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:
OPEN 12—5 THU—FRI
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
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
2014, English
Hardcover (clothbound w. dust jacket), 272 pages, 25.5 x 17.3 cm
Published by
D.A.P. / New York
MoMA / New York
$60.00 - In stock -
Introduction by Ann Temkin. Essay by Hilton Als. Chronology by Claudia Carson, Paulina Pabocha with Robert Gober. Afterword by Christian Scheidemann.
"Untitled" (1991) with "Forest" (1991) in background are reproduced from "Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor".Robert Gober rose to prominence in the mid-1980s and was quickly acknowledged as one of the most significant artists of his generation. Early in his career, he made deceptively simple sculptures of everyday objects--beginning with sinks and moving on to domestic furniture such as playpens, beds and doors. In the 1990s, his practice evolved from single works to theatrical room-sized environments. In all of his work, Gober's formal intelligence is never separate from a penetrating reading of the socio-political context of his time. His objects and installations are among the most psychologically charged artworks of the late twentieth century, reflecting the artist's sustained concerns with issues of social justice, freedom and tolerance. Published in conjunction with the first large-scale survey of the artist's career to take place in the United States, this publication presents his works in all media, including individual sculptures and immersive sculptural environments, as well as a distinctive selection of drawings, prints and photographs. Prepared in close collaboration with the artist, it traces the development of a remarkable body of work, highlighting themes and motifs that emerged in the early 1980s and continue to inform Gober's work today. An essay by Hilton Als is complemented by an in-depth chronology featuring a rich selection of images from the artist's archives, including never-before-published photographs of works in progress.
Robert Gober was born in 1954 in Wallingford, Connecticut. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions, most notably at the Dia Center for the Arts, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Schaulager, Basel. In 2001, he represented the United States at the 49th Venice Biennale. Gober's curatorial projects have been shown at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Menil Collection, Houston; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in New York.
Ann Temkin is an American art curator, and currently the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Hilton Als is an American writer and theater critic who writes for The New Yorker.
Claudia Carson is archivist and registrar to Robert Gober.
Paulina Pabocha is Assistant Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art.
Christian Scheidemann is the Senior Conservator and President of Contemporary Conservation Ltd.
2022, English
Softcover, 456 pages, 16.8 x 23.1 cm
Published by
Karma / New York
$52.00 - Out of stock
Conversations with leading women artists, composers and writers from Judy Chicago, Anohni and Lynne Tillman to Ellie Ga, Tauba Auerbach and Renee Green.
This massive volume comprises over 80 interviews published across a 13-year span of Lauren O’Neill-Butler’s career as a writer, educator, editor and cofounder of November magazine. The majority of the interviews first appeared on Artforum.com’s interviews column, which O’Neill-Butler edited for 11 years. The book is divided into two sections, “Q&A” and “As Told To”—the first comprising interviews in a traditional format and the second recast by O’Neill-Butler in the interviewee’s voice.
Interviewees include: Judy Chicago, Shannon Ebner, Carolee Schneemann, Lucy R. Lippard, Joan Semmel, Liz Deschenes, Eleanor Antin, Andrea Fraser, Anohni, Claudia Rankine, Lorrie Moore, Adrian Piper, fierce pussy, Nan Goldin, Nell Painter, Frances Stark, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Alex Bag, Agnès Varda, Lisi Raskin, Mary Mattingly, Carol Bove, Jennifer West, Aki Sasamoto, Mary Ellen Carroll, Rebecca Solnit, Rita McBride and Kim Schoenstadt, Karla Black, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Lynda Benglis, Sturtevant, Rachel Foullon, Ellie Ga, Lisa Tan, Mira Schor, Jo Baer, Ruby Sky Stiler, Suzanne Lacy, Rebecca Warren, Katy Siegel, Marlene McCarty, Rachel Mason, Mary Kelly, Dianna Molzan, Lynne Tillman, Polly Apfelbaum, Jesse Jones, Dorothea Rockburne, Sarah Crowner, Lucy Skaer, Sophie Calle, Mary Beth Edelson, W.A.G.E., Mary Heilmann, Pauline Oliveros, Kathryn Andrews, Jessamyn Fiore, Aura Rosenberg, Lucy McKenzie, Rhonda Lieberman, Lucy Dodd, Hong-Kai Wang, Sakiko Sugawa, Beverly Semmes, Virginia Dwan, Jeanine Oleson, Tauba Auerbach, Renee Green, Iman Issa, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Joan Jonas, Yoko Ono, Donna J. Haraway and more.
