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
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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.
2013, English / Portugese
Softcover, 224 pages, 23 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite / Berlin
$150.00 - In stock -
The first in-depth survey of Brazilian designer, poet, musician, artist and author, Rogério Duarte's practice, and the first time that a selection of his poems and texts have been translated into English. Now long out-of-print and collectible resource.
Arguably, Rogério Duarte (* 1939, Ubaíra) is “the genius behind the geniuses” (Narlan Mattos) of Brazil's 1960–70s counter-cultural and avant-garde efforts. Thus, it comes as no surprise that key figures in the fields of design, music, art, and cinema, such as Glauber Rocha, Hélio Oiticica, Gilberto Gil, and Caetano Veloso, have provided the posterity with a vast catalogue of testimonies that leave no doubt as to the crucial role that Rogério played in the emergence of what is known today as the Tropicália movement, or Tropicalism. Yet, despite the growing interest that the Brazilian counter-culture of that time encountered on the international stage during the past two decades, Rogério's work has remained almost unknown to a broader public.
Marginália 1 was developed by the designer Manuel Raeder and the artist Mariana Castillo Deball over a period of four years and published by BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE. Profusely illustrated in colour and b/w with texts by Rogério Duarte, Narlan Matos Teixeira, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Mariana Castillo Deball, Manuel Raeder. Published in both English and Portuguese.
As New copy, still sealed.
1990, English
Softcover, 362 pages, 21.6 x 24 cm
Reprint,
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$45.00 - In stock -
"Apocalypse Culture is compulsory reading for all those concerned with the crisis of our times. An extraordinary collection unlike anything I have ever encountered. These are the terminal documents of the twentieth century."—J.G. Ballard
Two thousand years have passed since the death of Christ and the world is going mad. Nihilist prophets, born-again pornographers, transcendental schizophrenics and just plain folks are united in their belief in an imminent global catastrophe. What are the forces lurking behind this mass delirium?
APOCALYPSE CULTURE is a startling, absorbing and exhaustive tour through the nether regions of today’s psychotic brainscape.
First published in 1987, APOCALYPSE CULTURE immediately touched a nerve. Alternately excoriated and lauded as “epochal”, “the most important book of the decade,” APOCALYPSE CULTURE had begun to articulate what many inwardly sensed — the-fear inspired irrationalism and faith, the clash of irreconcilable forces, and the ever-looming specter of fin de race. In its present incarnation for Feral House, APOCALYPSE CULTURE has significantly increased in size, taking on new perspectives on our current crisis, with pertinent revisions of many articles from the original edition.—burb from this expanded and revised 1990 edition.
As New.
1972 / 1977, English
Softcover, 166 pages, 20 x 13 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
British Broadcasting Corp. / London
$18.00 - In stock -
'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.'
'But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.'
John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: 'This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.' By now he has.
John Peter Berger (1926 – 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. He is well known for his novels and stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism. His first novel, A Painter of Our Time, was published in 1958, and since then his books have included Ways of Seeing, the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours, and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently and moved to a small village in the French Alps. He died in 2017.
'Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of professional art critics ... he is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation'—Peter Fuller, Arts Review
'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time'—Observer
Good copy of 1972 ed, presumably 1977 print. Previous woner name penned to title page.
2014, Japanese
Hardcase folio (w. pockets, 2 leporello booklets), unpaginated, 32 x 19.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Amana / Japan
$130.00 - In stock -
This beautiful limited edition Balthus photobook was produced in Japan, containing a carefully selected collection photographs from approximately 2000 Polaroid photographs discovered after the death of the last master of the 20th century, Balthus (1908-2001). The elegant hardcase bookbinding, housing two folding screen-like Orihons (Japanese-accordian style book) enveloped in rich textile hues, is like a dedication to Balthus, who loved Japanese culture. The title "room 17" comes from the name of the room in the Swiss mansion Grand Chalet, where Balthus worked and photographed a young female model for eight years in study for his much loved paintings. A lovely selection of these photographic studies are collected in this touching tribute, alongside text by Nicola Page. Translation to Japanese by Tadashi Miyagi, book design by Daishiro Mori.
Very Good copy.
