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:
THU—FRI 12—6 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
Theory / Essay
Architecture / Interior
Graphic Design / Typography
Photography
Fashion
Eros
LGBTQ+
Fiction / Poetry
Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction / Horror
Transgressive / Visceral / Abject
Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle
Film / Video
Painting
Sculpture / Installation
Performance / Dance / Theater
Drawing
Sound / Music
Curatorial
Group Shows / Collections
Periodicals
Out-of-print / Rare
Posters / Ephemera / Discs
Signed Books
World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
Australian Photography
Japanese Photography
Conceptual Art
Minimal Art
Dada
'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
Concrete Poetry
Pop Art
Surrealism
Arte Povera
Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
Ceramics / Glass
Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
Anarchism
Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 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. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or 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.
1959, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 215 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Rider / UK
$300.00 - In stock -
Very rare first 1959 hardcover edition, first printing of Eliphas Levi's grimoire masterwork, The Key of the Mysteries, translated from the French, with an introduction and notes by Aleister Crowley, published by Rider, UK.
Eliphas Levi (1810-1875), born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a sage, poet and author of over twenty esoteric books. He began writing at 22 years of age and was imprisoned twice for the critical nature of his work. Eliphas Levi was steeped in the Western occult tradition and a master of the Rosicrucian interpretation of the Qabalah, which forms the basis of magic as practiced in the West today. The "Key of the Mysteries" represents the culmination of Levi's thoughts and is written with subtle and delicate irony. It reveals the mysteries of religion and the secrets of the Qabalah, providing a sketch of the prophetic theology of numbers. The mysteries of nature, such as spiritualism and fluidic phantoms, are explored. Magical mysteries, the Theory of the Will with its 22 axioms are divulged. And finally it offers "the great practical secrets." The true greatness of this work, however, lies in its ability to place occult thought firmly in Western religious traditions. For Levi, the study of the occult was the study of a divine science, the mathematics of God.
Éliphas Lévi Zahed (1810—1875), born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a French esotericist, poet, and writer. Initially pursuing an ecclesiastical career in the Catholic Church, he abandoned the priesthood in his mid-twenties and became a ceremonial magician. At the age of 40, he began professing knowledge of the occult.
Good—Very Good copy in Good seldom preserved dust jacket. DJ has general wear and tear to extremities, chipping. Book G—VG with foxing to end papers/block edges, previous owner's name, light tanning. Preserved in mylar wrap.
1973, English
Softcover, 494 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Melvin Powers / Hollywood
$65.00 - In stock -
Rare 1968 edition of Mouni Sadhu's defining masterpiece on the Tarot, offering the reader an encyclopaedic exploration of the Western esoteric tradition and magical philosophy with the major arcana of the Tarot as a guide, the first major study since the foundational books of Eliphas Levi and Papus. The Philosophical Tarot has always been recognized as a universal key to all wisdom attainable to human beings on this planet, this scholarly work creates a new epoch in traditional occult philosophy. Illustrated throughout.
Very Good copy, light wear/age.
1979, English
Softcover, 294 pages + fold-out, 21.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Richard Roberts / San Anselmo
$500.00 - In stock -
Exceptionally rare, privately published first 1979 edition, first printing of this important study of the tarot. Tarot Revelations is an analysis of the mysterious philosophy in the ancient cards that became modern playing cards. Citing Dante, C.G.Jung, and early Gnostics and alchemists, Campbell and Roberts reveal a path that has spiritual meaning for everyone. Writing in collaboration with Richard Roberts, Joseph Campbell stated, "We have come to revelations of a grandiose poetic vision of Universal Man that has been for centuries the inspiration of saints and sinners, sages and fools, in kaleidoscopic transformations." According to Richard Roberts, "In the 22 cards comprising the Major Arcana, we have a genuine document of the soul's initiation into higher consciousness. As such the Major Arcana may be interpreted as a Western Book of the Dead."
Introduction by Colin Wilson: "For two centuries now, the human spirit has been in revolt against the world of the Gradgrinds, and their obsession with "facts, hard facts." The Romanticism of the 19th century was one long shout of defiance. The Romantics exaggerated the problem out of weakness and a sense of vulnerability. And people like Dick Roberts and Joseph Campbell are restoring it to perspective, and bringing about a reconciliation that is based on insight and strength. If they succeed, the intellectual perspective of the 21st century could be more exciting than anything we can imagine.—Colin Wilson
Campbell (1904-1987) was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who focused primarily on comparative mythology and religion. His concept of monomyth, in which all mythic narratives are variations on the same story, is far-reaching, and George Lucas has noted the influence of Campbell's work on the Star Wars saga. He and tarot scholar Richard Roberts collaborated on this work, praised by Theodore Rozak as "the most serious study of the Tarot I have seen" (front wrapper).
Illustrations throuhgout the text, folding colour plate of the Major Arcana at rear.
Very Good—NF likely unread copy with no spine creasing, light wear to corner extremities, price sticker remnants to lower back cover. Beautifully preserved copy of this very first rare edition. More common, though now also rare, editions were issued in 1982 and 1987 under "Vernal Equinox" imprint.