2018, English
Softcover, 150 pages, 23 x 31 cm
Published by
University of Pennsylvania ICA / Philadelphia
$55.00 - Out of stock
Text by Charlotte Ickes, Julia Bryan-Wilson.
This volume features new and recent works by New York-based artists Ginny Casey (born 1981) and Jessi Reaves (born 1986) exploring the relationship between painting and sculpture, domestic objects and decorative surfaces, by reimagining the form and function of objects encountered in daily life.
2021, English
Softcover (foiled print), 104 pages, 28 x 24.5 cm
Published by
Dancing Foxes Press / Brooklyn
Contemporary Arts Museum / Houston
$55.00 - Out of stock
Colorful explosions of “bad objects”: the eccentric constructions of two American artists generations apart. This volume brings together the paintings and drawings of Elizabeth Murray (1940–2007) and the work of New York–based sculptor Jessi Reaves (born 1986). Despite the generations that separate Murray and Reaves, this publication highlights each artist’s lyrical, playful and rigorous engagements with the decorative, domestic and bodily.
Published to accompany an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Wild Life explores Murray and Reaves’ often ambiguous conceptions of the body and the home, wherein both body and home are continuously coming together and falling apart.
This book features a newly commissioned conversation between Reaves and Johanna Fateman as well as a reprint of a historical interview between Murray and Kate Horsfield, which together chart the two artists’ irreverent plays with color and form, high and low cultural references, and notions of masculinity and femininity.
Edited by Karen Kelly, Rebecca Matalon, Barbara Schroeder. Text by Rebecca Matalon. Conversation by Kate Horsfield & Elizabeth Murray, Johanna Fateman & Jessi Reaves.
2012, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 260 pages, 29 x 30 cm
Published by
Five Continents Editions / Milan
$130.00 - In stock -
The major monograph on Cuban artist Agustin Fernandez.
'As a painter I use a realist technique, but the emblems I invent are not real. They are purely imaginative... Painting is a thing of the mind. My realism is not nature, or landscape, or still life, but the psychological world.' — Agustin Fernandez
At the time of his death in 2006, Agustin Fernandez (b. 1928) ranked among Cuba's most outstanding artists. Defying simple categorisation, today his work is most recognisable for its ambiguous and precariously balanced forms, erotic overtones, surreal juxtapositions, and metallic palette. This superbly illustrated book is the first comprehensive study of Fernandez's work, and includes contributions by renowned critic Donald Kuspit and a team of experts. Fernandez's work has been exhibited throughout Europe and North and South America, and is represented in major museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His work found a wider audience when one of his larger paintings was featured in the 1980 Brian de Palma film, Dressed to Kill.
Introduction by Donald Kuspit. Texts by Susan Aberth, Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, Abby McEwen.
1977 / 1984, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 88 pages, 29 x 21 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Bracken Books / London
$45.00 - Out of stock
Hardcover edition of Fantastic Painters by Simon Watney, first published in 1977, this 1984 edition published by Bracken Books, London. Includes the work of Hieronymus Bosch, Max Ernst, Lyonel Feininger, Luigi Russolo, Paul Delvaux, Arnold Böcklin, Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Caspar David Friedrich, Henri Rousseau, Paul Klee, Georde Frederic Watts, Giovanni Segantini, Edward Burne-Jones, John Anster Fitzgerald, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Richard Dadd, Francisco de Goya, Henry Fuseli, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Hubert Robert, William Blake, François de Nomé (Monsù Desiderio), Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Jacopo Pontormo, Matthias Grünewald, Luca Signorelli, David Hockney, and more.