1989, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and original plastic wrap), 80 pages, 22.8 x 16.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Gakutokan / Japan
$90.00 - Out of stock
First edition of The World of Pierre Molinier, published in 1989 in Japan. An exquisite book of Molinier's fetishistic gender-bending paintings, photomontages, and drawings, fittingly wrapped in "stocking" dust jacket, with texts by André Breton, translated from French to Japanese by Kosaku Ikuta, imagery from "Molinier" (1966) film by Raymond Borde, beautifully designed and printed in Japan where Molinier's artworks had a particular resonance.
Pierre Molinier (1900—1976) was a French painter, photographer and a forerunner of gender performance art and Body Art (Art corporel). Molinier spent much of his artistic life working in isolation in Bordeaux, exiled from local and national art scenes. Born in Agen, nothing had predestined Molinier to a life as an artist. Self-taught, from a working-class background, he followed in his father’s footsteps and started out as a house painter. He got married and had two children. Tired of his infidelities and provocative behaviour, his wife left their marital home an in 1950 and Molinier begun photographing himself seriously, staging his own death and erecting a fake gravestone proudly declaring himself ‘a man without morals’. He was thrown out of the Bordeaux Salon des Indépendants as early as 1951 amidst controversy over his orgiastic painting of the same year, Le Grand Combat. Stirring up an obsessive correspondence with the anarchic poet-founder of Surrealism, André Breton, Molinier was soon integrated into the Surrealist group with a solo exhibition at Breton’s Paris gallery in 1956. Molinier’s anti-moral project appealed to the group’s interest in repressed desires, fetishism, and the transgression of bourgeois morals. In 1959, he exhibited at the Exposition International du Surrealism in Paris. From the mid-1960s Molinier chronicled the exploration of his subconscious transsexual desires in "Cent Photographies Erotiques": graphically detailed images of pain and pleasure. Cut-up, reassembled, and manipulated, Molinier painstakingly created elaborate and sensual photomontages in which he assumed the roles of dominatrix and succuba previously taken by the women of his paintings. Either alone with doll-like mannequins or with female models such as German sadomasochist Hanel Koeck, Molinier, who considered himself fundamentally androgynous, appears as a transvestite, employing his body and that of his acquaintances to create visions of hybrid identity, where stockinged multi-limbed, multi-sexed beings imitate pagan figures, Hindu gods, and Masonic symbols, in a rejection of a Christian tradition which he argued, had repressed androgyny. Designed to shock, Molinier’s artwork represented a very intimate disclosure about his own sexual ambiguity, inviting the viewer to bring to the images his or her own response of excitement or disgust. The degree of his artistic perversity and blasphemous tendencies was deemed too much for the French cultural elite, and the man Breton dubbed the “magician of erotic art” was shunned from the art world. Molinier did not participate in the 1965 International Surrealist Exhibition. For the last 11 years of his life Molinier played out his own most profound moments in the 'theatre' of his Bordeaux 'boudoir – atelier'. He committed suicide in 1976, shooting himself with a pistol, something he had foreshadowed in his artwork, time and again. Essentially a leg fetishist, but also considering himself as a shaman, facetious and provocative, anti-bourgeois and anti-religious, Molinier enjoyed transgressing gender identification : his outstanding photographs greatly influenced the European and North American Body Art in the 1970s and continue to fascinate artists today.
Very Good copy in original plastic jacket.
1969, French
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 92 pages, 20 x 19 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jean-Jacques Pauvert / Paris
$70.00 - In stock -
Excellent copy of the first monograph ever published on the work of Pierre Molinier, published by the great Jean-Jacques Pauvert in Paris, 1969. The only book published on his work while Molinier was alive. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and b/w with Molinier's fetishistic gender-bending paintings, photomontages, drawings, and much more. Features texts by Andre Breton and Emmanuelle Arsan, also bibliography and biography. Texts in French.
