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:
CLOSED FOR SUMMER
RE—OPENING JAN 16
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
ORDERS SHIP FROM JAN 6
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.
1976, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust-jacket), 128 pages, 15 × 21cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
PARCO / Tokyo
$140.00 - Out of stock
A strangely very scarce Peter Max book, published by PARCO in Tokyo, for a major exhibition held in Japan in 1976.
Spanning the 1960s-mid 1970s, this elegant publication is entirely made up of page after page of Max's vibrant paintings, sketches, prints and collages, so many of which have not been reproduced in any other book. The sketches in here are of particular interest. Many figurative studies, as well as flowers, fantastic landscapes and his famed "Cosmic Jumper", all in Max's distinct style. A modest, yet very generous and handsomely designed Japanese book on Max's iconic graphic and illustrative work.
"Peter Max (born Peter Max Finkelstein, October 19, 1937) is a German-born American illustrator and graphic artist, known for the use of psychedelic shapes and color palettes as well as spectra in his work. Max's art work was first identified as having been a popular part of the counter culture and psychedelic movements in graphic design during the late 1960s and early 1970s - works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms across America. In 1962, Max started a small Manhattan arts studio known as "The Daly & Max Studio," with friend Tom Daly. Daly and Max were joined by friend and mentor Don Rubbo, and the three worked as a group on books and advertising for which they received industry recognition. Much of their work incorporated antique photographic images as elements of collage. Max's interest in astronomy contributed to his self described "Cosmic '60s" period, which featured what became identified as psychedelic, counter culture imagery. Max's art was popularized nationally through TV commercials such as his 1968 "un cola" ad for the soft drink 7-UP. He is known for using bursts of color, often containing much or all of the visible spectrum. His work was both influenced by, as well as widely imitated by, others in the field of commercial illustration. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise. In 1970, many of Max's products and posters were featured in the exhibition "The World of Peter Max," which opened at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. The United States Postal Service commissioned Max to create the 10-cent postage stamp to commemorate the Expo '74 World's Fair in Washington, and Max drew a colorful psychedelic scene with a "Cosmic Jumper" and a "Smiling Sage" against a backdrop of a cloud, sun rays and a ship at sea on the theme of "Preserve the Environment." Max's work has since been recognised through work with everyone from the 1994 World Cup, Yes, The World Series between the New York Yankees and Mets, and Taylor Swift."
1986, English / Italian
Softcover, 173 pages, 22 x 24 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Electa / Milan
$180.00 - Out of stock
The incredible, rarely seen Electa Studio 65 monograph!
In 1965 Studio 65 was founded by Franco Audrito and Piero Gatti, architecture and art students in Turin, at a time in Italy covering the 1960s and 1970s, where radical design groups were establishing an opposition to the pure functionalism of the International Style of design. Their ironic adaptation of classical elements predates the historicist designs of such 1980s postmodernists as Robert Venturi and Michael Graves in America and Hans Hollein, Ricardo Bofill, and Aldo Rossi in Europe, and it also takes note of pop art developments of the period in ways which in turn influenced visual artists of the time.
This valuable book encompasses their entire history of work, all densely illustrated in colour and black and white throughout with texts in both Italian and English discussing each project. Includes all their work across furniture design (including their iconic polyurethane foam pieces for Gufram, such as "Bocca" and "Capitello"), interior design, architecture, exhibition design, and much more. From designing discotheques to children's playgrounds, much of the content in this book is undocumented elsewhere in print.
Alongside a complete biographical history, interviews and essays, this great book visually captures Studio 65's place at the forefront of Italy's radical anti-design movement, transforming furniture, jewellery, accessories, and even architecture itself into objects of fantasy.
First and only edition.
1990, English / Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust-jacket), 96 pages, 24.5 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Yamagiwa Art Foundation / Japan
$120.00 - Out of stock
Scarce, beautifully designed hardcover book from 1990, published by the Yamagiwa Art Foundation in Japan to accompany the exhibition "Ettore Sottsass: Lighting Is Architecture".
More than a simple catalogue of the exhibition, this book highlights a selection of Italian designer Ettore Sottsass' recent works from around this time (1986-1990), including furniture, glassware and lighting, much of which we've never seen documented before. All the objects are gloriously photographed in full-colour by Santi Caleca, alongside reproductions of Sottsass' product sketches and thoughtfully commissioned writings by Hyogo Konagaya, Riichi Miyake, Shiro Kuramata, Arata Isozaki, Martin Filler, and three texts by Sottsass himself.
