun. There's the resentment of having a job; the depression that sneaks in as he gets older; sometimes, too, he writes about the state of human progress; and occasionally, thoughts about God. It is the tender record of a life devoted to the essences of earthly beauty.
"Burchfield would be proud"—Robert Gober
Best known for his romantic, often fantastic depictions of nature, watercolorist Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) developed a unique style of watercolor painting that reflected distinctly American subjects and his profound respect for nature.
1975 / 76, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 150 pages, 25 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Mullaya / Canterbury
$120.00 - Out of stock
Rare first 1975 edition, 1976 printing of Alistair Knox's hardcover mud brick classic, Living in the environment, now a cherished bible in the library of any Australian bush-builder, and the first book by the pioneer of the Australian environmental building movement.
"Environmental building and environmental living are not a withdrawal from life, but a renewal of it. Neither is it a habit or fashion. It is a belief in action."—Alistair Knox (1912—1986)
"The history and progress of environmental building is synonymous with the history of modern mud brick building, but it is not confined to this alone. Earth-wall construction stimulates a point of view and a relationship with nature that no other material is able to do. The universality of earth-walling springs first from its availability, and secondly from the fact that it can be produced by human labour alone. It is the heart and soul of the Low Technology lifestyle that is so exercising the minds of conservationists today. The feeling of humanity of earth-walling is one of its greatest ingredients. It also has marvellous insulation qualities. But perhaps the greatest single quality of earth walls is found in the sense of serenity one feels within them. They are almost completely sound absorbent. They neither echo nor creak, but just remain as silent and immutable as the distant Australian landscape itself. In Living in the Environment Alistair Knox, who is considered to be the originator of the Australian environmental building movement, not only tells of his designing activities spanning half a lifetime, but also discusses with deep perception the conservation problems facing society today. In his far-ranging review of the Australian environmental building scene he discusses the influence of Francis Greenway and Walter Burley Griffin, relating their design concepts to their affinity with the Australian landscape."—book jacket
Alistair Samuel Knox (1912—1986) was an Australian designer, builder and landscape architect who used recycled materials and mudbrick in his constructions and is considered to be a pioneer of modern mudbrick building, having designed more than 1,000 houses throughout the Nillumbik region of Victoria as well as in other parts of Australia. Largely self-taught, Knox believed that houses should be built using available resources and by working in harmony with the environment. Knox's main influences were Justus Jorgensen at Montsalvat, Francis Greenaway, Walter Burley Griffin and Frank Lloyd Wright In landscape design Knox was particularly impressed by the work of Ellis Stones and Gordon Ford, whose espousal of 'bush gardens' he helped to promote. As a building practitioner Alistair Knox played a key role in encouraging and facilitating the self-builder movement. By demystifying the building process he helped empower people to build for themselves. Knox was a founding member and fellow (1983) of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. After more than 30 years of designing and building Alistair Knox was awarded an honorary degree as a Doctor of Architecture by the University of Melbourne in 1984.
Very Good copy with VG dust jacket. Light sunning/jacket wear.
1971, English
Softcover, 448 pages, 36.5 cm x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Penguin Putnam / New York
$200.00 - Out of stock
Original 1971 edition of the Back-to-the-land bible and hippie homesteading encyclopedia, The Last Whole Earth Catalog. Considered "the internet before the internet", The Whole Earth Catalog was an important American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by author, editor and founder of the Long Now Foundation, Stewart Brand, between 1968—1972. The magazine, sporting the famous slogan "access to tools", promoted self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, "do it yourself" (DIY), and holism, through featured essays, articles, poetry, practical guides, plans, philosophies, artwork and most importantly, a huge catalog of product reviews (from books by Buckminster Fuller to synthesizers by Wendy Carlos) that formed an important directory and direct network of craftspeople, educators, artisans, nomads, growers, idealists and independent developers. "It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along."—Steve Jobs. Oh how the internet has turned on us.
"We are as gods and we might as well get used to it. So far remotely done power and glory - as via government, big business, formal education, church - has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing - the power of individuals to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment, and share the adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by The Next Earth Catalog."
The back cover photo is of the earth from space. The caption reads, “We can’t put it together. It is together.”
VG copy, with exception of closed tear between front cover and bottom of spine only. Otherwise uncreased spine, only unusually light wear and tear and usual tanning to newsprint pages.