Pierre Molinier (1900—1976) was a French painter, photographer and a forerunner of gender performance art and Body Art (Art corporel). Molinier spent much of his artistic life working in isolation in Bordeaux, exiled from local and national art scenes. Born in Agen, nothing had predestined Molinier to a life as an artist. Self-taught, from a working-class background, he followed in his father’s footsteps and started out as a house painter. He got married and had two children. Tired of his infidelities and provocative behaviour, his wife left their marital home an in 1950 and Molinier begun photographing himself seriously, staging his own death and erecting a fake gravestone proudly declaring himself ‘a man without morals’. He was thrown out of the Bordeaux Salon des Indépendants as early as 1951 amidst controversy over his orgiastic painting of the same year, Le Grand Combat. Stirring up an obsessive correspondence with the anarchic poet-founder of Surrealism, André Breton, Molinier was soon integrated into the Surrealist group with a solo exhibition at Breton’s Paris gallery in 1956. Molinier’s anti-moral project appealed to the group’s interest in repressed desires, fetishism, and the transgression of bourgeois morals. In 1959, he exhibited at the Exposition International du Surrealism in Paris. From the mid-1960s Molinier chronicled the exploration of his subconscious transsexual desires in "Cent Photographies Erotiques": graphically detailed images of pain and pleasure. Cut-up, reassembled, and manipulated, Molinier painstakingly created elaborate and sensual photomontages in which he assumed the roles of dominatrix and succuba previously taken by the women of his paintings. Either alone with doll-like mannequins or with female models such as German sadomasochist Hanel Koeck, Molinier, who considered himself fundamentally androgynous, appears as a transvestite, employing his body and that of his acquaintances to create visions of hybrid identity, where stockinged multi-limbed, multi-sexed beings imitate pagan figures, Hindu gods, and Masonic symbols, in a rejection of a Christian tradition which he argued, had repressed androgyny. Designed to shock, Molinier’s artwork represented a very intimate disclosure about his own sexual ambiguity, inviting the viewer to bring to the images his or her own response of excitement or disgust. The degree of his artistic perversity and blasphemous tendencies was deemed too much for the French cultural elite, and the man Breton dubbed the “magician of erotic art” was shunned from the art world. Molinier did not participate in the 1965 International Surrealist Exhibition. For the last 11 years of his life Molinier played out his own most profound moments in the 'theatre' of his Bordeaux 'boudoir – atelier'. He committed suicide in 1976, shooting himself with a pistol, something he had foreshadowed in his artwork, time and again. Essentially a leg fetishist, but also considering himself as a shaman, facetious and provocative, anti-bourgeois and anti-religious, Molinier enjoyed transgressing gender identification : his outstanding photographs greatly influenced the European and North American Body Art in the 1970s and continue to fascinate artists today.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket, preserved under mylar wrap.
1984, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 32 pages, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Herald Ace Company / Tokyo
$35.00 - In stock -
Rare 1984 Japanese film programme published to celebrate the release of Another Country (1984), the classic British romantic historical drama film directed by Marek Kanievska, and written by Julian Mitchell, adapted from his 1981 stage play of the same name. The film, starring Rupert Everett as Guy Bennett, with Colin Firth making his feature film debut, had an enormous impact in Japan. Loosely inspired by the life of British spy and double agent Guy Burgess, the narrative follows Bennett, a student at an elite English public school in the 1930s, as he confronts the rigid expectations of the institution while grappling with his homosexuality and growing attraction to Marxist ideology.
Heavily illustrated throughout in colour and b/w with film stills, this film book features original text contributions from artist Kuniyoshi Kaneko about male romance; artist, writer, and translator Kyoko Michishita about male beauty; and many more contributions from essayist Yasuo Kurata, actor Jun Maki, Nagasawa Setsu, Kagami Mizuho Ozawa, Terumi Takano... on homo-eroticism, men's clothing, the history of Traditional Britain represented in film, plus cast and production information, etc.
Very Good copy with some light age/foxing to cover boards.
1979, Japanese
Softcover, 240 pages, 25.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fool's Mate / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
Rare "Special Stock" compendium book by the world's finest "Euro Rock Magazine", Fool's Mate, from Japan. In the 1970's—1980's, Fool's Mate (named after the 1971 Peter Hammill LP), edited by Masashi Kitamura with regular contributions by Masami Akita (Merzbow) and many other heads, was a vital conduit between emerging and metamorphosing avant-garde music cultures in Europe (Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Free Music, Electronic, Cosmic, Psychedelic Folk, Avant Pop, Rock in Opposition, Post Punk, Industrial, etc.) and Japan. No doubt responsible for the resonance of experimental contemporary music there during that period through to today, each issue of Fool's Mate during these early years was packed cover-to-cover with exclusive interviews with the artists, rare photographs and graphics, thematic genre/artist/label/artistic movement features, in-depth profiles/discographies/family-trees, catalogues, lyrics, letters, collage art, record, book, and live reviews, columns and an endless stream of concert and import/record store/label/venue/cafe adverts, all presented in a perfectly obsessive fanzine aesthetic manner, cut 'n' pasted across many paper stocks. The Americas and other realms, including new directions in Japanese alternative music, are all covered alongside their European counterparts, with many issues exploring key artistic and theoretical influences, such as Symbolism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Eros, Futurism, etc.