Very Good in VG dust jacket.
2019, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 336 pages, 25 x 29 cm
Published by
Ludion / Brussels
$100.00 - Out of stock
The first English edition of the ultimate monograph on painter Léon Spilliaert.
Leon Spilliaert (1881-1946) was one of the most important Flemish Symbolist painters. Although he was embedded in the Symbolist tradition, he was also drawn to the avant-garde. He was, in fact, an einzelganger, or loner, balancing on the fault line between two centuries, a transitional figure between Symbolism and Surrealism.
Spilliaert, like James Ensor, was born and raised in Ostend. And like Ensor, he was also driven by ridicule and irony, non-conformism and the urge to look at the world from a different perspective. He created his own spiritual imagery, experimented with pastel and gouache, and played with purified areas of colour and graceful lines. The sea under a cool moon, lonely figures with a vacant gaze, desolate beaches, empty rooms and stylised silhouettes in backlight: Spilliaert was always able to evoke an atmosphere of mystery, magic and alienation in abstract lines and colour.
Anne Adriaens-Pannier, former curator at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, has been working on the catalog raisonné of his oeuvre since 1995 at the Spilliaert family's request. She pays tribute to the artist with this beautifully illustrated book, in which she describes his drawings and paintings, as well as referring to his book illustrations and lithographs. The author presents Spilliaert as a link between the major art movements in the fascinating era in which he lived and worked. A unique book about an exceptional artist.
2018, English / French / Dutch
Hardcover, 192 pages, 24.5 x 29.7 cm
Published by
Pandora / Brussels
$130.00 - In stock -
For a long time, the graphic oeuvre of Leon Spilliaert (1881-1946) was, if not neglected, then at least
discussed little or summarily. It was only in 1982 that the first exhibition fully devoted to his prints was held. The prints of Spilliaert are perhaps less known than his original works on paper but they are equally mysterious, attractive and varied on topic: portraits, figures, land- and cityscapes, forests and parks...
Together with fellow citizen of Ostend James Ensor, Leon Spilliaert is considered one of the pioneers of Belgian modern art.
Over 35 years on from that first exhibition, this new and updated edition of the catalogue raisonne of the prints of Leon Spilliaert by Xavier Tricot showcases the visionary work of this Belgian artist.
Text in English, French, and Dutch.
2022, English
Softcover, 320 pages, 23 x 15.2 cm
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$49.00 - In stock -
This pioneering book stands as the most comprehensive treatment of the lives, ideas and art works of the remarkable group of women who were an essential part of the Surrealist movement. Leonora Carrington, Léonor Fini, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Dora Maar, and Dorothea Tanning, among many others, became an embodiment of their age as they struggled towards artistic maturity and their own 'liberation of the spirit' in the context of the Surrealist revolution. Their stories and their achievements are presented here against the background of the turbulent decades of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, and the war that forced Surrealism into exile in New York and Mexico.
Foreword by Dawn Ades.
2015, English
Softcover (french-folds), 608 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Published by
Ridinghouse / London
$65.00 - In stock -
Art historian and curator Dawn Ades is a leading voice on Dada, Surrealism, abstraction and art from Latin America. Ades addresses themes fundamental to the history of modern art and the avant-garde, across time periods and art movements, from Europe to the Americas. She offers alternative readings and investigates the particular dynamics that affect the ways images and objects are produced, presented and received.
With topics ranging from close-up photography to the female subject in Mexico, and from automatism to photomontage, as well as monographic essays on artists such as Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp and Hannah Hoch, this collection explores major figures of the twentieth century as well as art beyond the canon. The selected writings are divided into sections that correspond to the overarching concerns of gender, identity, the impact of new mediums and the enduring significance of the materials of art.