1995, English
Softcover, 244 pages, 24.5 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
Creation Books / London
$45.00 - Out of stock
HELL ON EARTH!
First 1995 Edition.
From the Roman games to American travelling carnivals, freakshows - human anomalies presented for spectacle - have flourished throughout recorded history. The birth of the movies provided a further outlet for these displays, which in turn led to a peculiar strain of bizarre cinema: Freak Film.
Inside Teradome is a comprehensive, fully illustrated guide to the roots and development of this fascinating, often disturbing cinematic genre.
Including:
A brief history of teratology; freaks in myth and medicine.
The history of freakshows, origins of cinema.
Influence of sideshows on cinema.
Use of human anomalies in cinema.
Freaks and geeks.
Bizarre cinema: mutilation and other fetishes.
Illustrated filmography; index.
From the pioneering illusions of Georges Méliès and the Expressionist distortions of Dr Caligari, the surgical horrors of Mad Love and real-life grotesqueries of Tod Browning's Freaks, to the modern nightmare visions of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eraserhead, and Santa Sangre, Inside Teradome reveals a twisted thread of voyeuristic sickness running not only through cinema, but through the society of which it has always been the most telling barometer.
WARNING: CONTAINS ADULT MATERIAL
Average copy with wear to corners and edges, creasing.
2021, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 112 pages, 22.23 x 14.61 cm
Published by
Hayward Gallery Publishing / London
$48.00 - In stock -
The abiding presence of spiritualism in art, from af Klint to Susan Hiller.
Bringing together more than 30 international artists from the late 19th century to the present day, Not without My Ghosts surveys work inspired by spiritualism and its rich cultural history.
With original essays by art historian Susan L. Aberth and curators Simon Grant and Lars Bang Larsen, this publication explores the anti-authoritarian political agendas of 19th-century spiritualism and the movement’s close association to the history of feminism, as well as its continued influence on contemporary practitioners. Spanning diverse artistic approaches, Not without My Ghosts offers a unique insight into the ties that bind spirit and mediumistic art across the centuries.
Artists: William Blake, Cameron, Ann Churchill, Ithell Colquhoun, Louise Despont, Casimiro Domingo, Madame Fondrillon, Chiara Fumai, Madge Gill, Susan Hiller, Barbara Honywood, Georgiana Houghton, Anna Mary Howitt, Victor Hugo, Augustin Lesage, Pia Lindman, Ann Lislegaard, André Masson, Grace Pailthorpe, František Jaroslav Pecka, Olivia Plender, Sigmar Polke, Lea Porsager, Austin Osman Spare, Yves Tanguy, Suzanne Treister with The Museum of Blackhole Spacetime Collective
2023, English
Softcover, 184 pages, 23.6 x 15.7 cm
Published by
Oxford University Press / New York
$98.00 - In stock -
This work follows the story of an exceptional medium whose performances of possession in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries influenced some of the most renowned scientists and artists of her time. Hélène Smith’s creation of languages, performances of celestial scenes, and paintings of spiritual visions came to embody the extreme possibilities of a new form of subjectivity. Among many other scholars, psychologist Théodore Flournoy, linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, and surrealist artist André Breton spent years interpreting her marvelous experiences in secular terms, highlighting the complex facets of a deeply creative unconscious. In retracing their encounters, this book sheds new light on the role of women in the history of depth psychology, demonstrating that studies of spiritual mediums forged an unconscious different from the now well-known studies of hysterics. In illuminating Smith’s contributions to evolving understandings of the subject during a period understood by many as one of secularization, the book also demonstrates how female embodiment became a crucial locus for the conceptualization of disenchantment in the modern world.
"This book is a rich, sensitive, and thought-provoking work that sheds new light on the role of female mediums and patients in the construction of psychological discourses. As Massicotte points out, Hélène Smith was not only a gifted medium, but also an active and creative contributor to contemporary scientific theories on the unconscious. This is an accurate and engaging account of the story of this extraordinary woman, her influence on scientists and artists, and her indispensable role in the history of psychology."—Júlia Gyimesi, Head of Department, Department of Personality and Clinical Psychology, Pázmány Péter Catholic University
"During her career as a medium in the late nineteenth century, Hélène Smith wrote poems, invented languages, developed herself as all-round artist, and even travelled—in her astral body—to other planets. Now, this example of female creativity, who lived at a time when only men were considered geniuses, is finally getting the spotlight she deserves. Massicotte's thoughtful study of this surrealist role model contributes significantly to the histories of psychoanalysis and of modern occultism. Telling Smith's story, it also sheds light on the gender dynamics at play in the modern discovery of the unconscious and the complexity of authorship both overcome and deepened, paradoxically, by creative women mediums."—Tessel M. Bauduin, author of Surrealism and the Occult: Occultism and Western Esotericism in the Work and Movement of André Breton
"This book will be of importance to anyone interested in the history of psychology and the way psychological theories both reflect and impact the way we view the universe and the creatures in it—especially women."—Allison P. Coudert, Nova Religio
"This agile volume is a nice addition to the ever-growing corpus of research on "Western Esotericism" and its entanglement with modern identity formation."—Davide Marino, Religious Studies Review
1971, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 122 pages
Numbered Ed. of 700,
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Piscean Press / London
$55.00 - Out of stock
Lovely facsimile hardcover edition of Bibliotheca Arcana, published in 1971 in limited (hand-numbered) edition of 700 copies, originally published in 1885 by George Redway, London. This bibliography lists 630 titles, primarily of classic English and French erotica of the 18th and 19th centuries, with brief descriptions and notes, making it an important early resource heavily referenced throughout the history of esoteric antiquarian book-selling.