This special three issue collection combines Vol. 4 "Fantasy" + Vol. 6 "Eros" + Vol. 7 "Avant-Garde". Says it all really. Incredible in-depth, encyclopaedic features on Derek Bailey (full biography and discograohy), British avant-garde/free music/jazz/avant-rock/R.I.O./Canterbury (Bailey, Henry Cow, Daevid Allen/Gong, Lol Coxhill, Soft Machine, Company, Slapp Happy, Keith Tippett, National Health, Evan Parker, Art Bears, King Crimson, Hatfield and The North, Kew Rhone, National Health, Robert Wyatt, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Incus Records, Ogun Records, etc.), R.I.O. expanded (Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, ZNR, The Residents, Albert Marcoeur, Stormy Six, Etron Fou Leloublan, Samla Mammas Manna, etc.), plus features and articles on Robert Fripp, Atoll, Annette Peacock, Italian Prog, Gloria Mundi, Peter Hammill, Ashra, Brian Eno, Tony Banks, Van Der Graaf, Genesis, Vangelis, Peter Gabriel, New Spanish Rock, and much more. Highly recommended to any fan of such things.
Very Good copy.
1988, Japanese
Softcover, 88 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
NEWSWAVE / Tokyo
$40.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of NEWSWAVE, a great post-punk/avant-rock/synth-pop fanzine from Tokyo in the 1980s, very seldom seen. This issue, volume 16 from 1988, includes a huge cover story on Patti Smith, A.R. Kane, Coil, Felt, Les Nouvelles Propagandes (French industrial/ambient label), Test Dept., Crime & The City Solution, The Pogues, David Bowie, the ZTT label (Paul Morley's label with Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair — home of Art of Noise, Grace Jones...), plus abundant illustrated reviews and ads, all features packed with chronology and discography information, release artwork, graphics and photographs.
Very Good copy, very light wear.
1961, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 90 pages, 28 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bodley Head / London
$300.00 - In stock -
Rare first hardcover 1961 edition of this very important book of nude photography by British photographer Bill Brandt, published by Bodley Head, London, with a preface by Lawrence Durrell and an introduction by Chapman Mortimer. Fascinating Braque, Picasso, Dubuffet, Henry Moore, Edward Steichen, Eikoh Hosoe, Kishin Shinoyama, to name but a few, and having a profound influence on nude photography hence-forth, Brandt's nudes are as powerful and beautiful now as they were fifty years ago.
"These startling images rewrote the language of nude photography ... Brandt's approach was primarily formal, but his own sensibilities, combined with photography's tendency to overwhelm form's purity with life's impurities, ensured that his nudes are as interesting for their psychological undertones as for the wealth of unexpected forms he conjured. He did so with a camera that was devoid of a practicable viewing mechanism [a shutterless old Kodak he found in a secondhand shop] and thus reduced him, in effect, to working by blind instinct. ... At close range, his ancient camera yields a Venusian giantism, where sometimes sharply defined, sometimes blurred mountains of flesh loom over the artist/observer." (The Photobook A History Volume I, Parr & Badger)
Bill Brandt, best known for his photographs of London, his landscapes and portraits of celebrities, publishes here, for the first time, a selection of nudes, a subject which has obsessed him since 1945. Brandt used an old wooden camera with a wide angle lens for most of the pictures. Instead of making the camera register what he saw, he let himself be guided by the lens and made use of its acute distortion and unrealistically steep perspective. Thus the camera produced new anatomical images and shapes which his eyes had never observed. The lens helped him 'to get rid of the accepted image and to view his subjects without the cellophane-wrapping of conventional sight'. Chronologically arranged, the photographs record the transition from an early romantic style to more radical themes, ending with the pure form of extreme close-ups, taken on the beaches of East Sussex, Normandy and the Mediterranean. The pictures have fascinated Braque, Picasso, Dubuffet, Henry Moore and Edward Steichen, and had a profound influence on nude photography hence-forth.
Good—Very Good ex-libris copy w. associated markings not affecting content pages. Good dust jacket with light wear and repaired tear, preserved under mylar.