2011, English
Softcover, 72 pages, 14.7 x 22.4 cm
Published by
Graywolf Press / Washington
$39.00 - Out of stock
Still later, when I was more in touch with
the world, they told me, "You have a future."
I thought that over. Even if I believed them,
what did my little future, whatever that was,
have to do with the real thing, whatever that is?
—from "Waiting"
In this second daring collection, Coming to That, the centenarian painter and poet Dorothea Tanning illuminates our understanding of creativity, the impulse to make, and the longevity of art. Her unique wit and candor radiate through every poem, every line, and her inquisitive mind is everywhere alive and restless. As she writes in one poem, "If Art would only talk it would, at last, reveal / itself for what it is, what we all burn to know."
"[Coming to That] is playful and unrestrained, each poem containing a spontaneous logic of its own. . . . Tanning's poems take the reader on unexpected journeys that stray far from their beginnings, moving with the momentum of sheer joy and restless artistic energy. Pulsing underneath are larger questions, sometimes almost bittersweet, sometimes daunting." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Tanning's poems are beautifully created, filled with rich rhythms and imagery. . . . Often ironic and often filled with wisdom and humor, a Tanning poem asks readers to believe in her artistic vision. These are poems of beginnings and choices, of marriage and aging, and of creation--poems still filled with wondering." —Library Journal
"Dorothea Tanning, who has had a long and marvelous life as a visual artist, is our most surprising new poet." —Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post Book World
"Dorothea Tanning's verbal wizardry is a constant surprise, an abiding delight." —J. D. McClatchy
2022, English
Hardcover, 260 pages, 17.8 x 25.4 cm
Published by
David Zwirner Books / New York
$120.00 - Out of stock
A sweeping selection of Donald Judd’s iconic and ambitious works alongside a diverse collection of newly commissioned writings.
One of the most significant American artists of the postwar period, Judd rigorously experimented with color, form, material, and space. The works in this catalogue range from the artist’s expansive installations to self-contained single units, yielding valuable new insights into his process and approach. The survey includes one of his largest and most intricate installations of wall-mounted plywood boxes, conceived in 1986. Other works include variations on some of Judd’s most recognizable forms, executed in materials such as Corten steel, plexiglass, copper, plywood, brushed aluminum, and painted aluminum. Brilliant and exacting reproductions capture these works in vivid detail. Following the major Judd retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2020, this book serves as a companion volume.
With contributions from a wide range of voices—art historians, critics, writers, and performers— this publication includes rich new writings on Judd’s oeuvre, art criticism, and enduring influence. Artworks 1970–1994 is published on the occasion of the eponymous 2020 exhibition at David Zwirner New York.
Foreword by Flavin Judd. Texts by Johanna Fateman, Lucy Ives, Branden W. Joseph, Marta Kuzma, Thessaly La Force, Anna Lovatt, Lauren Oyler, Wendy Perron, Michael Stone-Richards, and Mimi Thompson.
2020, English
Hardcover, 224 pages, 27 x 22.8 cm
Published by
Lund Humphries / London
$120.00 - Out of stock
The definitive study of the work and life of artist, writer and poet Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012), positioning her as one of the most fascinating and significant creative forces to emerge during the 20th century. It provides a framework within which to consider the range and depth of Tanning's work, well beyond the better-known early Surrealist works of the 1940s, and makes connections between her life experiences and thematic preoccupations. Extensively illustrated and featuring unpublished material from interviews which the author Victoria Carruthers conducted with the artist between 2000 and 2009.
Victoria Carruthers is Senior Lecturer in modern and contemporary art history and theory at the Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia. Her research explores the intersections between art, literature, and music across visual cultures in the twentieth century. Victoria completed her doctoral thesis on the work of Dorothea Tanning and has published several articles on her practice. She was fortunate enough to visit the artist on a number of occasions and enjoy many lengthy conversations on her life and work.