Very Good copy in Very Good dust jacket. Hand-numbered.
1964 , French
Hardcover, 192 pages, 30.5 x 24.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Pont Royal Del Duca - Laffont
Paris
$100.00 - Out of stock
First 1964 hardcover edition of Histoire de l'insolite (History of the Unusual) by Romi. Preface by Philippe Soupault, artistic design by Pierre Chapelot. An incredible visual survey of the weird and wonderful from the history of occultism to the absurd, the cabinet of curiosities to the voyages of science fiction, demonology to psychosis, the Fin de siècle, Futurists, Surrealists, Dadaists, Pataphysicians, the visionaries, the mediums, the curios, the macabre, the bizarre. Profusely illustrated in mono and duotone with many pasted-in lush colour plates, this is a beautiful visual reference of the fantastic throughout history. Chapters include (translated from French): The Sources of the Unusual - A Legendary Bestiary - Fantastic Voyages - The Design to Surprise - Unusual Enterprises, featuring Alfred Jarry, Giuseppe Arcimbaldo, P.T. Barnum, Edward Lear, Hélène Smith, Raymond Roussel, Alessandro Cagliostro, Stanislao Lepri, Hieronymus Bosch, Ferdinand Cheval, and hundreds of other artists, poets, mystics and unknowns. With a preface by none other than Surrealist founder, Dadaist, writer, poet, novelist, critic, political activist, Philippe Soupault (1897-1990).
Very Good copy, highly recommended.
1999, English
Softcover, 186 pages, 15.5 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cityful Press / Seattle
$200.00 - In stock -
First, only edition of "Think of The Self Speaking : Harry Smith — Selected Interviews", published in 1998 by Cityful Press and long out-of-print. In this incredible collection you will find the flavour and texture of experimental filmmaker, music anthologist, and enigmatic polymath Harry Smith’s conversation, his rambling, obscure, luminous, cantankerous genius. This collection of interviews spans Harry Smith's long and influential life in American arts and letters. They cover a quarter-century, touching on the full range of Smith's activity as a groundbreaking experimental filmmaker, obsessive collector, folk music anthologist, visionary painter, student of Native American lore, anthropologist, cosmographer, alchemist, hermetic scholar, occultist, autodidact, classic American eccentric, and all-around explorer of the possibilities of human consciousness and creativity. Jordan Belson writes, "THINK OF THE SELF SPEAKING is the next best thing to being with Harry himself-perhaps better, certainly safer. The interviews are remarkably similar to his collage films. A brilliant mind unhinged." Includes an introduction by Allen Ginsberg.
Very Good copy with only light shelf wear.
1970, Japanese
Softcover, 300 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tenjō Sajiki / Tokyo
$260.00 - Out of stock
Very rare copy of Angura (Underground Theatre) issue 3, 1970, the "Dramatic Theory Magazine" published in Tokyo by Shūji Terayama's radical avant-garde theatre company Tenjō Sajiki. With gorgeous graphic design and (Aleister Crowley) cover by graphic designer Heikichi Harata, this issue's special feature is ‘Eros and Theater’, edited by Shūji Terayama and Masahiko Akuta with contributions by Terayama, photographer Hajime Sawatari, writer Taruho Inagaki, director Takahiko Iimura, anthropologist Masao Yamaguchi, playwright Yasunari Takahashi, director and cinematographer Sakumi Hagiwara, film director Nobuhiro Kawanaka, playwright Rio Kishida, and many others. A very unique periodical that not only discusses in-depth the works of Angura theatre, but also the international avant-garde, inviting diverse critical perspectives on performance and anti- and living-theatre, sharing ground with Gutai and Fluxus. Illustrated throughout with drawings, diagrams and photographs, mixing themes of pop, protest, surrealism, and eros, plus texts and scripts in Japanese. A rare printed embodiment of Tenjō Sajiki, Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo and the Japanese underground.
Tenjō Sajiki was a Japanese independent theater troupe co-founded by Shūji Terayama, Kujō Kyōko, Yutaka Higashi, Tadanori Yokoo, and Fumiko Takagi. Led by Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Shūji Terayama, the prolific group was active between 1967 and 1983 (until Terayama's death). A major phenomenon on the Japanese Angura ("underground") theater scene, the group has produced a number of stage works marked by experimentalism, folklore influences, social provocation, grotesque eroticism and the flamboyant fantasy characteristic of Terayama's oeuvre. Tenjō Sajiki benefitted greatly from collaborations with a number of prominent artists, including musicians J. A. Seazer and Kan Mikami, and graphic designers Aquirax Uno and Tadanori Yokoo.
