World Food Books

Collier Schorr: Writing a Letter, Akerman Ballet, Act 1

2026, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 19.5 x 13.9 cm
Published by The Song Cave / New York

$58.00 - In stock -

Introduction by Peggy Phelan.

For many years, Collier Schorr has been creating a ballet inspired by Chantal Akerman’s film Je tu il elle. Following the film’s themes of transparency, sexuality, shame, and love, Schorr has directed a piece consisting of videotaped dances in which she includes herself as a character alongside her fellow dancers. “Akerman played herself in Je tu il elle,” she says, “because she knew no actress could be as awkward as she was. I feel the same.”

Incredibly intimate, risky, and questioning aspects of age, gender, and racial norms historically underrepresented in ballet, Schorr wanted “to tell another story, based on the ones that Chantal Akerman had told me, about power and desire and compulsion and essentially free speech in the male-dominated field...” In Writing a Letter: Akerman Ballet, Act 1, Schorr has pulled a large collection of film stills from the first act of this ballet. Published as a stand-alone document of one artist vigorously in conversation with another’s work, it is also an example of the way queer histories can be shared and cared for through adoration, adaptation, and repetition. A heady act of love, in itself.

File under: Collier Schorr Chantal Akerman Chantal Akerman Peggy Phelan The Song Cave / New York Performance / Dance / Theater LGBTQ+ Photography Film / Video

Spaghetti Nightmares : Italian Fantasy-Horrors As Seen Through the Eyes of Their Protagonists
by Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta

1996, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Fantasma Books / US

$90.00 - In stock -

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First edition of Spaghetti Nightmares, published in 1996, an invaluable reference book on the subject of Italian horror-fantasy films – often referred to as Giallo films. Compiled by horror aficionados Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta, the book consists of texts, mainly of interviews (translated into English) with major genre icons, filmography, illustrated throughout with stills and movie posters in colour and b/w. An outstanding and rare insight into the artists (directors, screenwriters, actresses, actors, special effects artists, make-up artists ...) and stories behind some of the greatest Italian films and collaborations of the 1970s and 1980s. Includes interviews with Fabrizio de Angelis, Claudio Argento, Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Mario Caiano, Stefania Casini, Luigi Cozzi, Armando Crispino, Ruggero Deodato, Mimsy Farmer, Franco Ferrini, Claudio Fragasso, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Antonio Margheriti, Aristide Massaccessi, Luigi Montefiori (George Eastman), Daria Nicolodi, Giannetto de Rossi, Dardano Sacchetti, Tom Savini, Romano Scavolini, Michele Soavi, Terence Stamp, David Warbeck, Bernardino Zapponi.

Very Good copy with crease to back cover.

File under: Fabrizio de Angelis Claudio Argento Dario Argento Lamberto Bava Mario Caiano Stefania Casini Luigi Cozzi Armando Crispino Ruggero Deodato Mimsy Farmer Franco Ferrini Claudio Fragasso Lucio Fulci Umberto Lenzi Antonio Margheriti Aristide Massaccessi Luigi Montefiori (George Eastman) Daria Nicolodi Giannetto de Rossi Dardano Sacchetti Tom Savini Romano Scavolini Michele Soavi Terence Stamp David Warbeck Bernardino Zapponi Luca M. Palmerini Gaetano Mistretta Fantasma Books / US Film / Video Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Performance / Dance / Theater

Meat is Murder!: New Edition: An Illustrated Guide to Cannibal Culture
by Mikita Brottman

1997 / 2001, English
Softcover, 246 pages, 24.5 x 17 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Creation Books / London

$65.00 - In stock -

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2001 updated edition of Brottman's classic study of cannibalism in film, first issued in 1997.

Violent death, murder, mutilation, gluttony and defaecation, ritualism, bodily extremes; cannibalism combines these taboo themes to represent one of the most symbolically charged narratives in the human psychic repertoire. As a grotesque figure of power, threat, and primal appetites, the cannibal has played a formidable and enduring role in the tales told by members of all cultures - whether oral, written, or filmic - and embodies the ultimate extent of transgressive behaviour to which human beings can be driven.

Meat Is Murder! is a unique and explicit exploration of cannibal culture from classical myth to contemporary film and fiction. It features an in-depth illustrated critique of cannibalism as portrayed in the cinema, from mondo and exploitation films such as Cannibal Holocaust to arthouse classics and horror movies such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It also details the atrocious crimes of real-life cannibals such as Albert Fish, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrei Chikatilo.

This improved, expanded edition includes a brand new chapter on cannibal zombie films such as Dawn Of The Dead, Zombie Flesh Eaters and Braindead, plus 8 color pages of cannibal carnage and screen gore, and is fully updated.

VG copy with some wear to covers/extremities.

File under: Mikita Brottman Creation Books / London Film / Video Crime / Violence Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Art

Killing for Culture: Death Film from Mondo to Snuff
by David Kerekes & David Slater

1995 / 1998, English
Softcover, 286 pages, 24.5 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Creation Books / London

$80.00 - In stock -

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From Peeping Tom to Videodrome, Mondo Cane to "shockumentaries", Faces of Death to live TV suicides.

The 1994 cult classic, in the updated and revised 1995 edition, Killing for Culture: Death Film from Mondo to Snuff by David Kerekes & David Slater, the definitive investigation into that controversial and inflammatory of all urban myths: the "snuff" movie. Including: Feature film, Mondo film, Death film, and a comprehensive filmography and index. Illustrated by rare and stunning photographs from cinema, documentary and real life, Killing for Culture is a vital book which examines and questions the human obsession with images of violence, dismemberment and death, and the way our society is coping with an increased profusion of these disturbing yet compelling images from all quarters.

G—VG copy with light wear to covers, previous owner's name to inside front cover. 1998 print of 1995 ed.