1969, English
Softcover (newsprint newspaper), 40 pages, 28 x 38 cm
1st Edition, third print,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cookbook Fund — Lama Foundation / New Mexico
$490.00 - In stock -
The seminal, and very rare, Dome Cookbook — the first widely-read dome instruction manual, created by the founder of Zomeworks Corp, Solar Pioneer, a resident of Drop City, and beatnik architect and engineer Steve Baer in New Mexico in 1968, and a legendary piece of counterculture publishing. Baer’s eccentric, over-sized, hand-lettered 1968 work was written with daring, unskilled builders in mind as its audience — the back-to-the-land movement. "You don’t need to know that much, you just need to go ahead and try it out." Filled with diagram's and photographs, particularly in Drop City, a hippie community founded in 1966 in southern Colorado, Dome Cookbook encouraged the resourcefulness and innovation Baer found essential in his own experiments and elaborations on Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic forms and the creation of his own geodesic-inspired "zome". Published by Cookbook Fund — Lama Foundation, in New Mexico in 1969, in this first edition, third print.
Very Good copy with tanning and some light edge wear.
1977, English
Softcover, 545 pages, 27.5 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Scribners / New York
$70.00 - Out of stock
First edition of Music of the Whole Earth from 1977.
"I look upon the musician/composer," David Reck has said, "as a carpenter of sound (also a poet/philosopher/and highwire artist). I am delighted by the processes of making and building (the bricks can be invisible) and doing and thinking. I like to be surprised (by myself and others). But I study music, and play it, primarily for that magical touch, an emotional contact with music itself that mystically makes me (and others) more human, more attuned to the ecology of ourselves and the world."
In this extraordinary 545-page book, ethnomusicologist David Reck "invites you to discover the musical universe. MUSIC OF THE WHOLE EARTH explores the richness and variety of sound, instruments, and music from many different cultures and a great variety of musical traditions. Tribal, folk, and classical music of India, Tibet, China, Japan, the American Indians, Southeast Asia, Java and Bali, Oceania/Polynesia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas — including pop, rock, jazz, soul, and country. The mythical origins of music, endangered musics, ensembles, the ecology of sound, and music in relation to art, magic, ritual, theater, dance, and life-styles. The anatomy and mechanics of instruments, with special sections on how to make them yourself. Profusely illustrated with photographs, drawings, maps, and diagrams, MUSIC OF THE WHOLE EARTH narrows the gap between the audience and the performer and between our own musical culture and that of other peoples."
Very Good copy.
1994 / 2012, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 21.6 x 14 cm
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$35.00 - In stock -
As our society is stricken with repeated technological disasters, and the apocalyptic problems that go with them, the "neo-primitivist" essays of John Zerzan seem more relevant than ever.
"Future Primitive," (1994) the core innovative essay of Future Primitive Revisited, has been out of print for years. This new edition is updated with never-before-printed essays that speak to a youthful political movement and influential writers such as Derrick Jensen and Paul Theroux.
An active participant in the contemporary anarchist resurgence, John Zerzan has been an invited speaker at both radical and conventional events on several continents. His weekly Anarchy Radio broadcast streams live on KWVA radio.
"Anyone who travels with his eyes open understands the sense of much of what you have written, and the longer I live the greater my contempt for the opportunists who run governments and dictate our lives with technology."—Paul Theroux
"Zerzan's writing is sharp, uncompromising, and tenacious."—Derrick Jensen
"John Zerzan's importance does not only consist in his brilliant intelligence, his absolute clearness of analysis and his unequalled dialectical synthesis that clarifies even the most complicated questions, but also in the humanity that fills his thoughts of resistance. Future Primitive Revisited is one more precious gift for us all."—Enrico Manicardi, author of Liberi dalla Civiltá (Free from Civilization)
"Of course we should go primitive. This doesn't mean abandoning material needs, tools, or skills, but ending our obsession with such concerns. Declaring for community, our true origin: personal autonomy, trust, mutual support in pursuit of all the joys and troubles of life. Society was a trap—massive, demanding, impersonal and debilitating from day one. So hurry back to the community, friends, and welcome all the consequences of such an orientation. The reasons for fear and despair will only multiply if we remain in this brutal and dangerous state of civilization."—Blok 45 publishing, Belgrade
2008, English
Softcover, 100 pages, 14 x 22 cm
Published by
Wingspan Classics / California
$28.00 - Out of stock
In 1971 Dr. Theodore Kaczynski rejected modern society and moved to a primitive cabin in the woods of Montana. There, he began building bombs, which he sent to professors and executives to express his disdain for modern society, and to work on his magnum opus, Industrial Society and Its Future, a 1995 anti-technology essay, forever known to the world as the Unabomber Manifesto. The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology, while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The 35,000-word manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society. Responsible for three deaths and more than twenty casualties over two decades, he was finally identified and apprehended when his brother recognized his writing style while reading the "Unabomber Manifesto." The piece, written under the pseudonym FC (Freedom Club) was published in the New York Times after his promise to cease the bombing if a major publication printed it in its entirety. Kaczynski believed that his violence, as direct action when words were insufficient, would draw others to pay attention to his critique. He wanted his ideas to be taken seriously.