This is a copy of the first printing and is in near new condition!
Italian designer Ettore Sottsass is celebrated intemationally for his contribution to architecture, industrial and furniture design, ceramics, jewellery, crafts, graphic design, and photography. In 1981 he founded the Memphis group, and through its startling, eclectic and irreverent aesthetic he dominated furniture and interior style for over a decade. Almost every area of modern design displays his influence.
1987, French
Softcover, 96 pages, 17 x 19 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Rivages / Paris
$45.00 - Out of stock
Small French monograph on the life and work of Italian designer and architect, Ettore Sottsass. First Edition. Illustrated throughout in black and white and colour with his work across furniture, glass, ceramic, jewellery, lighting, interior and architectural projects. Ettore Sottsass (14 September 1917 – 31 December 2007) was a founder of the highly influential Memphis group and Sottsass Associati, as well as designer with Alchimia, Alessi, Olivetti, Arredoluce, Poltronova, Fiorucci, Esprit, Knoll, and many others. All texts in French.
2001, Finnish / Swedish / English
Softcover, 192 pages, 21 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Marimekko Oyj
$85.00 - Out of stock
Published on the occasion of textile and ceramic designer Fujiwo Ishimoto's exhibition On the Road at the Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki, 23 August - 7 October 2001.
Ishimoto moved to Finland from Japan in 1970 and has lived there ever since. He first worked for the company Decembre, set up by Ristomatti Ratia, son of Marimekko's founders Armi and Viljo Ratia. Ishimoto switched over to Marimekko in 1974. His highly personal style gave Marimekko a boost during the 1970s and 1980s with more mature and abstract designs than the playful 1960s styles which first had made Marimekko famous. Inspired by traditional Asian art and culture but also by Finnish traditions and nature, Ishimoto has continued to reinvent himself.
In total, he has made over 300 designs for Marimekko. Besides his work for Marimekko, he also creates unique ceramic works and was recently the subject of a large retrospective exhibition in Helsinki, of which this (now very rare) book is the accompanying publication. It is the most in-depth look at the work of Fujiwo Ishimoto to date.
1984, English
Hardcover, 48 pages, 23 x 19 cm
1st UK edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Souvenir Press / London
$40.00 - Out of stock
1st UK hardback edition of this wonderful collection of Tomi Ungerer's provocative frog watercolours from the early 1980's. The amphibious "Joy of Sex", this fabulous collection of frog erotica is one of Ungerer's incredible adult books, sitting alongside such classics as The Party (1966), Fornicon (1969) and Tomi Ungerer's Compromises (1970), Totempole (1976), amongst many others.
Tomi Ungerer (born 28 November 1931) is an award winning French illustrator and a writer in three languages. He has published over 140 books ranging from much loved children's books to controversial adult work and from the fantastic to the autobiographical. He is known for sharp social satire and witty aphorisms. He is renowned for his iconic Advertising campaigns and political posters against the Vietnam War and Racial Injustice which were representative of the burgeoning political consciousness in New York in the 1960’s. His political engagement has continued to this day in campaigns against Racism and Fascism, for Nuclear disarmament, Ecology and numerous Humanitarian causes.
2007, French
Hardcover (cloth), 296 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 250 x 310 mm
1st edition, Out of print title / As New,
Published by
HYX / France
$150.00 - Out of stock
Gorgeous, out of print, huge book on the early work of Italian designer Ettore Sottsass. Drawing in part on the FRAC Centre collection, this book gathers together unique works and projects of Ettore Sottsass – drawings, furniture, objects, ceramics, jewellery, photographs, written works and architecture – wherein over a period of time Sottsass frees himself from the principles of functionalism and rationalism and moves towards the development of a new sensorial language. This heavy book lavishly illustrates the large body of experimental and commercial work Sottsass had produced that lead the way to his founding the Memphis Group in Italy, 1981.
Overflowing with beautifully reproduced full-page colour images and containing minimal French text, this deluxe cloth-bound publication allows for an fascinating insight into one of the most important designers of the 20th century.
2017, English / German
Softcover, 272 pages + DVD, 23 x 17 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$45.00 - Out of stock
This is a long-awaited account of the work of the great publisher and designer Hansjörg Mayer in the fields of concrete poetry, typography, artist’s publications and ethnographic books over six decades. It includes the first bibliography of his works.
Identified as a print prodigy by Max Bense in the late 1950s, Mayers unique expertise and virtuosity with print technologies of the time allowed for the casting of works in various experimental formats which stretched, fragmented and expanded the concept of the poem.