File under: David Kerekes David Slater Creation Books / London Film / Video Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Crime / Violence Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction

Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression
by Jack Sargeant

1995 / 1999, English
Softcover, 272 pages, 24.5 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Creation Books / London

$80.00 - In stock -

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Expanded 1999 print of the first 1995 Creation edition of Deathtripping, the first illustrated history, account and critique of the "Cinema Of Transgression", providing a long-overdue and comprehensive documentation of this essential modern sub-cultural movement and its roots in the New York art/rock and underground film scenes. Including interviews with key transgressive film-makers, including Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, plus collaborators Lydia Lunch, Joe Coleman and David Wojnarowicz; studies of more recent film-makers including Jeri Cain Rossi, Richard Baylor, Todd Phillips; a brief history of underground/trash cinema: Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, George and Mike Kuchar, John Waters; notes and essays on the philosophy and aesthetics of transgression; extensive film analysis; index and bibliography. Heavily illustrated with rare and often disturbing photographs, Deathtripping is a unique document, the definitive guide to the roots, philosophy and development of a style of film-making whose influence and impact can no longer be ignored.

WARNING: CONTAINS ADULT MATERIAL

VG copy.

File under: Richard Kern Nick Zedd Casandra Stark Beth B Tommy Turner Tessa Hughes-Freeland Lydia Lunch Joe Coleman David Wojnarowicz Jeri Cain Rossi Richard Baylor Todd Phillips Andy Warhol Jack Smith George Kuchar Mike Kuchar John Waters Jack Sargeant Creation Books / London Eros Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Art Film / Video Sound / Music Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+ Drugs / Psychedelia Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Counterculture

Dictée
by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

1995, English
Softcover, 179 pages, 20.2 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Third Woman Press / Berkeley

$120.00 - In stock -

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First printing of the Third Woman Press re-publication of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee, the classic 1982 experimental autobiography first published by Tanam Press in 1982. Founded by Norma Alarcón, which primarily centered Chicana and Latina literature but expanded in 1994 and 1995 to publish works by other women of colour, notably reissuing Cha's masterpiece.

Dictée is the best-known work of the versatile and important Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self, Dictée is the story of several women: the Korean revolutionary Yu Guan Soon, Joan of Arc, Demeter and Persephone, Cha’s mother Hyung Soon Huo (a Korean born in Manchuria to first-generation Korean exiles), and Cha herself. The elements that unite these women are suffering and the transcendence of suffering. The book is divided into nine parts structured around the Greek Muses. Cha deploys a variety of texts, documents, images, and forms of address and inquiry to explore issues of dislocation and the fragmentation of memory. The result is a work of power, complexity, and enduring beauty.

"Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee is both the ancestor and the future of all attempts to remember and rewrite--against the force of being dismembered and rewritten by--colonial/imperial histories and their reiterative, disfiguring shadows. I have, for that reason, the feeling, maybe also the fear, that neither the experience nor the revelation of it will ever come to an end."–Brandon Shimoda, PEN America Literary Award winner and author of The Grave on the Wall

"You think you know what a book can do, then you read Dictee. A life is split by it. A text of multiple modes and languages, moving in a staccato accumulation through histories of war and displacement, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's postcolonial classic created ways and privacies where there were none. Unimaginable what literature would be today without it."–Solmaz Sharif, author of Customs

"Dictee is part memoir, part history, part experimental meditation; a challenging, innovative exploration of Cha's life, her mother's difficult immigrant journey across East Asia and to the United States, the fractured immigrant experience, women warriors, and language itself. . . . An essential work for feminist writers, conceptual artists and Asian American authors and scholars."–New York Times

VG–NF copy.

File under: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Third Woman Press / Berkeley Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry Poetry Art Film / Video

Wallace Berman: Support the Revolution
Wallace Berman and Tosh Berman

1992, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 184 pages, 24.7 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by D.A.P. / New York

$65.00 - In stock -

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First hardcover edition of the first comprehensive title on the artwork of Wallace Berman (outside of an exhibition catalogue published in 1978), and includes insights from people close to him, Walter Hopps, Tosh Berman, David Meltzer, Michael McClure, and others. Profusely illustrated throughout with B&W and colour images of his work.

Wallace "Wally" Berman (1926–1976) was an American experimental filmmaker, assemblage, and collage artist and a crucial figure in postwar California art. A biting and prescient critic of American visual culture, associated with the Beat Generation and known for his magnetic personality and aversion to publicity, Wallace Berman is considered to be one of the most innovative artists to have worked with photography. With his Verifax (an early copying machine) collages, record covers, Polaroid transfers, art and poetry journal, and filmmaking, Berman was among the first artists to appropriate mass, popular, and advertising imagery. His use of appropriation, and his keen critique of the Modernist ideal of originality, places him alongside the first generation of Pop artists as a major innovator. He was among the first L.A.-based artists who developed the potential of the photograph as an object that could be used as raw material for making art.

NF copy in VG dust jacket with light wear to extremities.

File under: Wallace Berman Wallace Berman Tosh Berman D.A.P. / New York Art Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Out-of-print / Rare Counterculture Film / Video

NASA/TREK: Popular Science and Sex in America
by Constance Penley

1997, English
Softcover, 184 pages, 18.8 x 13.72 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Verso / London

$15.00 - In stock -

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How Star Trek came to represent both scientific perfection and sexual experimentation in modern-day America.

This wry and highly readable investigation of the role of space travel in popular imagination looks at the way NASA has openly borrowed from the TV show Star Trek to reinforce its public standing. It also celebrates the work of a group of the show’s fans who rewrite its storylines in porno-romance fanzines. Constance Penley advocates that scientific experimentation be accompanied by social and sexual experimentation, and devoted to exploring inner as well as outer space.