Shūji Terayama (1935 — 1983) was a Japanese avant-garde poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. His works range from radio drama, experimental television, underground (Angura) theatre, countercultural essays, to Japanese New Wave and "expanded" cinema. Terayama is considered one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan, with a wide-reaching influence on many artists from the 1970s onward.
2022, English / French
Hardcover (clothbound), 96 pages, 30 x 22 cm
Published by
Timeless Edition / Paris
$95.00 - In stock -
‘In Steel Grey Armour’ consistis of the complete reproduction of an infamous and mysterious collage book created by Genesis P-Orridge in 1979 and entrusted to his friend Yves Adrien,
a regular columnist of French music magazine ‘Rock’n’Folk’. It also explores the friendship between the 2 individuals with reproductions of some letters, photos and other artworks that Gen and Yves used to exchange. The book closes with a few words from the wise collector and current owner of the actual book, recounting his first encounter with the original Genesis collage book thanks to Jacques Noel, warden and smuggler-in-chief at Un Regard Moderne bookshop in Paris.
Artist, performer, musician and writer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson, 1950-2020), leader of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, was a major, pioneering, radical and subversive figure in British industrial and experimental music.
Yves Adrien (born 1951) is a French writer, best known for his articles in Rock & Folk magazine from the early 1970s onwards, for his subsequent theorization of post-punk, and for his first book Novövision.
2022, English
Hardcover (clothbound), 192 pages, 30 x 22 cm
Published by
Timeless Edition / Paris
$95.00 - In stock -
Personal correspondence between Genesis P-Orridge and Jean-Pierre Turmel over a fifteen-year period.
This book pays tribute to one of counter-culture's single most iconic figures of the past fifty odd years, someone who has over the course of he/r career influenced countless fellow artists and theorists. Comprised of an exclusive unpublished interview with the artist conducted by Nicolas Ballet in 2016, theoretical texts on he/r work, and archival documents from the personal collection of Jean-Pierre Turmel.
Comprised theoretical texts on he/r work, and archival documents from the personal collection of Jean-Pierre Turmel. The Last Slogan offers a completely new perspective on the work of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.The book collects multiple letters sent by Genesis to Jean-Pierre Turmel from the mid-1970s till early 1990s. These unique personal archives provide an unequaled insight into Genesis Breyer P-Orridge's life-long journey via a deeply intimate correspondence with a close friend and associate, an intellectual sparring-partner of sorts, in which the artist discusses he/r inner thoughts, strategies, doubts and plans without any of the usual control filters.
Artist, performer, musician and writer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson, 1950-2020), leader of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, was a major, pioneering, radical and subversive figure in British industrial and experimental music.
Jean-Pierre Turmel (born 1947 in Rouen, France) is co-founder of the legendary Sordide Sentimental label, which since 1978 has pioneered industrial, new wave and gothic music, producing Throbbing Gristle, Joy Division, Tuxedomoon, The Durutti Column, Savage Republic, Monte Cazazza, Davie Allan & The Arrows, etc.
Contributions by Genesis P-Orridge, Jean-Pierre Turmel, Nicolas Ballet.
1970, English
Softcover, 312 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rudolph Steiner Press / New York
$65.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1970 softcover edition published by Rudolph Steiner Press, New York.
Introduction by Paul M. Allen.
All the many personalities who have immortalized themselves in alchemical research through the centuries are in- troduced in this very readable, compact presentation for today's interest in this fascinating, age-old quest in the metamorphosis of the human being.
Mr. Waite shows that the real alchemists quest was not the goal of turning base metals into gold, but rather the unfolding of the human being, the releasing and manifest- ing of the higher self. Seen in this light, alchemy is of pro- found interest and vital concern to awakened interests in development of spiritual powers and potentialities. Throughout the book are beautiful, historically significant illustrations.
G—VG copy with some general wear to extremities, tanning.
1975, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tandem / London
$65.00 - In stock -
First 1975 paperback edition.
"This book is unique in the literature of witchcraft. Many volumes record the tortures, confessions and executions of the witch trials; few examine the origin and beliefs of this remarkable subterranean cult which has survived almost unchanged through the centuries.
Michael Harrison, unrivalled in the field of historical detection, gives convincing answers to questions which other writers on witchcraft have persistently dodged—What part did Man's earliest organised religion, the Old Fertility Cult, play in the development of witchcraft? Where did the evil side of the Fertility Cult- Diabolism - evolve, and how and when did it enter Europe?
But the most important revelation in this book is the author's achievement in translating the ancient 'language of the covens', the 'gibberish' of the witch-trial records, the lost language whose identification holds the key to the very Roots of Witchcraft.
"A wide-ranging work which has achieved a remarkable breakthrough".—Yorkshire Evening Press
"...profound chronology of the cult from pre-history, through Druidism, to Salem and the present day".—Evening News
VG copy with light general wear.