He combined an interest in chance and randomness with a mathematically precise attention to use of graphic space, which makes his works now seem anticipatory of networked systems whilst holding a more modernist purity of form. His works made seminal explorations into the possibilities of concrete and computational convergence.
Mayer had a retrospective exhibition at Haags Gemeentemuseum in 1968 at the young age of 25. After this he concentrated on making experimental publications with artists.
Through his edition hansjörg mayer he issued publications of Dieter Roth, Richard Hamilton, Tom Phillips, André Thomkins and Emmett Williams.
From the late 1970s he also began to research, collect and publish an extraordinary series of books about vanishing cultures.
English and German text.
1987, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 168 pages, 24 x 25 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Trefoil / London
$35.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this reference compilation of biographies of the most famous type designers of the 20th century. A must for every type book collection.
Since its first publication in 1987, Twentieth Century Type Designers has become a standard reference work for typographers, designers and students alike.
This book serves as an introduction to the concept of typefaces and to some of the personalities who have created them--Goudy, Rogers, Koch, Gill, Morison, Van Krimpen, Trump, Tschichold, Frutiger, Zapf and others--and places them in the context of the enormous changes that have occurred in typography.
The introduction in the 1880s of the Linotype and Monotype hot-metal composing machines, and in particular the Benton pantographic punchcutter, revolutionized the manufacture of type, and caused a flood of new typefaces. More recently, filmsetting and digital typesetting have brought new opportunities--as well as new disciplines. This book examines the conflicts arising from these technological advances, which have pitted craftsmanship against commercial interests, and forced designers to come to terms with the new creative opportunities.
Whatever motivates type designers--whether it is the practical need to create new faces for machines, the ideal of producing the perfect letter-form for our age, or whether type is designed as an offshoot of other artistic activities--their work has had a far-reaching impact on our culture.
Designers featured:
Frederic Goudy, Bruce Rogers, Rudolf Koch, William Addison Dwiggins, Eric Gill, Victor Hammer, Stanley Morison, Hans (Giovanni) Mardersteig, Jan van Krimpen, Georg Trump, Joseph Blumenthal, Robert Hunter Middleton, Jan Tschichold, Berthold Wolpe, Roger Excoffon, Herman Zapf, Adrian Frutiger.
1988, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 22 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
The Gay Men's Press (GMP) / London
Tom of Finland Foundation / Los Angeles
$140.00 - Out of stock
1st printing of one of the finest collections of the great Tom of Finland, published in 1988 by the Tom of Finland Foundation, Los Angeles, and The Gay Men's Press (GMP), London.
Preface by Tom of Finland with appreciation by Dennis Forbes and Fred Bisonnes. This book covers Tom of Finland's work from 1946 to 1987, depicting page by page throughout his iconic and impeccable erotic graphite drawings of macho leathermen, bikers, cowboys, cops, lumberjacks, hardhats, soldiers and sailors, all in all their glory.
Touko Valio Laaksonen (8 May 1920 – 7 November 1991), best known by his pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist known for his stylized highly masculine homoerotic fetish art, and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades, he produced some 3500 illustrations.
1984, English / German
Softcover, 160 pages, 19 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Galerie Wolkfgang Ketterer / Munich
$70.00 - Out of stock
Fantastic and very informative, fully-illustrated auction catalogue from Galerie Wolkfgang Ketterer, 1984, for a major auction of "Italian Design Pieces from the Period 1951-1973". Design editions, one-off prototypes, lamps, furniture by Archizoom, Gae Aulenti, Sergio Asti, Osvaldo Borsani, Giorgio Ceretti, Studio 65, Joe Colombo, Guido Drocco, Piero Gilardi, Paolo Lomazzi, Raymond Hains, Ugo La Pietra, Enzo Mari, Mario Mare, Luigi Massoni, Sergio Mazza, Ettore Sottsass, Franco Mello, Gaetano Pesce, Gio Ponti, Giuseppe Raimondi, G. Reggiani, Rudy Righi, Superstudio, Vinicio Vianello, Marco Zanuso, and many more for Arflex, Gufram, Artemide, Fontana Arte, Artluce, B.B.B., C&B, Flos, Habitat, Galleria Il Sestante, Kartell, Poltronova, Tecno, Totem, and many more. Well-known and long lost, very obscure works in this valuable catalogue, all items photographed (in black and white and colour), with production details and a blurb on each piece in both English and German.