The manifesto argues against accepting individual technological advancements as purely positive without accounting for their overall effect, which includes the fall of small-scale living, and the rise of uninhabitable cities. While originally regarded as a thoughtful critique of modern society, with roots in the work of academic authors such as French philosopher Jacques Ellul, British zoologist Desmond Morris, and American psychologist Martin Seligman, Kaczynski's 1996 trial polarized public opinion around the essay, as his court-appointed lawyers tried to justify their insanity defense around characterizing the manifesto as the work of a madman, and the prosecution lawyers rested their case on it being produced by a lucid mind.
While Kaczynski's actions were generally condemned, his manifesto expressed ideas that continue to be generally shared among the American public. A 2017 Rolling Stone article stated that Kaczynski was an early adopter of the concept that: "We give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to conform to society's standards. That, and we're too plugged in. We're letting technology take over our lives, willingly."
2011, English
Softcover, 520 pages, 28 x 22 cm
Published by
WarCry / US
$65.00 - In stock -
Underground: The Animal Liberation Front in the 1990s compiles the rare first 15 issues of Underground, the magazine of the North American Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group. With over 500 pages of A.L.F. news and action reports, this landmark compilation offers the most comprehensive look available on the Animal Liberation Front at the end of the 20th century.
For most of the 1990s, Underground proudly documented the work of the Animal Liberation Front, a clandestine group that carries out illegal raids to rescue animals and sabotage the businesses that profit from their exploitation. A.L.F. activity peaked in the 1990s, and for that decade Underground was the #1 source for A.L.F. news.
Compiled from rare copies of the legendary magazine, this massive collection serves as a powerful animal rights movement history lesson and in-depth look at the Animal Liberation Front.
Underground: The Animal Liberation Front in the 1990s is a vital read for anyone interested in the animal rights movement, and the misunderstood work of those who risk their freedom to save animals.
Included in Underground:
A.L.F. interviews
A.L.F. action reports
Essays by Rod Coronado, Jonathan Paul, and other convicted A.L.F. members
Anonymous "how it was done" accounts of landmark A.L.F. raids
Detailed info on A.L.F. rescue and sabotage tactics
Over 500 pages of Animal Liberation Front history
2019, English
Softcover, 108 pages, 21.6 x 27.9 cm
Published by
WarCry / US
$25.00 - In stock -
Together in one professionally-bound book, for the first time.
The Militant Vegan was a low-production-value, limited-circulation, photocopied publication that ran from 1993 to 1995, and never enjoyed a wide audience. This is the complete collection of the animal liberation zine covering direct action, animal rights activism, and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
To understand The Militant Vegan is to understand the historical context from which it arose: By 1993, the Animal Liberation Front had carried out its most strategic campaign to date, targeting weak points in the fur industry in a multi-state liberation and arson spree called Operation Bite Back. The media was all but silent. There was no internet, so activists outside the small media markets where these raids happened were unaware this campaign was underway, and many of the raids weren’t reported by the media at all. The Animal Liberation Front (again, pre-internet) had little-to-no platforms to which they could disseminate their communiques, rally the movement to join them in taking action, or let the world know of their victories.
It was from this void The Militant Vegan emerged. To quote issue #1, “The Militant Vegan is being released because there has been a media blackout on direct action on behalf of enslaved animals.” Before the internet, animal liberation news could only be spread through photocopied documents like The Militant Vegan, distributed person-to-person, and seen by few. While dominated by re-purposed material (such as ALF primers and newspaper clippings), there is also notable content, ALF history, and other direct-action themed rarities contained in these pages. Some of it never to be found elsewhere. The Militant Vegan published some of the first publicized fur farm addresses - several of which would go on to be raided by activists. A communiqué for the Malecky Mink Farm arson (also part of Operation Bite Back) is a rare piece of ALF history. And even the grainy newspaper article reprints can’t be downplayed, in a time when to not live in an area where an ALF action had occurred was to never know it happened at all - were it not for The Militant Vegan.