1975, English
Softcover, 476 pages, 20 x 11.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Paladin / London
$35.00 - In stock -
First 1975 English softcover edition of Magic, Supernaturalism and Religion, the classic illustrated study by Swiss-American Surrealist painter, engraver, and occultist Kurt Seligmann (1900—1962).
In this fascinating study the late Kurt Seligmann, the surrealist painter, gives a history of magical ideas and manifestations in the Western world to reveal the aesthetic value of magic and its influence on creative imagination. He brings forth a vivid picture of the religio-magical beliefs of ancient, medieval and modern times. He shows the growth and development of the magical world-view in its successive stages, beginning with Mesopotamian and Persian magic, assimilating Hebrew thought, Greek philosophy and Christian theology, through the mystical concept of a unified universe with its manifold correspondences and interrelations, which finds expression in pictorial motifs and symbols, in the magical arts of astrology, divination, physiognomy, chiromancy, fortune cards and other branches of 'occult science'. Along the way he presents some colourful personalities: Nostradamus, Dr Faustus, Pico della Mirandola, Agrippa, Trimethius, Gebelin, Mesmer, Cagliostro, Saint- Germain and others.
VG copy, general light wear.
2005, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 210 pages, 21.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Harvard University Press / Cambridge
$50.00 - In stock -
"Alchemy can't be science—common sense tells us as much. But perhaps common sense is not the best measure of what science is, or was. In this book, Bruce Moran looks past contemporary assumptions and prejudices to determine what alchemists were actually doing in the context of early modern science. Examining the ways alchemy and chemistry were studied and practiced between 1400 and 1700, he shows how these approaches influenced their respective practitioners' ideas about nature and shaped their inquiries into the workings of the natural world. His work sets up a dialogue between what historians have usually presented as separate spheres; here we see how alchemists and early chemists exchanged ideas and methods and in fact shared a territory between their two disciplines.
Distilling Knowledge suggests that scientific revolution may wear a different appearance in different cultural contexts. The metaphor of the Scientific Revolution, Moran argues, can be expanded to make sense of alchemy and other so-called pseudo-sciences—by including a new framework in which "process can count as an object, in which making leads to learning, and in which the messiness of conflict leads to discernment." Seen on its own terms, alchemy can stand within the bounds of demonstrative science.""
"Distilling Knowledge will prove to be the most important and valuable teaching or general-reader text on this subject available. I am often asked by students, colleagues, and interested members of the public to recommend such a 'general reader' text which could introduce them satisfactorily to alchemy and early chemistry. But there is no text that I could possibly recommend - not, that is, until this one. Thanks to Bruce Moran for writing this book and making my life easier."—Lawrence M. Principe, Johns Hopkins University
Bruce T. Moran is Professor of History, University of Nevada at Reno.
Fine copy in Fine dust jacket.
2007, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 350 pages, 23.5 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Science History Publications / USA
$85.00 - In stock -
Rare first edition hardcover copy of Bruce T. Moran's 'Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fires'.
What lots of people called chymia in the early seventeenth century was a subject that the physician, alchemist, and schoolteacher Andreas Libavius believed needed sorting out. He called it "an art without an art." To establish what sort of thing chymia was would require rebuilding its definitions from the theoretical and practical ground up while cutting back the forest of obscure language and private meaning in which it existed.
Libavius took on the job, and in thousands of pages of toughly worded criticism ranging over alchemical, moral, medical, philosophical, and religious topics wielded a polemical blade to huge effect.
Libavius is one of the best remaining examples in the history of early modern chymistry of a figure forced to fit into descriptive historical spaces that were manifestly not his own. Beyond the book for which he is best known, the Alchemia (1597), many others (until now largely unknown and mostly ignored) provide a rich picture of the intellectual and cultural spaces within which he lived, quarrelled, and wrote. In these texts Libavius created moral arguments in defense of his own alchemically based version of chymia, used printed correspondence to collect and define the precise meanings of chemical terms and procedures, attacked and guarded views related to Scripture, clashed with physicians concerning alchemy and the preparation of chemical medicines, denounced the doctrines of Paracelsus, upheld the art of transmutation, and argued for the existence of powerful spirits and occult qualities in nature.
While philosophers must begin to understand the language and manual operations of craftsmen, artisans, Libavius proclaimed, needed to understand the causes and principles of natural philosophy.
When reason and practice combined, artisans and philosophers alike could then share a common physical and intellectual space where both played parts in making useful artefacts. The rational art involved in making things (joining philosophy with artisinal know-how) was, he declared, just as important in the labor of creating chemical compositions as in the work of controlling the health of the body (both personal and civic) and in the day to day exercise of cultivating moral virtue.
Bruce T. Moran is Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Reno where he teaches the history of early science and medicine. He is also the author of Distilling Knowledge: alchemy, chemistry, and the scientific revolution (Cambridge Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Fine copy in Fine dust jacket.
1960, English
Softcover, 568 pages, 20.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
Dover / New York
$40.00 - In stock -
"This new Dover edition, first published in 1960, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the first edition of the work which first appeared in 1924 under the title The Story of Early Chemistry."