1989, French
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 168 pages, 26 x 29.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Adam Biro / Paris
$180.00 - In stock -
First 1989 edition of Jacques Henric's monographic volume on the great Pierre Klossowski. One of the most comprehensive books ever published on the artist, with beautiful large reproductions of artworks in colour and b/w heavily featured throughout, alongside Henric's text (in original French) with a full catalogue of works and bibliography. First hardcover printing in original dust jacket.
Jacques Henric (b. 1938) is a French literary critic, essayist and novelist.
Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) was a significant and influential philosopher, writer, translator and artist who befriended Georges Bataille and formulated an original stance on many theological issues, as well as the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade. His first novel, Roberte, ce soir, appeared in 1954 as a limited edition containing six of his own erotic illustrations, after he rejected drawings by his younger brother, the painter Balthus. Following the encouragement of Robert Lebel, Andre Masson and Alberto Giacometti, Klossowski held his first exhibition in Paris in 1956, and subsequently produced numerous life-size drawings of erotic scenes imbued with mythological, allegorical and philosophical connotations. By the 1970s, he had won the acclaim of such eminent thinkers as Maurice Blanchot, Michel Butor, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Felix Guattari. Of Klossowski, Gilles Deleuze once said, "That bodies speak has been known for a long time."
Near Fine copy of book and dj, preserved in archival mylar wrap.
1974, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket),180 pages, 21 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Nippon Camera / Tokyo
$110.00 - Out of stock
First, only 1974 edition of this early photo book masterpiece by Japanese photographer Shoji Otake (1920—2015), entirely devoted to his muse, the young actress Janet Hatta. Beautiful saturated colour photography and deep b/w photogravure presenting Janet in many scenarios out in the wild west, from city to desert, and many amazing studio shoots. Lots of nudes and lots of experimentation in the manner of early 1970's books by Shinoyama, Sawatari, Tatsuki, etc. A fantastic collection.
Good copy with wear/tannign to edges of dust jacket and pages.
1985, Japanese
Hardcover slipcase w. 130 page hardcover book + folder of 8 photographic prints, 37 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Nippon Geijutsu Shuppan (NGS) / Japan
$160.00 - Out of stock
Lavish 1985 boxed edition by Japanese photographer Shoji Otake (1920—2015). Black cloth slipcase housing black cloth hardcover volume of Otake's erotic photography of female nudes spanning his career, plus an additional black cloth folder housing 8 photographic colour prints (34 x 25.5 cm) by Otake, perfectly reserved and protected by Japanese tissue paper, plus publisher's mail-order catalogue inserted. A most complete and deluxe edition issued to private members by Japanese erotic photography specialist publishers NGS (Nihon Geijutsu Shuppansha). Otake is also well-known for his book collections Janet (1974), Family Nude (1977), and many others.
Near Fine copy all round very well preserved.
198?, Japanese
Box with folio containing 12 photo-litho prints + introduction, 38 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Artman Club / Tokyo
Nippon Geijutsu Shuppan (NGS) / Japan
$160.00 - In stock -
Exceptionally rare private-issue subscription-only deluxe boxset of erotic prints issued by the Japanese publisher Artman Club / Geijutsu Shuppan (NGS), undated but presumably late 1980s. Silver gilded black cloth hard case containing folio of 12 female nude photo-litho prints (36.5 x 26 cm) + introductory plate. Features the black and white work of Timar Peter (Hungary), Rimantas Dichavicius (USSR), Janusz Sobolewski (Poland), Gero Zsolt (Hungary), Tasnadi Laszlo (Hungary), Zsolt Barta (Hungary), Vitolis Vilpisauskas (Ussr), Rostislav Kostal (Czechoslovakia). Some photographers with multiple prints.
“The so-called "Eastern European countries" have long been cultivating their own unique cultures in the genres of painting and music, and in the world of photography they have also formed a unique trend, with works ranging from acoustic to avant-garde pieces.
This time, we have received valuable works by photographers from Eastern Europe (the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary).
Without compromising the original image, we will be introducing this portfolio of 12 pieces to Artman Club members as soon as possible.”—Artman Club Editorial Office
Very Good—Near Fine box with light wear; Very Good prints, some foxing to the first, very light foxing after, otherwise in clean, crisp condition as if stored since publication.