2022, English
Hardcover, 268 pages, 19.8 x 25.4 cm
Published by
Siglio Press / Los Angeles
$80.00 - In stock -
A biography by Nicole Rudick told in Saint Phalle's own words, assembled from rare and unseen materials.
Known best for her exuberant, often large-scale sculptural works that celebrate the abundance and complexity of female desire, imagination and creativity, Niki de Saint Phalle viewed making art as a ritual, a performance--a process connecting life to art. This unconventional, illuminated biography, told in the first person in Saint Phalle's voice and her own hand, dilates large and small moments in Saint Phalle's life which she sometimes reveals with great candor, at other times carefully unwinding her secrets. Nicole Rudick, in a kind of collaboration with the artist, has assembled a gorgeous and detailed mosaic of Saint Phalle's visual and textual works from a trove of paintings, drawings, sketches and writings, many previously unpublished or long unavailable, that trace her mistakes and successes, her passions and her radical sense of joy. Saint Phalle's invocation--her bringing to life--writes Rudick, is an apt summation of the overlap of Saint Phalle's life and art: both a bringing into existence and a bringing to bear. These are visions from the frontiers of consciousness.
Born in France, Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) was raised in New York and began making art at age 23, pursuing a revelatory vision informed both by the monumental works of Antonin Gaudí and the Facteur Cheval, and by aspects of her own life. In addition to her Tirs ("shooting paintings") and Nanas and her celebrated large-scale projects--including the Stravinsky Fountain at the Centre Pompidou, Golem in Jerusalem and the Tarot Garden in Tuscany--Saint Phalle produced writing and works on paper that delve into her own biography: childhood and her break with her family, marriage to Harry Mathews, motherhood, a long collaborative relationship with Jean Tinguely, numerous health crises and her late, productive years in Southern California. Saint Phalle has most recently been the subject of retrospectives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, in 2015, and at MoMA P.S.1, in 2021.
Nicole Rudick is a critic and an editor. Her writing on art, literature and comics has been published in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Artforum and elsewhere. She was managing editor of the Paris Review for nearly a decade. She is the editor, most recently, of a new edition of Gary Panter's legendary comic Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise (New York Review Comics, 2021).
2014, English
French fold covers, spiral bound, 112 pages, 17.8 × 23 cm
Published by
Rainoff / Sydney / New York
$35.00 $5.00 - In stock -
Following on from their award-winning inaugural collaboration A Bell is a Cup, Sydney and NYC-based imprint Rainoff's second book with Matt Connors, Machines, continues the celebrated US painter's loose and shape-shifting traversals of the histories and aesthetic implications of abstraction. This stunning publication has been produced with four different colours for both the front and back covers. This allows each cover to be interchanged to create a new colour combination. Sixteen different colour combinations can be created in total.
2021, English
Hardcover, 128 pages, 29 x 33 cm
Published by
Borgerhoff & Lamberigts / Belgium
$135.00 - In stock -
Discover Richard Tuttle as story teller and writer: first publication of 44 short stories by the artist paired with 22 sculptural works from the "Stories" Series.
In his new body of work Stories, I–XX Richard Tuttle elaborates on the displacement of painting into other realms to engage us in a rhythmical and phenomenological reflection on color. Using various aspects of painting in a freehanded way his work exceeds rational determinations and occupies a liminal space in-between mediums. As we move from one Story to the next, the idiosyncratic nature of these cutout plywood pieces comes to confront their seriality—form and logic sporadically emerge and disappear.
In this volume each work is paired with 2 short stories from his writings during the Covid confinement, in the spirit of the Decamerone, that inspired the titling of his new body of art works. The book ends with color images of Tuttle's solo exhibition Stories I-XX at Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels.