"Going into space with NASA/TREK is a good read and a good ride into uncharted regions of technoculture. In Penley’s hands, popular science is a place to launch an inquiry into moral, cultural and political stakes in a world ‘where no man has gone before.'"–Donna Haraway

"NASA/TREK is happily both enjoyable and insightful, and explores some intricate correspondences between science and sex. Among other things it offers a new and persuasive analysis of a populist subgenre: ‘slash’ fiction."–Samuel R. Delany

Constance Penley is Professor of Film and Media Studies and Co-Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television and New Media at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a founding editor of Camera Obscura and the author of The Future of an Illusion: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis.

File under: Constance Penley Verso / London Theory / Essay Film / Video Gender Studies / Sexuality Eros

Tony Conrad
Writings

2019, English
Softcover, 576 pages, 12.5 x 19 cm
Published by Primary Information / New York

$54.00 - In stock -

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I want art to stand strong, to display how it manipulates its audience. I want it to take up their expectations, their sense of the world, their predispositions toward the way they think or use their language, and then to use these things perversely, politically, colorfully, “expressively.”

—Tony Conrad, “Dolomite: Having No Trust in Readers”

Writings is the first collection to widely survey this singular polymath’s prolific activity as a writer. Edited by artists Constance DeJong and Andrew Lampert, the book spans the years 1961 – 2012 and includes fifty-seven pieces: essays originally published in small press magazines, exhibition catalogs, anthologies, and album liner notes, along with other previously unpublished texts. Conrad writes about his own work, with substantial contributions on The Flicker, Loose Connection, Four Violins, Articulation of Boolean Algebra for Film Opticals, Early Minimalism, Yellow Movies, Slapping Pythagoras, and Music and the Mind of the World, as well as that of his peers: Tony Oursler, Jack Smith, Rhys Chatham, and Henry Flynt, among others. He devotes critical essays both to grand subjects—horology, neurolinguistics, and the historical development of Western music—and more quotidian topics, such as television advertising and camouflage. He also writes on media activism, network communications, censorship, and the political and cultural implications of corporate and global media. No matter the topic or theme, Conrad always approaches his subjects with erudition, precision, and a healthy twist of humor.

Tony Conrad (1940–2016) was a multidisciplinary artist known for his groundbreaking art, music, films, and videos, although his work doesn’t fit comfortably within any of these disciplines. He eschewed categorization and actively sought to challenge the constraints of media forms, their modes of production, and the relationships of power embedded within them.

Re-print.

File under: Tony Conrad Constance DeJong Primary Information / New York Theory / Essay Performance / Dance / Theater Film / Video Painting Art Fluxus

My Mother Laughs
By Chantal Akerman

2019, English
Softcover, 175 pages, 14 x 19 cm
Published by The Song Cave / New York

$38.00 - In stock -

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"With pride because I finally believed in my ability to say something that I’d had trouble saying. I told myself, I am strong for once, I speak. I tell the truth."

In this unforgettable and moving memoir, the last book written before her death, the legendary film director Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) blends her matter-of-fact writing style with family photographs and stills from her own films in order to better describe and speak toward the most tender of human elements: her family, her lovers, and, most urgently, the deterioration of her mother’s health along with her own mental health.

While addressing universal experiences–the pain found woven into love, the end of relationships, difficult family histories, self-doubt, the end of life–Akerman‘s sharp eye toward memory raises questions about what it means to love and care for oneself and for another, and in the end, what the personal cost of those decisions can be.

Chantal Akerman was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and professor. She is best known for her film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which was dubbed a "masterpiece" by the New York Times. During her 42 years of active filmmaking, Akerman's influence on queer, feminist, and avant-garde cinema remains unmatched, her films highlighting a near physical passage of time.

Translated by Corina Copp

File under: Chantal Akerman Chantal Akerman Corina Copp The Song Cave / New York Art Theory / Essay Film / Video

Yaso
Special Feature: Jan Svankmajer

2007, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 24 x 18.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo

$70.00 - Out of stock

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"Jan Svankmajer" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, published in 2007, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Profusely illustrated in colour with texts in Japanese that look at the genius of Jan Švankmajer, the Czech filmmaker, animator, writer, playwright and artist, a self-labeled surrealist celebrated for his innovative stop–motion animations and feature films, his extensive collaboration with wife painter and author Eva Švankmajerová, his collage, ceramics, tactile objects and assemblages. In the early 1960s, he explored informel, which later became an important part of the visual form of his animated films. Packed with his drawings, film stills, artworks, photographs, interviews, articles on Svankmajer's motifs, artists inspired by Svankmajer and their works, a Svanmkajer filmography, and a section on Travel Tips to the Czech Republic. In typical Japanese magazine fashion, and Yaso in particular, this volume is incredibly comprehensive.

Good–VG copy. Some cover creasing. Sample image only.

File under: Jan Svankmajer Eva Švankmajerová Eva Švankmajerová Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo Periodicals Occult / Esoterica Out-of-print / Rare Film / Video Art Surrealism Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Sculpture / Installation

Mauro Restiffe
Santo Sospir

2021, English
Softcover, 128 pages, 24 x 29 cm
Published by Lenz Press / Milan

$85.00 - In stock -

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A series of images of Villa Santo Sospir in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the "Tattooed Villa" transformed into an artwork by Jean Cocteau, whose Brazilian photographer Mauro Restiffe reveals the hidden details during a residency.

The Villa Santo Sospir in Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat is not a Gesamtkunstwerk, and stands out in particular from the now-mythical realizations by Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier at Cap-Martin, just a stone's throw away. Far from a manifesto, Cocteau invests a pre-existing and rather unremarkable architecture, then conceives his intervention in the villa through a process of accumulation, mixing souvenirs and objects belonging to Francine Weisweiller or himself with the furniture of their friend Madeleine Castaing. Inspired by Greek mythology and the Mediterranean landscapes that surrounded the Villa, this late pictorial work, resolutely anti-modern, has long been ignored or vilified by historians. While Cocteau's entire literary, theatrical and cinematographic work deals with the representation of self, it always takes place in a particular setting. The interiors imagined by Cocteau provide accurate portraits of their occupants. In the 1950s, Jean Cocteau split his time between Paris, Milly la Forêt, and Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat. It is at Santo Sospir that most of his TV interviews were made. It is above all the only house he filmed in his last two cinematographic opuses: La Villa Santo Sospir (filmée et commentée par Jean Cocteau) and Le Testament d'Orphée (Ne me demandez pas pourquoi). Santo Sospir can thus be viewed from the angle of a movie set, which allows him to introduce the world to the other Jean Cocteau—the Mediterranean poet, the craftsman.