1982, Japanese
Hardcover (clothbound in dust jacket in heavy slipcase), 200 pages, 31 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Nippon Geijutsu Shuppan (NGS) / Japan
$400.00 - In stock -
Rare first edition, first printing of Eikoh Hosoe's classic photo book “Human Body”, published by Nippon Geijutsu Shuppansha, Tokyo in 1982. A stunning collection duotone photogravures, “Human Body” is a gorgeously designed retrospective of Hosoe's inimitable nudes and includes work from his critically acclaimed "Man & Woman", "Embrace", "Killed by Roses", as well as many previously unpublished images including many shot in Yosemite and Arizona. Beautiful black cloth bound, de-bossed covers with dust-jacket housed in the original heavy publisher's printed slipcase. An absolute classic, and wonderful copy of one of Hosoe's scarcer books.
Eikoh Hosoe (Hosoe Eikō, born 18 March 1933 in Yonezawa, Yamagata) is a Japanese photographer and filmmaker who emerged in the experimental arts movement of post-World War II Japan. He is known for his psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession, and irrationality. Through his friendships and artistic collaborations he is linked with the writer Yukio Mishima and 1960s avant-garde artists such as the Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata.
Very Good-Fine copy. Tiny few marks on book-block side-edge of coffee? Otherwise a perfect, preserved copy in original dust-jacket and slipcase with light shelf-wear.
1994, English
Softcover, 84 pages, 20.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Earthdance / Melbourne
$25.00 - In stock -
Scarce 1994 anthology of of poetry by Rex Buckingham (1951-1993). Poems selected & edited by Cornelis Vleeskens, published by Earthdance, Melbourne
"From the time of his involvement in the first pub-poetry venue in the mid-eighties at the old RJ Hawke Hotel on Sydney Road, Brunswick, Rex dedicated his life to Melbourne's performance poetry circuit. When the Hawke shut its doors early in 1986, the poetry shifted to Fitzroy where the readings he organised grew into a nationally renowned phenomenon and from where, together with other regulars, he edited Poems from the Provincial Hotel 1987. Publication of this anthology, which saw many names appear in print for the first time, co-incided with renovations at the Proy and a move down Johnston Street to the Rochester. Poems from the Rochester Castle 1989 was the result of two more years of gathering poems from the many people who read and featured there at Rex's invitation. Rex also organised readings at the Albion Inn, the Rainbow, the Rose and finally at the Clifton Hill Hotel. In early 1990, he co-ordinated the Melbourne end of the MAD (Melbourne - Adelaide - Darwin) Poets Tour which saw poets from those three cities perform and hold work-shops in Melbourne, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin. Right up to his death in May 1993, he continued to inspire, encourage and collect work by his fellow poets at these venues for a third anthology which awaits publication. Many of the readings were taped, and a selection of these recordings is held in the State Library of Victoria."
Good copy. Rubbing/wear to cover boards, internally VG throughout. Tight copy.
1988, English
Softcover, 108 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Australian Feminist Studies Publications / Adelaide
$35.00 - In stock -
Published in 1988 by the Research Centre for Women's Studies at the University of Adelaide, Telling Ways, edited by Anna Couani and Sneja Gunew, and with cover artwork ("Literature Militant Investigation") by Greek-Australian visual poet thalia (t h a l i a), and featuring the experimental writing of women from around Australia, including Inez Baranay, Ania Walwicz, Pamela Brown, thalia, Antonia Bruns, Joanne Burns, Marion Campbell, Mary Fallon, Sylvana Gardner, Anna Gibbs, Jo Jarrah, Beate Josephi, Helen Kundicevic, Beth Spencer, Finola Moorhead, Virginia O'Carrick, Rosa Safransky, Jane Skelton, Amanda Stewart, Sneja Gunew, Anna Couani, Sarah St. Vincent Welch...
Anne Couani publishes Sea Cruise Books and is a member of No Regrets and Irrepressible Press; her own books include Italy, The Train, Were All Women Sex Mad? and The Harbour Breathes.
Sneja Gunew teaches and writes feminist cultural criticism and theory; she has edited two anthologies of non-Anglo/ Celtic writing, Displacements II and Beyond the Echo.
Very Good copy with a gift dedicated to first blank page. Light wear, light foxing to block edge.