1975, Japanese
Softcover, 200 pages, 24 x 25 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Bijutsu Shuppan Design Center / Japan
$45.00 - Out of stock
1st edition of this Japanese publication on Contemporary Polish Posters, published by the Bijutsu Shuppan Design Center in 1975.
Beginning in the 1950s and through the 1980s, the Polish School of Posters combined the aesthetics of painting with the succinctness and simple metaphor of the poster. It developed characteristics such as painterly gesture, linear quality, and vibrant colours, as well as a sense of individual personality, humour, and fantasy. It was in this way that the Polish poster was able to make the distinction between designer and artist less apparent. Posters of the Polish Poster School significantly influenced the international development of graphic design in poster art. Their major contribution is in their use of the power of suggestion through allusion. Using strong and vivid colours from folk art, they combine printed slogans, often hand-lettered, with popular symbols, to create a concise inventive metaphor. As a hybrid of words and images, these posters created a certain aesthetic tension that projected the art form in this period on European design. In addition to aesthetic aspects, these posters were able to reveal the artist's emotional involvement with the subject. They did not solely exist as an objective presentation, rather they were also the artist's interpretation and commentary on the subject and on society.
To this day, "Plakat Polski" remain as influential as ever on the world of graphic design, typography, illustration and even painting, and are widely collected and exhibited around the world.
Significant artists include Roman Cieślewicz, Wojciech Fangor, Mieczyslaw Gorowski, Tadeusz Jodlowski, Jan Lenica, Jan Mlodozeniec, Józef Mroszczak, Julian Pałka, Franciszek Starowieyski, Waldemar Świerzy, Henryk Tomaszewski, Maciej Urbaniec, Mieczyslaw Wasilewski, Bronisław Zerlek, Maks Bereski-Plakiat.
Illustrated throughout in colour and black and white with a vast array of the finest examples of Polish graphic art.
2017, English
Softcover, 550 pages, 21 × 28 cm
Published by
Novembre / Lausanne
$45.00 - Out of stock
Novembre 11: Isa Genzken, Sanya Kantarovsky, Jessi Reaves, Thomas Hauser, Dan Hoy, Ib Kamara, Robert Kulisek, Corey Olsen, Olympia Scarry, Alexandra Bircken, Ada Sokol, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Danielle van Camp and many more.
Reinforcing Novembre as a collectible object, issue 11 presents outstanding visuals, exclusive poetry, typographic collaborations, and the leading fashion collections.
Under the candid caption “arts and fashion in Switzerland and the world”, Novembre activates intergenerational discussions, producing international content that explores the critical stakes inherent to the Swiss identity: its neutrality notably fortifies its supposed integrity and inviolability, whilst placing the Confederation in an extremely productive and influential position within the arts on a global level.
Through the organic association of fashion, design and art, Novembre highlights the products which proliferate in schools, studios, galleries, showrooms, institutions, trade shows, fairs, hotels and bank lobbies and living rooms – addressing issues of integration, independence, equality, and exchange.
Novembre is currently published and independently by Florence Tétier (Paris), Florian Joye (Lausanne), and Jeanne-Salomé Rochat (Berlin), who united after their graduation from ECAL University of Arts, Switzerland.
1980, English
Softcover, 120 pages, 24 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
St. Martin's Press / New York
$70.00 - Out of stock
Great book from 1980 on the works of SITE, a multidisciplinary architecture and environmental art organization chartered in New York in 1970 for the purpose of exploring new concepts for the urban/suburban visual environmental.
Commonly aligned with radical architecture, anti-architecture or arch-art, SITE have described their philosophical position as "De-Architecture". Pierre Restany presented SITE as "a paradigm of humour & disorder, the perfect antidote against post-modernist, rationalist & structuralist conventions".
Contents include: SITE: Artists of Our Time by Pierre Restany (essay) / The Poetics of the Unfinished by Bruno Zevi (essay) / SITE - Description of the Organization / Notes on the philosophy of SITE / Lists of Buildings and Projects / Exhibitions / Bibliography / Selected Projects / Projects lllustrated / and heavily illustrated profiles (w. photographic documentation and plan drawings) on all of their major projects spanning 1969-1979, including their phenomenal designs for BEST Products.