Architecture, and Modernism in particular, has always been a source of inspiration for Brazilian photographer Mauro Restiffe. In his photographs, Restiffe has been exploring how every side of the built environment is imbued with life, all the more so in the unobserved details and even when no one is framed. In 2018, at the beginning of a multi-year restoration, he was invited to reside at the villa.

Mauro Restiffe (born 1970, lives and works in São Paulo) captures large format photographs of landscapes, modernist interiors, iconic architectures, and urban life, as well as exploring issues of representation in images that reproduce existing works of art. His work, exhibited internationally, is part is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), SFMOMA (San Francisco), Tate Modern (London), MASP (São Paulo), among others.

File under: Jean Cocteau Mauro Restiffe Lenz Press / Milan Architecture / Interior Photography Painting Drawing Film / Video Art

Act 1
an exhibition of performance and participatory art

1978, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 64 pages, 29.5 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by ANU Arts Centre / Canberra

$200.00 - In stock -

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Rare catalogue published on the occasion of Act 1: an exhibition of performance and participatory art, 4—12 November 1978, spanning the ANU Arts Centre, Commonwealth Gardens and Civic Centre, Canberra. Organised by the ANU Arts Centre, Act I drew Australian artists to Canberra for the "first of a series of exhibitions directed towards specific aspects of recent and experimental art". Profusely illustrated artist pages throughout with photo documentation, collage, drawings, and artist's texts. Artists include Mike Parr, Ian Hamilton, Terry Smith and Media Action Group (Ian Burn, Nigel Lendon, Terry Smith, Michael Dolk, Kieren Finnane, Mary Kinney, Ian Milliss, Anne Sutherland...), Leigh Hobba, Kevin Mortensen, John Nixon, John Davis, Marr Grounds, Ken Unsworth, John Fisher, Liz Honybun, David Kerr, Richard and Pat Larter, Tony Twigg, Lesley Savage, Terry Smith, Tony Twigg, Bob Ramsay, Noel Sheridan, Arthur Wicks, Jillian Orr, Richard Tipping, Jim Cowley, Donald Walters... Includes critical essays by Paul McGillick and Terry Smith on performance art and private and public work, plus further texts by organisers Ingo Kleinert, Diana Ashcroft Johnson, Mildred Kirk. The catalogue also operates in as a document of the exchanges between the organisers and the artists, laying bare the operations and budget, reproducing the open letter to the invited artists along with a selection of the signed responses outlining the artistic concepts, all reproduced in full facsimile. Signatures and transcribed concept responses of contributing artists also make up the wrap-around cover design. Also of particular interest for the contribution by Terry Smith and Media Action Group, who formed in 1977 at Sydney University around the Australian members of the Art & Language group, who had recently returned to Australia. The group produced slide shows on the ideological bias in media treatment of advertising, uranium mining, new technology and the history of May Day. This work is stamped "withdrawn because titled 'performance'" in the contents.

Very Good copy with light wear to cover extremities/light spine pinching. Toned pages from age.

File under: Mike Parr Ian Hamilton Leigh Hobba Kevin Mortensen John Nixon John Davis Marr Grounds Ken Unsworth John Fisher Liz Honybun David Kerr Richard and Pat Larter Tony Twigg Lesley Savage Terry Smith Bob Ramsay Noel Sheridan Arthur Wicks Jillian Orr Richard Tipping Jim Cowley Donald Walters Pat Larter Richard Larter Media Action Group Ian Burn Nigel Lendon Michael Dolk Kieren Finnane Mary Kinney Ian Milliss Anne Sutherland Paul McGillick Terry Smith ANU Arts Centre / Canberra Performance / Dance / Theater Art Australian Art Conceptual Art Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections Sound / Music Film / Video Sculpture / Installation Arte Povera

G-Modern Vol. 8
Spring '95 : PSYCHEDELIC, AVANT-GARDE, UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE

1995, Japanese
Softcover, 110 pages, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by G-Modern / Tokyo

$90.00 - In stock -

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Vol. 8 issue of G-Modern, the scarcely seen cult underground music magazine published by the late Hideo Ikeezumi, founder of the legendary P.S.F. label and Modern Music record store, Tokyo’s home for underground, avant-garde and obscure musics. Published in Spring 1995, this early issue features Albert Ayler, Kenji Endo, AMM, Nihilist Spasm Band, Can / Holger Czukay, Stever Beresford, LAFMS, Miles Davis, Hawkwind, Butch Morris, The Pop Group, Television, Hiroshi Mikami, Q-65, unknown masterpieces, record reviews, and much more.

"The text is all in Japanese, but each issue is crammed with great photographs, weird artwork and ads, and lots of album reviews (the Japanese tradition of always reproducing every cover is helpful here). There's a big emphasis on older, ultra obscure stuff, so there's always a few repros of covers you'll definitely never see for the rest of your life. The accent is not only on the Tokyo underground as documented by PSF, but the entire history of worldwide psychedelic, avant-garde and underground music. Each issue is printed on nice book stock paper, in the 100 page range." - (Forced Exposure)

Very Good, cover wear.