"Add the blood of a red-haired man."—Theophilus
"To this crystal add the urine of an ass, and after 40 days you will find emeralds"—Democritus
These are quotes from two of the many alchemists whose writings are included in this book. Alchemy is one of the oldest arts practiced by man, and to uncover its history is to learn of extraordinarily strange beliefs and practices. But alchemy had a definite effect on the advance of thought and theory in true chemistry, and the histories of the two fields are often intermingled. In this volume, Professor Stillman has applied a lifetime of knowledge to the problem of developing these histories authoritatively, fully, and readably.
The author, head of the Chemistry Department at Stanford from 1891 to 1917, constructed his book from original Greek, Latin, German, and French texts-solid, factual material that you would have to go to dozens of different books to find elsewhere. He quotes liberally from the writers of all periods; you read the alchemists' own words about the transmutation of metals, Boyle's "Skeptical Chymist," Newton's ideas about the force of chemical affinity, Lavoisier's last letter before he was guillotined, and many other famous documents. You get concise studies of the lives and works of every leading figure in alchemy and early chemistry (through Lavoisier and the birth of modern chemistry).
The book is written with impeccable scholarship, but it is also an exciting story that will delight and inform both the general reader and the chemist. Combining science, art, and mysticism, it contains some of the greatest achievements of science as well as instances of superstition, credulity, and imagination unique in man's history.
Average—Good copy with discolouration/tanning/marking to covers/spine edges, previous owner's name penned to top of title page, some tape marks and tears patches to covers. Good interior.
2022, English
Softcover, 328 pages, 15.2 x 22.9 cm
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
$40.00 - Out of stock
A privileged look into the life and artistic practice of the experimental filmmaker, music anthologist, and enigmatic polymath Harry Smith.
Best known during his lifetime as an experimental filmmaker and Folkways Records music anthologist, Harry Smith (1923-1991) was a spiritual outsider and one of the most original, influential artists of the mid-century American avant-garde. An avid, inspired collector of old blues and hillbilly recordings during his youth, he became a fan of such bebop jazz as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and began making avant-garde film animations featuring patterns painted directly onto the negatives as visual accompaniments to jazz performances. Smith crossed paths with nearly everyone central to the cultural avant-garde; he lived for art and gnosis with little thought for practical consequences. In 1991, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in New York.
Five years after Smith's death, the poet Paola Igliori began conducting intimate interviews with the filmmakers, musicians, poets, and artists who knew him best. The result, American Magus Harry Smith, offers a privileged look not only into Smith's life and artistic practice, but also into his era and the informal economy of influence that operated during that time. It provides invaluable insight into the mind of one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic polymaths. This expanded edition includes photos of Smith and many other color images.
1980, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 128 pages, 34 x 24.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Open House / London
$500.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this rare and truely wonderful book on the magical Australian artist Vali Myers (1930—2003), published in this hardbound edition in 1980 by Open House, London. Artist, dancer, muse, lover of animals and powerful creatrix, Vali Myers was a unique spirit born out of time. She lived her extraordinary life like a bright flame, cutting her own path and living on her own terms: a tightrope walker – one foot in this world and one in a dream world that we can only glimpse in her profound artwork. This remains the finest volume collecting Vali's drawings and paintings, her life's work. The life of a fearless, wild spirit that is manifested in her artworks, lavishly illustrated here in colour. Foreword by photographer Ed van der Elsken, and Introduction by George A. Plimpton, editor of ‘The Paris Review’.
“Let it all be animal, my life and death, hard and clean like that, anything but human… a lot I care, me with my red heart in the dark earth and my tattooed feet following the animal ways.”—Vali Myers, diary entry, 1963
Premiere danseuse of the Melbourne Modern Ballet at seventeen, Vali left her Australian home for Paris, living on the streets of the Latin Quarter of Saint Germain des Pres on the Left Bank for three years, surviving on bread and milk and carrying a knife for protection. Despite the poverty of city ravaged by war, she never ceased to draw and dance. Vali became notorious in the cafés and nightclubs of the Quarter for her phantom-like face and almost supernatural ability to dance. Photographer Ed van der Elsken made Vali the main subject of a series of photographs documenting bohemian life in postwar Paris published in the book ‘Love on the Left Bank’ in 1956, featuring her artworks. Her work was praised by George Plimpton in his Paris Review. After stints in prison for vagrancy, Vali left Paris and began her ‘walkabout’ of France, Italy, Britain, Brussels and Austria, to return again to Paris with young architect, Rudi Rappold. Vali Myers, the 'Australian queen of bohemia', friend to Jean Cocteau, Tennessee Williams, and Jean Genet, left Paris for the last time in an effort to escape an opium addiction that was slowly killing her. After months of wandering, Vali and Rudi literally stumbled into the wild green valley of ‘Il Porto’ in Positano, Southern Italy. Protected by 1,000-foot cliffs, the almost impenetrable valley opened to the sea and became Vali’s main residence and greatest inspiration. In the early summer of 1971, Italian artist Gianni Menichetti began living with Vali and together they took care of the large animal family that developed in the valley. Ironically, these same animals had filled Vali’s dreams and work for years – the owl, raven, and the fox. Over the years more animals came to the retreat until Vali had built up a menagerie numbering over one hundred. After years of battling with local police and government bureaucracy, Vali finally obtained permission to turn the valley into a wildlife sanctuary under the protection of the World Wildlife Fund and dedicated all of her money, time and energy into it’s preservation. During the ‘60s, after years of hibernation from the outside world, the legend of Vali and her artwork began to seep into the consciousness of the new psychedelic generation, praised by Andy Warhol, Ernst Fuchs, and Salvador Dali, inspiration to Patti Smith, Deborah Harry, Mick Jagger, Mary Ellen Clark, and Marianne Faithful. She began exhibiting her artworks and dividing her time between the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, a 14th-century cottage at Il Porto, near Positano, a residence in Paris and her adopted home in Melbourne. Later, after she began having seizures, she returned to Melbourne in 1993, and opened a studio in the Nicholas Building; only returning to Positano occasionally. She passed away in 2003.