2017, English
Softcover, 112 pages, 19.5 x 26.5 cm
Published by
La Loge / Brussels
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$22.00 $10.00 - Out of stock
Introduction by Mark Mann
When first introduced, mass-market paperbacks sparked a publishing revolution. Critics despised them as lowbrow diversions, which did not impact their popularity. But the business model barely worked. Prices were so low, the books needed to sell in incredible numbers to make a profit. An industry norm emerged to pump up sales, whereby most of the novels were wrapped with images of women in provocative settings and states of undress. Many readers were duly provoked to purchase, but this recurring allure eventually lost its sway.
Simultaneously, an opposing theme of essentialism was asserting itself in grocery stores. The No Frills brand presented goods in unadorned packaging. It was as if the very intention to sell had been excised from the label’s straightforward design and terse declaration of contents—SALAD DRESSING, FRUIT PRESERVES, LAUNDRY DETERGENT. No Frills stripped the cloying appeal of traditional marketing and replaced it with a candid offering of canned beets and corned beef, pure and plain.
Inspired by this direct approach, Terry Bisson and art director Frank Kozelek developed the No-Frills book series in the early 1980s. Signature Strengths, conceived and edited by Boy Vereecken, reproduces in full the four books published in the series—Western, Mystery, Science Fiction, and Romance—as well as critical evaluations of the fascinating experimental endeavor in genre writing and mass-market publishing.
Copublished with La Loge, Brussels
Design by Boy Vereecken
2003, Japanese / English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket and obi-strip), 80 pages, 19 x 27 cm
Signed, 1st Edition, Out of print title / As New,
Published by
P-Vine Books / Tokyo
$150.00 - In stock -
Very special Aquirax Uno signed copy of this fantastic hardcover collection of his poster work dating 1959-1975.
Aquirax Uno, also known as Akira Uno (born March 13, 1934) is a Japanese graphic artist, illustrator and painter who was very influential in the 1960s and 1970s. His incredibly unique work is characterized by fantastic visuals, capricious and sensuous line flow, flamboyant (and occasionally grotesque) eroticism, and frequent use of collage and bright colours. Uno was prominently involved with the Japanese underground art of the 1960s–1970s, and is particularly notable for his frequent collaborations with Shuji Terayama and his experimental theater Tenjo Sajiki.
Signed "Aquirax" in gold marker across black front endpaper.
First edition, in "as new" perfect condition w. dust jacket and obi-strip.
1969, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 144 pages, 19 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Bijutsu Shuppan-sha / Japan
$70.00 - Out of stock
Volume 1 of the great 1969 hardcover series "Twelve Persons in Graphic Design Today", art directed by Gan Hosoya. Each of these collectable books showcase four Japanese graphic designers (of the total 12 across 3 books) practicing in the 1960s through a large selection of their works beautifully reproduced in full-colour and black and white. Volume 1 showcases Akira Uno, Kazumasa Nagai, Shigeo Fukuda, and Gan Hosoya. Texts in Japanese, but almost entirely a visual document.
First edition in original dust-jacket, protected by plastic wraps.
2017, English
Softcover, 112 pages, 27 x 19.5 cm
Ed. of 500 copies,
Published by
Re:collection / Melbourne
$40.00 $20.00 - In stock -
Paperback Pioneers
Sun Books (1965–81)
Sun Books was an Australian paperback publisher formed in 1965 by Geoffrey Dutton, Brian Stonier and Max Harris. The three men had worked together at Penguin Australia, leaving to establish a platform for local literary talent. Brian Sadgrove, who would become a leading figure in Australian graphic design, was commissioned to create Sun Books’ distinctive identity and many of the publisher’s covers during the 1960s and 1970s. This book includes an introduction by Warren Taylor and essay by Dominic Hofstede, detailing the imprint’s colourful history. Also featured are more than 80 covers designed by Sadgrove and other significant practitioners including Ken Cato, Robert Rosetzky and Guy Mirabella.
Design: Dominic Hofstede
Published in an edition of 500 copies
2014, English
Softcover, 160 pages (colour & bw ill.), 19 x 25 cm
Published by
Occasional Papers / London
$58.00 - Out of stock
David Senior, bibliographer at the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York, selected a wide range of exhibition-related ephemera – invitations, flyers and posters from the 1960s to the present – and presents them here as an historically overlooked but integral aspect of exhibitions. Often the first point of contact between the audience and artist, such items form part of an essential lexicon for graphic designers, curators, art historians and anyone interested in the event-based nature of showing art. Filled with full-colour reproductions of numerous examples from the MoMA collection, the book includes new essays and analysis by Angie Keefer, Clive Phillpot and Will Holder, among others.