File under: Albert Ayler Kenji Endo AMM Nihilist Spasm Band Can / Holger Czukay Stever Beresford LAFMS Miles Davis Hawkwind Butch Morris The Pop Group Television Hiroshi Mikami Q-65 Hideo Ikeezumi G-Modern / Tokyo Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare Art Performance / Dance / Theater Sound / Music Film / Video

G-Modern Vol. 17
Winter '97-'98 : PSYCHEDELIC, AVANT-GARDE, UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE

1997, Japanese
Softcover, 112 pages, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by G-Modern / Tokyo

$70.00 - In stock -

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Vol. 17 issue of G-Modern, the scarcely seen cult underground music magazine published by the late Hideo Ikeezumi, founder of the legendary P.S.F. label and Modern Music record store, Tokyo’s home for underground, avant-garde and obscure musics. Published in Winter '97-'98, this early issue features Jutok Kaneko, Congregation, Current 93, Arthur Doyle, Klaus Dinger, Kikuchi Kōji, Barre Phillips, Chu Ishikawa, Nelly Pouget, Screamin' Mee-Mees, Solmania, Mike Whilhelm, Sumegma, unknown psychedelia, record reviews, and much more.

"The text is all in Japanese, but each issue is crammed with great photographs, weird artwork and ads, and lots of album reviews (the Japanese tradition of always reproducing every cover is helpful here). There's a big emphasis on older, ultra obscure stuff, so there's always a few repros of covers you'll definitely never see for the rest of your life. The accent is not only on the Tokyo underground as documented by PSF, but the entire history of worldwide psychedelic, avant-garde and underground music. Each issue is printed on nice book stock paper, in the 100 page range." - (Forced Exposure)

Fine copy.

File under: Jutok Kaneko Congregation Current 93 Arthur Doyle Klaus Dinger Kikuchi Kōji Barre Phillips Chu Ishikawa Nelly Pouget Screamin' Mee-Mees Solmania Mike Whilhelm Sumegma Hideo Ikeezumi G-Modern / Tokyo Periodicals Sound / Music Film / Video Art Performance / Dance / Theater Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay

G-Modern Vol. 5
Winter '94 : PSYCHEDELIC, AVANT-GARDE, UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE

1994, Japanese
Softcover, 108 pages, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by G-Modern / Tokyo

$90.00 - In stock -

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Vol. 5 issue of G-Modern, the scarcely seen cult underground music magazine published by the late Hideo Ikeezumi, founder of the legendary P.S.F. label and Modern Music record store, Tokyo’s home for underground, avant-garde and obscure musics. Published in Winter 1994, this early issue features Derek Bailey, Motoharu Yoshizawa, Captain Beefheart, George A. Romero, Keiji Haino, Smegma, Patti Smith, Jean-Luc Godard, Hawkwind, Pierre Henry, Shinro Ohtake, Shoichi Ozawa, Alvin Lucier, Frank Zappa, history/discography of Akifumi Nakajima's (Aube) G.R.O.S.S. label, articles on extremely obscure psych from around the world, record reviews, and much more.

"The text is all in Japanese, but each issue is crammed with great photographs, weird artwork and ads, and lots of album reviews (the Japanese tradition of always reproducing every cover is helpful here). There's a big emphasis on older, ultra obscure stuff, so there's always a few repros of covers you'll definitely never see for the rest of your life. The accent is not only on the Tokyo underground as documented by PSF, but the entire history of worldwide psychedelic, avant-garde and underground music. Each issue is printed on nice book stock paper, in the 100 page range." - (Forced Exposure)

Very Good, light cover wear.

File under: Derek Bailey Captain Beefheart George A. Romero Keiji Haino Smegma Patti Smith Jean-Luc Godard Hawkwind Pierre Henry Shinro Ohtake Shoichi Ozawa Alvin Lucier Frank Zappa Akifumi Nakajima (Aube) Aube Motoharu Yoshizawa Hideo Ikeezumi G-Modern / Tokyo Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare Art Performance / Dance / Theater Film / Video Sound / Music Theory / Essay

Screensound
Organised by Rebecca Coyle

1995, English
Softcover (staple-bound), unpaginated, 21.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Museum of Contemporary Art / Sydney

$18.00 - In stock -

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Rare pocket publication issued on the occasion of Screensound, a program of screenings at the MCA, Sydney, July 1995. The program was part of the exhibition, Sound in Space: Adventures in Australian Sound Art, curated by Rebecca Coyle and Alessio Cavallaro, and brought the dimension of video and film into their exploration of sound and audio art practice in Australia. Illustrated with accompanying texts throughout, featuring the works of Philip Brophy, Rik Rue, Severed Heads, Derek Kreckler, Tom Ellard, Laurie Mc Innes, Fincher Trist, Noel Cunningham, Jane Campion, Itch-E and Scratch-E, Arf Arf, Battleship Potato, Melissa Juhanson, Sonia Leber, David Chesworth, and many more.

Good copy.

File under: Philip Brophy Rik Rue Severed Heads Sonia Leber David Chesworth ARF ARF Rebecca Coyle Museum of Contemporary Art / Sydney Australian Art Art Film / Video Sound / Music Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections

Nightmare USA : The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents
by Stephen Thrower

2007, English
Hardcover, 528 pages, 25 x 28.9 cm
Published by FAB Press / UK

$110.00 - Out of stock

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Running to 528 large-format pages, Nightmare USA is a veritable encyclopedia of grindhouse cinema - it's one of the most acclaimed genre film books ever published, and after having Sold Out three times over already, it's finally back in print!

From Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill) to Eli Roth (Hostel), the young guns of modern Hollywood just can't get enough of that exploitation film high. That's because, between 1970 and 1985, American Exploitation movies went berserk. With censorship relaxed, and the gate to excess wide open, horror offered a vibrant alternative to the mainstream of American cinema. Luridly titled wonders like The Headless Eyes, Scream Bloody Murder and Hitch Hike to Hell were everywhere, from the drive-ins of Texas to the grindhouses of New York. Massively popular around the world, American exploitation movies added immensely to the richness of the nation's cinema.