1986, English
Softcover, 80 pages, 20.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Wav Publications / South Australia
$35.00 - In stock -
First print of Jenny Boult's sixth book, and her first book of prose fiction. It follows her play 'Can't Help Dreaming' which was performed by the All Out Ensemble in Adelaide, and four books of poetry, including The Hotel Anonymous, which won the 1981 Anne Elder Award. Jenny Boult was born in England in 1951, and has lived in Australia since her teens. Since moving to Adelaide from Perth in 1976 she has established herself as a poet and playwright of some standing. This, her first book of fiction stories,
ranges from realist to fantastic, forming a collection that is a unique and idiosyncratic manifesto for controlled observation. Stylistically it hovers between prose and poetry, which in itself reflects her economy of expression, directness of statement, and wry wit. The work offers an optimistic alternative: the versatility of the professional individual as reaffirmation that the aware human is superior to the forces a arrayed against it.
Good copy with cover rubbing and spine discolouration, otherwise a tightly bound copy, clean throughout.
1993, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 194 pages,14 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fusosha / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
Scarce, first edition of this wonderful 1992 Araki photo album. "For this photographic record, Araki uses the art name Shakyojin (or photo-maniac) in imitation of Gakyojin (obsessive, or maniac, artist), used by the ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai."- Kotaro Iizawa. From cover to cover this book is entirely comprised of Araki's photographs taken in the year 1992, presented chronologically and in rich colour. It begins and ends with portraits of Araki's beloved cat Chiro, and filled with an abundance of Araki's favourite subjects - women, nudes, flowers, still-lifes, Japanese city details and more Chiro. Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch even makes an appearance. A lovely collection.
Very Good copy in Good dust jacket. Few fox spots to blank end papers.
1986, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 144 pages, 22.9 x 25.1 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Aperture / New York
$550.00 - In stock -
First 1986 hardcover edition of Nan Goldin’s classic photo book, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, published by Aperture, New York. A landmark work in the field of raw sociological reportage, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a visual diary chronicling the struggles for intimacy and understanding among the friends and lovers whom Goldin describes as her “tribe.” These photographs described a lifestyle that was visceral, charged and seething with a raw appetite for living, and the book soon became the swan song for an era that reached its peak in the early 1980s. Through an accurate and detailed record of Goldin’s life, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency records a personal odyssey as well as a more universal understanding of the different languages men and women speak. All these years later, Goldin’s lush color photography and candid style still demand that the viewer encounter their profound intensity head-on. The book’s influence on photography and other aesthetic realms continues to grow, making it a classic of contemporary photography.
From Goldin's introduction: "I sometimes don't know how I feel about someone until I take his or her picture. I want the people in my pictures to stare back. I want to show exactly what my world looks like, without glamorization, without glorification."
"Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a beggar’s opera of recent times. Here were real thieves and unexpected heroes, and a sense that some things in life might still be worth a brawl."—Artforum
Nan Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., in 1953, and grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. Her first solo show was held in Boston in 1973. She moved to New York in 1979, where she began documenting the city’s gay and transvestite scenes and developed the informal snapshot aesthetic for which she is celebrated today. Goldin was the 2007 recipient of the Hasselblad Award.
Very Good—Near Fine copy with VG dust jacket. Definite 1986 first edition in the original unclipped ($39.95) dust jacket, designed by Keith Davis.
1997, English / Japanese
Hardcover, 100 pages, 21.5 x 30.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rockin' On / Tokyo
Hysteric Glamour / Tokyo
$380.00 - In stock -
First, only edition of Hélène, the hardcover photobook/catalogue published on the occasion of an exhibition curated by Purple magazine co-founder Elein Fleiss at Tokyo gallery THE Deep in 1997. Named after actress and nineties icon Hélène Fillières, this book is the most perfect published time-capsule of what was 90s anti-fashion Paris, and probably the most brilliant fashion photobook of the decade. Published in Japan by Hysteric Glamour and Rockin' On, Hélène is cover-to-cover full-bleed gloss pages of photography by Mark Borthwick, Anette Aurell, Camille Vivier, Christophe Brunnquell, Laetitia Benat, Ronald Stoops, and Anders Edstrom, among others. Only available in Japan when published, and now very rare and sought after. This copy complete with bound-in Hysteric Glamour sticker!
Though she began her career as a curator of art exhibitions, Elein Fleiss founded the seminal Purple Magazine with Olivier Zahm at the age of 24. Purple and Fleiss' other editing/curatorial activities were the primary vehicles for the aesthetics of what became referred to as 1990's anti-fashion. Purple – in its various incantations, Purple Prose, Purple Fashion, Purple Sexe, Purple Journal, etc. – has gone down in publishing history and changed the relationship between art, literature, architecture and fashion, resisting the obvious and the commercial.
Very Good copy.