2016, English / German
Softcover, 490 pages, 32 x 24 cm
Published by
Chert Galerie / Berlin
Motto / Berlin
$95.00 - Out of stock
This impressive book aims to collect and present a comprehensive overview of the work of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt. It is the result of a long and intense immersion into the archive, and intends to establish the importance of this unique German artist – who did not have much recognition in the past – not only to the present day, but also to the precise political context and time to which she and her work belong.
The book presents her typewritings series, all produced between the early 1970s (some of the earliest works are dated 1972) and 1989. Mail Art was her way to be in contact with the world outside the GDR, otherwise impossible to reach. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Reunification, the artist stopped producing any art: She felt her involvement was no longer “needed”.
At the beginning of 2015 an archive of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt’s work was established, discovering little by little an enormous and fascinating body of work, composed by more classic poetry, simple typewriting texts, visual poetry, concrete poetry, and abstraction.
This handsomely designed, enormous volume perfectly captures this life of work.
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt was born in Wurzen, saxony, in 1932.
In 1950 she moved to Berlin, where she still lives today. In 1954 she met the artist Robert Rehfeldt, who she married a year later. She was employed by the exhibitions department at the Academy of Arts, and spent her spare time making drawings. A few years later she started to develop what would become her typical typewriter graphics, and became an active participant in the international Mail art movement. She stopped making art after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
1997, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 240 pages, 22 x 29 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Rizzoli / New York
$65.00 - Out of stock
Gae Aulenti is one of the world's most prominent architects, and her prodigious output encompasses museum and theater design, industrial and exhibition design, furniture, graphics, urban planning, and architecture. This now out-of-print 1997 heavy monograph illustrates Aulenti's complete oeuvre and includes the world-famous Musée d'Orsay, stage designs for theater and opera, a villa in St. Tropez, exhibition designs for the 2001 Milan Triennale, her beautiful lamp works, furniture, glass vessels, and the remodeling of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, among many other highly visible designs captured through gorgeous photography and Aulenti's own drawings.
2016, English / Korean
Softcover, 224 pages, 15 x 21 cm
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$35.00 - Out of stock
Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Artists' Documents: Art, Typography and Collaboration at MMCA in Seoul (May 26 - August 31, 2016), organized by Roma Publications and mediabus. Besides exhibition views this books contains a complete and richly illustrated Roma Publications backlist from number 1, published in 1998, till this book (Roma 272), published in August 2016. Text in English and Korean, with contributions by Min Choi and LIM Kyung yong. Design: Na Kim and Roger Willems with a cover illustration by Karel Martens.
1984, English
Softcover, 156 pages (260 b/w & 140 colour ill.), 28.0 x 23.0 cm
Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$65.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Andrea Branzi, The Hot House was one of the finest books published to trace the history of Italy's radical design studios from 1960 to the dawn of Memphis. Through academic texts and profuse visual documentation of the work of Alessandro Mendini, Gaetano Pesce, Superstudio, Ettore Sottsass, Natalie Du Pasquier, UFO Group, Enzo Mari, Alchymia, Michele De Lucchi, 9999, Archizoom Associati, Mattheo Thun, Memphis, and many others.
1990, English
Softcover, 90 pages, 23 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Architecture Design and Technology Press / London
$35.00 - Out of stock
In the 1970s, manager Malcolm McLaren asked a young Ben Kelly to refurbish a basement rehearsal room for The Sex Pistols in Denmark Street, London, which McLaren had bought from Badfinger. Ben Kelly went on to become an enormously influential and original, independent designer whose work has included private houses, shops, nightclubs, showrooms and furnishings, established throughout the 1980s and 1990s in London. Among his best-known projects have been the much-imitated Manchester nightclub, the Haçienda, the Smile hairdressing salon in Chelsea, and the colourful entrance to the underground Gymbox in London. All show the obsessive attention to detail characteristic of the Kelly style, and which is also expressed in this book, art directed by Peter Saville, a collaborator on several award-winning graphic projects, including their record sleeve designs for Factory Records, whom Kelly worked for on many projects (the Haçienda of course being one of them).
Kelly uses this book to examine the way design evolves, to record the influences on his work, and to explore the relationship between art and design. Ben Kelly has twice won D&AD awards for graphics, and this book is another outstandingly designed object under the talented Peter Saville. It encapsulates a design practice at an important transitional period in British design, developing through Punk Rock via Post Modernism and into High-Tech, Industrial and beyond.
Catherine McDermott introduces Kelly, and provides a catalogue of his work.
First and only UK edition, published by Architecture, Design and Technology Press in London under their Design File series.