Built on five years of research, Nightmare USA explores the development of America's subterranean horror film industry, spotlighting some of the wildest films imaginable from an era unchecked by censorship or 'good taste.' Ranging from cult favourites like I Drink Your Blood to stylish mind-benders like Messiah of Evil and shockers like Don't Go in the House, Nightmare USA goes where no other in-depth study has gone before, revealing the fascinating true stories behind classics and obscurities alike. Author Stephen Thrower has explored the attics and cellars of American cinema, delved beneath the floorboards, peered between the walls, searching for the strangest, most exotic cine-lifeforms... Nightmare USA is the reader's guide to what lies beyond the mainstream of American horror, dispelling the shadows to meet the men and women behind fifteen years of screen terror: the Exploitation Independents!

This massive overview of the Horror genre's development through the 1970s and 1980s features: In-depth EXCLUSIVE interviews with twenty-five grindhouse movie makers, many of whom are discussing their work for the first time ever in print, including David Durston (I Drink Your Blood), Robert Endelson (Fight for Your Life), Frederick Friedel (Axe), Don Jones (Schoolgirls in Chains); and Joseph Ellison (Don't Go in the House). Over 175 individual films reviewed, with full cast and crew credits. Vast quantities of previously unpublished stills, posters, press-books, plus behind-the-scenes photographs from the filmmakers' own collections.

File under: Stephen Thrower FAB Press / UK Film / Video Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Theory / Essay Transgressive / Visceral / Abject

Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema
by Jasper Sharp

2025, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 416 pages, 26 x 19.8 cm
Published by FAB Press / UK

$110.00 - In stock -

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Back in print at last! Exclusively re-issued in hardcover. First published in 2008, this is the Updated and Amended re-issue of Behind the Pink Curtain, the definitive study of Japan's pinku eiga film genre.

Behind the Pink Curtain takes the reader on a wild joy ride deep into the hinterlands of Japanese culture, society and radical politics by way of the weird and wonderful world of the country’s distinctive sex film movements.

Jasper Sharp’s definitive study focuses on one of the most notorious sectors of Japanese filmmaking, the erotic Pink Film, or pinku eiga genre, and the closely related Roman Porno films produced by Nikkatsu studios from 1971 to 1988. From the early ’60s onwards major Japanese film studios and independent producers alike have kept up a conveyor belt level of output of pornographic features intended purely for cinema release. Up until the 2010s, just short of 100 such titles were shot on 35mm every year intended for screening in a specialist network of adult cinemas across the nation. Many such films have been released on home video in the West or screened at international film festivals, while a significant number of Japan’s most noted filmmakers today cut their teeth in this industry.

Based on extensive interviews with many of the leading figures in the field, Behind the Pink Curtain is a colourful and exhaustive exposé of Japan’s most vibrant and prolific filmmaking sector.

Lavishly illustrated throughout in colour and black and white.

Jasper Sharp is a writer and filmmaker based in the UK and co-founder, with Tom Mes, of Midnight Eye (www.midnighteye.com), the first online resource on Japanese cinema in the English language. His other books include The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (2003, with Mes), The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (2011) and The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds (Alchimia, 2015). His doctorate degree from the University of Sheffield was on the subject of 'Japanese Widescreen Cinema: Commerce, Technology and Aesthetics.'

File under: Koji Wakamatsu Masao Adachi Jasper Sharp FAB Press / UK Film / Video Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Counterculture Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Fetishism / BDSM

OUT OF ACTIONS: Between Performance and The Object, 1949-1979
by Paul Schimmel

1998, English
Softcover, 408 pages, 31 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Thames and Hudson / London

$55.00 - Out of stock

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First edition of Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979, edited by Paul Schimmel, published in 1998. with essays by Kristine Stiles, Guy Brett, Hubert Klocker, Shinichiro Osaki, and Paul Schimmel.

Published to coincide with the first major museum exhibition to examine the complex relationship linking the creative process, action or performance, and works of art in the postwar period. Featuring nearly one hundred and fifty artists and collaboratives from approximately twenty countries in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Japan, and North and South America—including figures associated with the New York School, Nouveaux Realistes, Fluxus, Viennese Actionists, Hi Red Center, Arte Povera, the Gutai group, happenings, process art, and performance art—the exhibition centered on how the possibilities and implications of using time and process as elements of art were realized by a number of international movements during this influential thirty-year period.

Covering three decades of significant and original art, this lavishly illustrated book features work by more than one hundred artists from across the world who have had a profound impact on the relationship between visual and performance art in the postwar era.