In the mid-1990s, reading The Militant Vegan was like a window to a secret history you watched unfold in its pages.
2019, English
Softcover, 120 pages, 26 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Paul Holberton Publishing / London
$60.00 $30.00 - Out of stock
Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud presents new writing on John Ruskin’s vision of art and its relationship with modern society and a changing environment. As part of the re-evaluation of Ruskin, 200 years after his birth in 1819, art historians, scientists, geographers, artists and curators explore the critic’s lifelong commitment to the painted landscapes of JMW Turner and his own artistic ambitions, as well as his prophetic concerns about the world’s darkening skies, pollution and psychological turbulence.
In 1884 John Ruskin spoke out against an encroaching “Storm Cloud”—a darkening of the skies that he attributed to the belching chimneys of the modern world. The imagery of the pollution-stained sky also allowed Ruskin to articulate the internal distress that seemed to engulf him. His analysis of a “blanched sun, blighted grass [and] blinded man” overwhelmed by a modern “plague-wind” expresses both the visible climatic effects of industrialization and the effects of his own worsening mental health. Propelled by bereavement and anxieties over his religious faith, Ruskin became fixated on the skies, “watching a cloud from four in the afternoon to four in the morning”.
This collection of essays examining Ruskin’s distinctive blend of meteorology, morality and social criticism brings new perspectives to one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the nineteenth century. Ruskin’s deep and personal engagement with Turner’s work over many decades emerges as a recurring theme. In Turner, Ruskin found the ideal “Modern Painter”—an artist whose powerful sunrises and sunsets, mountains and storms, inspired his own critical engagement with the natural world.
As an artist and critic, Ruskin consistently challenged the way others experienced the world, encouraging his audiences to recognise and record nature’s transient beauty, and doing the same with his own intimately observed drawings of animals, flora and weathered buildings. As an environmentalist, he witnessed a natural world changing before his eyes, as the landscapes, buildings and skies he had seen as a young man came under threat. As an ethical provocateur ahead of his time, he condemned the throwaway culture that spoilt the towns and rivers he loved, urging his audiences to take responsibility for these changes.
Responding to this rich and troubled legacy, the book brings together original contributions by artists and curators, art historians, geographers and climate change specialists, each of whom shares new insights into Ruskin’s concerns about the changing weather patterns and shifting landscapes of the modern world. Individual essays reconsider Ruskin alongside a range of contemporary issues, encompassing mental health, technology, environmental pollution and climate change. The collection’s diverse voices make a compelling case for the continuing relevance of Ruskin and his ways of seeing in the twenty-first century.
Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud accompanies a major exhibition at York Art Gallery and Abbot Hall Art Gallery.
As New, out-of-print.
2022, English
Hardcover, 200 pages, 29.5 x 27.5 cm
$95.00 - In stock -
FAMILY: THE SOURCE FAMILY SCRAPBOOK provides an immersive view into the public and private world of the Southern California occult commune The Brotherhood of the Source. This lavishly illustrated book reproduces 200 original scrapbook pages assembled by family historian Isis Aquarian from 1972-1977, documenting the group's dramatic rise and fall, from their time living together in the Hollywood Hills operating their wildly popular Source vegetarian restaurant on the Sunset Strip to their exodus to Hawaii and San Francisco as the group began to unravel. Copious unpublished photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, manifestos, album art and flyers, augmented by descriptive captions by Isis Aquarian, reveal the Source Family's astonishing trajectory, from controversial leader Father Yod's spiritual awakening to the group's wild musical and social experimentations, to the provocations that led to the group's paradise lost. These pages provide a revelatory, firsthand view into the widely misunderstood phenomenon of new religious movements and cults of the 1960s and 70s.
2016, English / Dutch
Softcover (staple-bound with acetate cover), 40 pages, 23 x 30 cm
Ed. of 250,
Published by
Kunstverein / Amsterdam
$34.00 - Out of stock
Hans de Vries concentrated on the study and registration of processes and appearances that occur in and are created by nature. De Vries was a close observer, an onlooker, an eyewitness, whose aim was to discern and document the relationship between man and his natural environment. His practice has been referred to as “micro-emotive art”, a term coined by the Italian artist Piero Gilardi. ‘Hans de Vries Works 1968–1975’ is De Vries’s first exhibition since he stopped producing art at end of the 1970s. It is a retrospective of all the publications and book-related works including parallel articles and essays about his practice.