Very Good copy in Good dust jacket preserved under mylar wrap. DJ has one repaired tear with general light wear and tear to extremities, light tanning.
2024, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 20.5 x 13.5 cm
Published by
Wakefield Press / Cambridge
$34.00 - In stock -
With the 2018 publication of Letters, Dreams, and Other Writings, Wakefield Press introduced the writings of Surrealist painter Remedios Varo into English for the first time. These texts, never published during her lifetime, presented something of a missing chapter, and offered the same qualities to be found in her visual work: an engagement with mysticism and magic, a breakdown of the border between the everyday and the marvelous, a love of mischief, and an ongoing meditation on the need for (and the trauma of) escape in all its forms.
This new, expanded volume brings together the painter’s collected writings, an unpublished interview, letters to friends and acquaintances (as well as to people unknown), dream accounts, notes for unrealized projects, a project for a theater piece, whimsical recipes for controlled dreaming, and exercises in Surrealist automatic writing, as well as prose-poem commentaries on her paintings. It also includes her longest manuscript, the pseudoscientific On Homo rodans: an absurdist study of the wheeled predecessor to Homo sapiens (the skeleton of which Varo had built out of chicken bones). Written by the invented anthropologist Hälikcio von Fuhrängschmidt, the essay utilizes eccentric Latin and a tongue-in-cheek pompous discourse to explain the origins of the first umbrella and in what ways Myths are merely corrupted Myrtles.
Also included are newly discovered writings, among them three short stories, never before published in any language.
Edited and translated by Margaret Carson
Remedios Varo (1908–1963) was a Spanish-born painter who entered the Surrealist circle in Paris before the German occupation forced her into exile to Mexico at the end of 1941, where she would stay until the end of her life. Her dream-infused allegorical works combine the elements of classical training, alchemical mysticism, and fairy-tale science.
1986—1994, English
Softcover (12 issues), approx 50-80 pages ea., 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
International Synergy Institute / Los Angeles
$600.00 - In stock -
"A thrice yearly exploration of ambiguous borders and dynamic (intellectual/artistic) frontiers."
Exceptionally rare lot of 12 issues (1986—1994) of the trail-blazing subscription-only one-of-a-kind journal published by the International Synergy Institute, a intermedia think-tank active in Hollywood between 1986—1987. IS was founded by American actress and philanthropist Andra Akers (Charlie's Angels, Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard...), edited by experimental composer, researcher and Harry Partch Ensemble member David Dunn, with a cast of incredible contributors spanning these issues that includes media theorist Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema...), Australian composer, poet and performer Chris Mann, American ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, American artist Bill Viola, American landscape architect Bonnie Sherk, parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, mathematician Ralph Abrahams, composer Kenneth Gaburo, Australian experimental composer Warren Burt, early media artist visionaries Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (Mobile Image, the Electronic Café...), Science Fiction theorist, philosopher and writer for Marvel comics Allyn B. Brodsky, American composer and writer Elaine Barkin, visionary Czech author Lukáš Tomin, aeronautical engineer and astronaut Russell Schweickart, mathematician and polymath Tim Poston, climate crisis artists Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, American composer John Bischoff, cultural historian William Irwin Thompson, ecological philosopher and author Boleslaw Rok, essayist and activist Tomaž Mastnak, Chilean biologist and philosopher Francisco Varela, artist Michael Kalil, systems theorist Will McWhinney, percussionist and composer Stuart Saunders Smith, mathematician Gottfried Mayer-Kress, alternative broadcaster Jay Levin, British-American futurist Hazel Henderson, actress Debra Clinger (The Love Boat, The Krofft Supershow, Midnight Madness, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour...), musician Mark Trayle, artist Sheila Pinkel, VFX pioneer Mimi Gramatky (LOST, Miami Vice, Star Trek, Tron, Damnation Alley...), sonic healer Jill Purce, robot dance choreographer Margo K. Apostolos, American psychedelic artist Alex Grey, social critic and historian Morris Berman, futurist Riane Eisler, poet James Bertolino, British zoologist, anthropologist and author John Heathorn Huxley, multi-media artist Todd Siler, American philosopher of science Ervin László, Budapest dissident magazine Magyar Narancs, and more.