Includes the work of: Marina Abramović, Vito Acconci, Genpei Akasegawa, Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, Rasheed Araeen, Mowry Baden, Artur Barrio, Jerzy Beres, Joseph Beuys, Mark Boyle & Joan Hills, George Brecht, Stuart Brisley, Robert Delford Brown, Rhett Delford Brown, Günter Brus, Chris Burden, James Lee Byars, John Cage, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Lygia Clark, Pinchas Cohen Gan, Collective Action Group, Houston Conwill, Paul Cotton, COUM Transmissions, Guy de Cointet, Jim Dine, John Duncan, Felipe Ehrenberg, Roberto Evangelista, VALIE EXPORT, Robert Filliou, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Sherman Fleming, Lucio Fontana, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Gideon Gechtman, Jochen Gerz, Gilbert & George, Alberto Greco, Ion Grigorescu, Victor Grippo, Red Grooms, Guerrilla Art Action Group, David Hammons, Al Hansen, Maren Hassinger, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Dick Higgins, Tatsumi Hijikata, Susan Hiller, Hi Red Center, Rebecca Horn, Tehching Hsieh, Joan Jonas, Kim Jones, Michel Journiac, Akira Kanayama, Tadeusz Kantor, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley, Jürgen Klauke, Yves Klein, Milan Knížák, Alison Knowles, Komar & Melamid, Jannis Kounellis, Shigeko Kubota, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Leslie Labowitz, Suzanne Lacy, John Latham, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Lea Lublin, George Maciunas, Leopoldo Maler, Piero Manzoni, Tom Marioni, Cusi Masuda, Georges Mathieu, Gordon Matta-Clark, Paul McCarthy, Bruce McLean, David Medalla, Cildo Meireles, Ana Mendieta, Gustav Metzger, Marta Minujín, Jan Mlčoch, Linda Montano, Charlotte Moorman, Robert Morris, Otto Muehl, Saburo Murakami, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Bruce Nauman, Paul Neagu, Senga Nengudi, Joshua Neustein, Hermann Nitsch, Hélio Oiticica, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Orlan, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Lorenzo Pace, Nam June Paik, Gina Pane, Lygia Pape, Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jackson Pollock, William Pope.L, Robert Rauschenberg, Carlyle Reedy, Klaus Rinke, Ulrike Rosenbach, Dieter Roth, Zorka Ságlová, Niki de Saint Phalle, Alfons Schilling, Tomas Schmit, Carolee Schneemann, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Shōzō Shimamoto, Ushio Shinohara, Kazuo Shiraga, Barbara T. Smith, Daniel Spoerri, Petr Štembera, Wolfgang Stöerchle, Jirō Takamatsu, Atsuko Tanaka, Mark Thompson, Jean Tinguely, Rasa Todosijević, Kerry Trengove, Ulay, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Franz Erhard Walther, Peter Weibel, Franz West, Hannah Wilke, Emmett Williams, Zaj.

Their work encompasses sculpture, artists' publications, drawings, photographs, and the ephemera that arises from the performance, as well as documentary film and video stills.

Published in conjunction with a major touring exhibition organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Out of Actions illuminates the unique relationship between action, destruction, performance, and the creative process, in essays by acclaimed art historians. Covering an unprecedented range of material, the book offers the first critical comparisons of work that has previously been viewed as distinctly regional and unrelated.

With 450 illustrations, 200 in colour.

VG copy with light wear and "The Grid" written in red marker on the block side (?).

File under: Joseph Beuys Chris Burden John Cage Lygia Clark Yves Klein John Latham Bruce Nauman Hélio Oiticica Claes Oldenburg Yoko Ono Robert Rauschenberg Niki de Saint Phalle Carolee Schneemann Atsuko Tanaka Jean Tinguely Marina Abramovič Jerzy Bereś Zorka Saglova Raphael Montanez Ortiz Petr Stembera Wolfgang Stoerchle Rasa Todosijevic Vito Acconci Genpei Akasegawa Laurie Anderson Eleanor Antin Rasheed Araeen Mowry Baden Artur Barrio Mark Boyle & Joan Hills George Brecht Stuart Brisley Robert Delford Brown Rhett Delford Brown Günter Brus James Lee Byars Marc Camille Chaimowicz Pinchas Cohen Gan Collective Action Group Houston Conwill Paul Cotton COUM Transmissions Guy de Cointet Jim Dine John Duncan Felipe Ehrenberg Roberto Evangelista VALIE EXPORT Robert Filliou Rose Finn-Kelcey Sherman Fleming Lucio Fontana Terry Fox Howard Fried Gideon Gechtman Jochen Gerz Gilbert & George Alberto Greco Ion Grigorescu Victor Grippo Red Grooms Guerrilla Art Action Group David Hammons Al Hansen Maren Hassinger Lynn Hershman Leeson Dick Higgins Tatsumi Hijikata Susan Hiller Hi Red Center Rebecca Horn Tehching Hsieh Joan Jonas Kim Jones Michel Journiac Akira Kanayama Tadeusz Kantor Allan Kaprow Mike Kelley Jürgen Klauke Milan Knížák Alison Knowles Komar & Melamid Jannis Kounellis Shigeko Kubota Tetsumi Kudo Yayoi Kusama Leslie Labowitz Suzanne Lacy Jean-Jacques Lebel Lea Lublin George Maciunas Leopoldo Maler Piero Manzoni Tom Marioni Cusi Masuda Georges Mathieu Gordon Matta-Clark Paul McCarthy Bruce McLean David Medalla Cildo Meireles Ana Mendieta Gustav Metzger Marta Minujín Jan Mlčoch Linda Montano Charlotte Moorman Robert Morris Otto Muehl Saburo Murakami Natsuyuki Nakanishi Paul Neagu Senga Nengudi Joshua Neustein Hermann Nitsch Orlan Lorenzo Pace Nam June Paik Gina Pane Lygia Pape Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio Adrian Piper Michelangelo Pistoletto Jackson Pollock William Pope.L Carlyle Reedy Klaus Rinke Ulrike Rosenbach Dieter Roth Alfons Schilling Tomas Schmit Rudolf Schwarzkogler Bonnie Ora Sherk Shōzō Shimamoto Ushio Shinohara Kazuo Shiraga Barbara T. Smith Daniel Spoerri Jirō Takamatsu Mark Thompson Kerry Trengove Ulay Ben Vautier Wolf Vostell Franz Erhard Walther Peter Weibel Franz West Hannah Wilke Emmett Williams Zaj Paul Schimmel Kristine Stiles Guy Brett Hubert Klocker Shinichiro Osaki Thames and Hudson / London Group Shows / Collections Out-of-print / Rare Performance / Dance / Theater Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Sound / Music Fluxus Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Dada Art Sculpture / Installation Film / Video Conceptual Art Feminism Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Painting Drawing

Feminist Avant-Garde
Art of the 1970s in the Verbund Collection, Vienna

2020, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 672 pages, 29 x 24 cm
Published by Prestel / Munich

$125.00 - Out of stock

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Now available again in an expanded edition and featuring a variety of work from artists both well-known and under the radar, this volume explores the pioneering achievements of the Feminist Avant-Garde.