2021, English
Softcover, 232 pages, 20 x 12.5 cm
Published by
Silver Press / London
$35.00 - Out of stock
With a Foreword by Francesca Wade and an Introduction by Sophie Lewis
Diane di Prima began writing her ‘Letters’ in 1968, conjuring a potent blend of utopian visions, ecological urgency and spiritual insight. By turns a manifesto for breaking free, a manual for street protest and a feminist broadside, these poems are as relevant to the convulsions and crises of today as they were fifty years ago.
During the last years of her life, di Prima worked on the final iteration of her enduring project. This volume brings together fifteen new poems with all the previously published Letters in an expanded fiftieth anniversary edition.
"Di Prima is one of the greatest writers of her generation."—Chris Kraus
"Explosive and nourishing . . . Revolutionary Letters is a time machine towards a better future."—Ken Chen
"The real sexual liberator of the Sixties . . . A multi-hyphenate artist who writes what she wants and is taken seriously for it, and whose creativity is driven by a moral energy of the political and spiritual."—New Yorker
2022, English / French
Softcover, 48 pages, 22 x 31 cm
$40.00 - Out of stock
The portfolio of the eponymous exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, in 2022, the first major retrospective in France on the filmmaker and biologist specializing in underwater fauna Jean Painlevé (1902-1989), considered one of the founding fathers of scientific cinema and a source of inspiration for the avant-gardes and the surrealist movement.
A filmmaker with an international reputation for his filmic experiments, Jean Painlevé (1902-1989) was a specialist in scientific documentary and film techniques. During the inter-war period, his work was shown outside the scientific field, in avant-garde cinemas and film clubs. Painlevé was quickly recognised and his publications in the illustrated press of the 1930s contributed to his fame. His non-conformist attitude and his affinity with the surrealist spirit are undoubtedly at the origin of the privileged link he has with independent documentary cinema. The ease with which he crossed the boundaries between science and art was rooted in his artistic associations: Jacques-André Boiffard, Alexander Calder, Ivan Goll, Fernand Léger, Éli Lotar, Pierre Naville, Pierre Prévert, Jean Vigo…
From the 1950s onwards, Painlevé and Geneviève Hamon, his partner and collaborator, made a large number of research films, while their personal work continued, nourished by the research of the zoologists and biologists for whom they worked.
Texts by Pia Viewing, notes by Sergi Álvarez Riosalido, Ève Lepaon, Pia Viewing.
2022, English
Softcover, 256 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
Museo Nivola / Orani
$66.00 - In stock -
What if art holds solutions to the ecological crises of our time?
For forty-six years, Peter Fend has argued that art premonitions material culture, therefore the means of production, ensuing changes in social relations. Hence, in his view, works by Marcel Duchamp, Carolee Schneemann, Mary Beth Edelson, Paul Sharits, and others, can prefigure ecological restoration and cohabitation. In the late 1970s, artists in New York initiated teams—first Colab, The Offices, and later Ocean Earth and Space Force—to move from critique into effecting real-world change. Initiatives came from Jenny Holzer, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Taro Suzuki, Joan Waltemath, and Eve Vaterlaus, among others, who linked up with scientists to produce reports and analyses with satellite imagery for news media.
Africa-Arctic Flyway: Physiocratic States gathers documents of Peter Fend’s efforts through Ocean Earth for a planet organized according to hydrology—water basins—rather than national and colonial borders. It lays out tools and technologies derived from art, architecture, and science to replace fossil fuels, dams, nuclear industry, and industrial farming. The ensuing proposal for governance builds on what is identified as the first school of economic thought: physiocracy. Here, via satellite-aided eco-taxation, governance pursues an increase in the numbers of fish, marine mammals, migratory birds, and insects. For instance, ideas from Earth art are applied to restoring wetlands and flyways in three swaths—the Americas, East Asia, and Eurafrica—converging on the Arctic. This book focuses on the Eurafrica flyway and surveys four decades of work. It asks, “How do we go from visual art to reality?” Fend answers: “Through architecture.”
Edited by Elisa R. Linn, Lennart Wolff
Foreword by Eve Vaterlaus & Joan Waltemath