1991, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 210 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tsukasa Shobo / Tokyo
$55.00 - In stock -
July 1991 issue of Bizarre Magazine, Japan's first glossy magazine devoted fully to all things "bizarre culture" and the new fetish subculture that exploded in the 1990's, published by manga (and SM Fan) publisher Tsukasa Shobo from 1990—2000s. "Fetish, bondage, psycho eros, and body arts". Profusely illustrated throughout with glossy colour and b/w photoshoots styled with fetish fashion materials and costume — models and Japanese AV/pink film idols in rubber, pvc, leather, boots, high heels, corsets, etc. covering all manner of fetishes and cos-themes from cyberpunk to medical, body art, cross-dressing, lesbianism, fem-dom, scene reports from around the world, dominatrix profiles and interviews, lots of manga, articles, stories, advice columns, DIY tutorials, and packed with wild ads for sex clubs, dungeons, bars, bookstores, video catalogues, toys, fashions, reviews of cult books and film, european imports, classifieds, all heavy with illustrations and hundreds, if not thousands of photographs. Each issue was overseen by a rotating group of editors, this issue including material by Kinichi Tanaka, Kaoru Hanano, Ryoko Narumi, Koji Yokoyama, Hitomi Nishina, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Domu Kitahara, Kazuya Ota, Erina, Jiro Ishikawa, Nao Saejima, and many more... Much like SM Sniper, Bizarre Magazine favoured the exploration of new innovations of fetish and underground sex culture, emphasising the work of the models, stylists, make-up artists, and fashion designers, as much as the writers or photographers, encompassing the entire "new wave" of SM counterculture embedded in underground music, film, fashion and visual art at the dawn of the 90's.
Cover statement: "BIZARRE is not S&M. For the above reason, we produced this magazine. This magazine is the first magazine of BIZARRE in Japan. BIZARRE is based on FETISHISM. Bondage, too, is a kind of fetishism in the field of BIZARRE. Costume and material are the most important. For instance, they are leather, rubber, P.V.C. and satin corset, high heels, boots and so on."
Very Good copy.
1993, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket and obi), 82 pages, 24.6 cm x 30.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Seibundo-Shinkosha / Tokyo
$220.00 - In stock -
Japanese photographer Akira Ishigaki's award-winning photo book “Strange Fruit”, first issued in a very limited run in 1982 to only modest success and now considered an absolute masterpiece of SM / kinbaku art photography with this 1993 re-edition in collector's hardcover (long out-of-print and rare).
Ishigaki was still in his 20's when his publishers commissioned his second photo book and asked him to include some images of Kinbaku carefully executed by the then little-known bakushi Kaoru Roppongi, apprentice of Kitan Club contributor and Sun & Moon founder, rope master Keiichi Seda. Roppongi published work with SM Select, Sun & Moon and SM Fan, and in 1979 famously collaborated with Dan Oniroku and Naomi Tani.
Shot quickly in 1982 at various locations outside of Tokyo (beaches, woods, an old inn), Strange Fruit is a remarkable and very original piece of work. Haunting, evocative, colourful and beautifully lit, its images take Kinbaku photography, up until then almost exclusively the province of SM and "adult" magazines, to a different level of artistry, one that would pave the way for other large format bondage art books that would appear in the 1990's. As visually accomplished as the finest works of Dan Oniroku, Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki or Kishin Shinoyama. A masterpiece of the genre.
Very Good copy of collectible hardcover 1993 edition in VG dust jacket with red original Obi-strip (not pictured). Some foxing to endpapers.
1969, English
Softcover, unpaginated, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Melbourne University Union Council / Carlton
$120.00 - Out of stock
"Most of the photographs were printed on Agfa Brovira paper and taken on Tri X developed in Chicken Soup."
Rare volume of Australian photography published in 1969 by the Melbourne University Union Council, edited by John Julian and Ben Lewin, photography by Lachlan Arnott, John Julian, Ben Lewin, Brian Stevenson, words by Margaret Harrison, Ben Lewin, Diana Nash, design by Suzanne Davies and Stan Nikolic. Very 1969. Collections of grainy, high contrast, experimental photography from Oz. Lots of nudes, a healthy dose of hedonism and playful countercultural spirit within the Australian urban and natural landscape, acknowledging the influence of Sam Haskins.
Good—Very Good copy with general light dustiness, rubbing, age, wear to extremities, but a lovely copy.