For art history, the 1970s represent the beginning of women subverting culturally and socially established constructions and traditional norms. Second-wave feminism, with its slogan "The personal is political", challenged the one-dimensional roles assigned to women--mother, housewife, and spouse. During this period, women artists radically questioned their duties and created a plurality of self-determined representations of themselves. Rejecting traditional male-dominated techniques, such as painting, these artists made use of new media, such as photography, film, video, and performance. The outcome was artwork which was radical, poetic, ironic, bitter, cynical, and heartfelt. This book features more than seventy international female artists, including works by Martha Rosler, Mary Beth Edelson, Ana Mendieta, Nil Yalter, and Ulrike Rosenbach. Editor Gabriele Schor used the term Feminist Avant-Garde in order to emphasize the role that these artists played in the last four decades. This new edition has been enriched with twenty-five new artists–Emma Amos, Dara Birnbaum, Rose English, Natalia LL, among others–as well as up-to-date research on feminist exhibitions, catalogues, and periodicals. Each artist is introduced by an essay and the book also includes fascinating texts by leading scholars.

Features the work of: Helena Almeida, Eleanor Antin, Annekke Barger, Lynda Benglis, Judith Bernstein, Renate Bertlmann, Teresa Burga, Marcella Campagnano, Judy Chicago, Linda Christanell, Lili Dujourie, Mary Beth Edelson, Renate Eisenegger, Valie Export, Esther Ferrer, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Alexis Hunter, Sanja Iveković, Birgit Jürgenssen, Kirsten Justesen, Ketty La Rocca, Leslie Labowitz, Katalin Ladik, Brigitte Lang, Suzanne Lacy, Suzy Lake, Karin Mack, Ana Mendieta, Rita Myers, Lorraine O’Grady, Orlan, Gina Pane, Letítia Parente, Ewa Partum, Friederike Pezold, Margot Pilz, Ulrike Rosenbach, Martha Rosler, Suzanne Santoro, Carolee Schneemann, Lydia Schouten, Cindy Sherman, Penny Slinger, Annegret Soltau, Hannah Wilke, Martha Wilson, Francesca Woodman, Nil Yalter...

File under: Helena Almeida Eleanor Antin Annekke Barger Lynda Benglis Judith Bernstein Renate Bertlmann Teresa Burga Marcella Campagnano Judy Chicago Linda Christanell Lili Dujourie Mary Beth Edelson Renate Eisenegger Valie Export Esther Ferrer Lynn Hershman Leeson Alexis Hunter Sanja Iveković Birgit Jürgenssen Kirsten Justesen Ketty La Rocca Leslie Labowitz Katalin Ladik Brigitte Lang Suzanne Lacy Suzy Lake Karin Mack Ana Mendieta Rita Myers Lorraine O’Grady Orlan Gina Pane Letítia Parente Ewa Partum Friederike Pezold Margot Pilz Ulrike Rosenbach Martha Rosler Suzanne Santoro Carolee Schneemann Lydia Schouten Cindy Sherman Penny Slinger Annegret Soltau Hannah Wilke Martha Wilson Francesca Woodman Nil Yalter Gabriele Schor Prestel / Munich Art Feminism Group Shows / Collections Conceptual Art Performance / Dance / Theater Sculpture / Installation Sociology / Politics Gender Studies / Sexuality Photography Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Fluxus Film / Video

Boys Alive
by Pier Paolo Pasolini

2023, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 20.2 x 12.7 cm
Published by The New York Review of Books / New York

$35.00 - In stock -

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Boys Alive, published in 1955, was Pier Paolo Pasolini's first work of fiction and it remains his best known. Written in the aftermath of Pasolini's move from the provinces to Rome, the novel captures the hunger and anger, waywardness and squalor of the big city. The life of the novel is the life of the city streets; from the streets, too, come its raw, mongrel, assaultive language. Here unblinkered realism and passionate lyricism meet in a vision of a vast urban inferno, blazing with darkness and light.

There is no one story to the book, only stories, splitting off, breaking away, going nowhere, flaming out, stories in which scenes of comic debacle, bitter conflict, wild joy, and crushing disappointment quickly follow. Pasolini's young characters have nothing to trade on except youth, and the struggle to live is unending. They loot, hustle, scavenge, steal. Somehow money will turn up; as soon as it does it will get spent. The main thing, in any case, is to have fun, and so the boys boast and vie, the desperate uncertainty of their days and nights offset by the fabulous inventiveness of their words. A warehouse heist, a night of gambling, the hunt for sex - The world of Boys Alive is a world in convulsion where at any instant disaster may strike.

Tim Parks' new translation of Pasolini's early masterpiece brings out the salt and brilliance of a still-scandalous work of art.

File under: Pier Paolo Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini The New York Review of Books / New York Fiction / Poetry Film / Video Art

Theorem
by Pier Paolo Pasolini

2023, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 20.2 x 12.7 cm
Published by The New York Review of Books / New York

$35.00 - In stock -

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Theorem is the most enigmatic of Pier Paolo Pasolini's four novels. The book started as a poem and took shape as a film, also called Theorem, before turning at last into a work of fiction. In short prose chapters interspersed with stark passages of poetry, Pasolini tells a story of transfiguration and trauma.

To the suburban mansion of a prosperous Milanese businessman comes a mysterious and beautiful young man who invites himself to stay. From the beginning he exercises a strange fascination on the inhabitants of the house, and soon everyone, from the busy father to the frustrated mother, from the yearning daughter to the weak-willed son to the housemaid from the country, has fallen in love with him. Then, as mysteriously as he appeared, the infatuating young man departs. How will these people he has touched so deeply do without him? Is there a passage out of the spiritual desert of modern capitalism into a new awakening, both of the senses and of the soul? Only questions remain at the end of a book that is at once a bedroom comedy, a political novel, and a religious parable.

File under: Pier Paolo Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini The New York Review of Books / New York Art Film / Video Fiction / Poetry

Rosemarie Trockel

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

$145.00 - In stock -

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

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

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

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

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