Issues present: #0, #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14 (12 issues total, not all pictured)
"INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY consists of a global network of vanguard artists, scientists, and meta-physicians who are united by a deep sense of commitment to crossing the boundaries of their individual disciplines. Integral to this awareness is a reconciliation between advanced technological resources and a sense of the planet's sanctity. INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY is dedicated to the premise that such an understanding can form the basis of a creative matrix for responsible action in the information age."
"At this hinge of history, it seems appropriate that we should publish a journal where the passion of the individual scientist/artist can meet in sovereign association with global concerns — spinning the wheel of knowledge so that each of us can create our own theoretical magic." [...] "I am deeply moved by the creative commonwealth in this community, filled with explorers of topology, morphology, chaos dynamics, cognition, mind video, the revisioning of nature and art, telecommunications, sonics, cybernetics, cultural history, fractal politics, and what it now means to be deeply human. The provocative interaction of these ideas cannot help but to create a new and uniquely meaningful story. Come with us."—Andra Akers
Most Good—Very Good, with a couple of issues Average (mostly due to cover rubbing or creasing), all with light wear/age.
1986, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 24 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
International Synergy Institute / Los Angeles
$150.00 - Out of stock
"A thrice yearly exploration of ambiguous borders and dynamic (intellectual/artistic) frontiers."
Exceptionally rare, inaugural issue #0 of the trail-blazing subscription-only journal published by the International Synergy Institute, a intermedia think-tank active in Hollywood between 1986—1987. IS was founded by American actress and philanthropist Andra Akers (Charlie's Angels, Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard...), edited by experimental composer, researcher and Harry Partch Ensemble member David Dunn, with a cast of contributors for this first issue including media theorist Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema...), parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, VFX pioneer Mimi Gramatky (LOST, Miami Vice, Star Trek, Tron, Damnation Alley...), mathematician Ralph Abrahams, composer Kenneth Gaburo, and poet Chris Mann, and more.
"INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY consists of a global network of vanguard artists, scientists, and meta-physicians who are united by a deep sense of commitment to crossing the boundaries of their individual disciplines. Integral to this awareness is a reconciliation between advanced technological resources and a sense of the planet's sanctity. INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY is dedicated to the premise that such an understanding can form the basis of a creative matrix for responsible action in the information age."
"At this hinge of history, it seems appropriate that we should publish a journal where the passion of the individual scientist/artist can meet in sovereign association with global concerns — spinning the wheel of knowledge so that each of us can create our own theoretical magic." [...] "I am deeply moved by the creative commonwealth in this community, filled with explorers of topology, morphology, chaos dynamics, cognition, mind video, the revisioning of nature and art, telecommunications, sonics, cybernetics, cultural history, fractal politics, and what it now means to be deeply human. The provocative interaction of these ideas cannot help but to create a new and uniquely meaningful story. Come with us."—Andra Akers
Very Good copy, light wear/age.
1986, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 52 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
International Synergy Institute / Los Angeles
$150.00 - In stock -
"A thrice yearly exploration of ambiguous borders and dynamic (intellectual/artistic) frontiers."
Exceptionally rare, issue #1 (after the inaugural #0) of the trail-blazing subscription-only journal published by the International Synergy Institute, a intermedia think-tank active in Hollywood between 1986—1987. IS was founded by American actress and philanthropist Andra Akers (Charlie's Angels, Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard...), edited by experimental composer, researcher and Harry Partch Ensemble member David Dunn, with a cast of contributors for this issue including early media artist visionaries Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (Mobile Image, the Electronic Café...), media theorist Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema...), Science Fiction theorist, philosopher and writer for Marvel comics Allyn B. Brodsky, aeronautical engineer and astronaut Russell Schweickart, cultural historian William Irwin Thompson, systems theorist Will McWhinney, actress Debra Clinger (The Love Boat, The Krofft Supershow, Midnight Madness, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour...), VFX pioneer Mimi Gramatky (LOST, Miami Vice, Star Trek, Tron, Damnation Alley...), and more.
"INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY consists of a global network of vanguard artists, scientists, and meta-physicians who are united by a deep sense of commitment to crossing the boundaries of their individual disciplines. Integral to this awareness is a reconciliation between advanced technological resources and a sense of the planet's sanctity. INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY is dedicated to the premise that such an understanding can form the basis of a creative matrix for responsible action in the information age."
"At this hinge of history, it seems appropriate that we should publish a journal where the passion of the individual scientist/artist can meet in sovereign association with global concerns — spinning the wheel of knowledge so that each of us can create our own theoretical magic." [...] "I am deeply moved by the creative commonwealth in this community, filled with explorers of topology, morphology, chaos dynamics, cognition, mind video, the revisioning of nature and art, telecommunications, sonics, cybernetics, cultural history, fractal politics, and what it now means to be deeply human. The provocative interaction of these ideas cannot help but to create a new and uniquely meaningful story. Come with us."—Andra Akers
Very Good copy, light wear/age.