Born 1941 in Rahway, New Jersey, Richard Dean Tuttle lives and works in New Mexico and New York. His work spans a range of media, from sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking and artist's books to installation and furniture. During the 1980s, Richard Tuttle began experimenting with materials and framing devices to probe art's relationship to scale, form and systems of display. Diverting from the cold precision of Minimalist his approach to art making embraces a playful and handmade quality that promotes the idea that things are always "just beginning". Often made out of humble materials such as plywood, cardboard, Styrofoam and paper, his work pushes the viewer to find forms of appreciation that aren't related to craftsmanship. In his own words, Tuttle proclaims that he loves materials, and at the same time is not really interested in them. The subtlety of this paradigm exemplifies his attitude towards art as a tool for life and an activity of sublimation engrossed in language and story telling.
Text by Richard Tuttle.
1987, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 40 pages, 21 x 15 cm
Ed. of 250 copies,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
$40.00 - Out of stock
Scarce 1987 booklet edited by Australian artist Peter Cripps and published in an edition of only 250 copies by the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, where Cripps was director at the time. Handsomely designed by Cripps and typeset by Ian Hodgkiss, this fantastic publication was published in dedication to artist Robert MacPherson, as sales from his survey catalogue had helped to fund its publication. Comprising entirely of nine short interviews by Peter Cripps with eight artists (Robert MacPherson, Peter Tyndall, Vivienne Shark LeWitt, Tim Johnson, Geoff Lowe, Bronwyn Clark-Coolee, Scott Redford, Mark Webb) who had all exhibited at the IMA, and one with curator Robyn McKenzie, whose exhibition "The Gothic: Perversity and Its Pleasure" was held at the institute in 1986. Includes source references.
Very Good copy, only light cover wear.
1989, English
Softcover (bi-fold single sheet, double-sided), 63 x 29.7 (unfolded)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
IMA / Brisbane
$55.00 - In stock -
Rare catalogue/bulletin from the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, to accompany the solo exhibition "20 Frog Poems: Distant Thunder (A Memorial) For D.M." 1987-1989, by Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson, curated by Sue Cramer. This bi-fold-out single sheet catalogue includes b/w illustrations of Robert's work with extensive essay by Ingrid Periz, followed by artist biography.
Over the course of his 40 plus-year career, Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson (1937–2021) explored the philosophical propositions of what constitutes a work of art. He often incorporated familiar imagery, everyday materials and visual elements from daily life, honouring the beauty of the mundane. MacPherson’s fascination with systems of objects and language is manifested through broad fields of knowledge, including art history and social history, biology and mythology.
Good copy with mail-out fold through middle and light Australia Post register stamp on front face.
1976, English
Printed postcard, 15.7 x 12.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ray Hughes Gallery / Sydney
$65.00 - Out of stock
Rare "Four Works" exhibition invite postcard produced to accompany early solo exhibition of Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson at Ray Hughes Gallery, Brisbane, March 6th—25th, 1976. This early exhibition (only his second year of exhibiting) possibly presented MacPherson's "Sarah's Merle" or "Scale From The Tool" paintings (?).
Over the course of his 40 plus-year career, Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson (1937–2021) explored the philosophical propositions of what constitutes a work of art. He often incorporated familiar imagery, everyday materials and visual elements from daily life, honouring the beauty of the mundane. MacPherson’s fascination with systems of objects and language is manifested through broad fields of knowledge, including art history and social history, biology and mythology.
Established in 1970 by Australian grazier, art collector, gallerist, art dealer, and art patron Chandler ("Channy") Phillip Coventry AM (1924–1999), The Coventry Gallery was a landmark in Australian gallery history, energetically showing new and emerging Australian artists, notably abstract, colourfield and hard-edge artists (in the early years), as well as staging exhibitions by leading overseas artists such as Bridget Riley and David Hockney.
Very Good unposted, clean copy.
1977, English
Single sheet, 33.5 x 20.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Coventry Gallery / Sydney
$55.00 - In stock -
Rare exhibition release and price-list produced to accompany early solo exhibition of Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson at the Coventry Gallery on Sutherland Street, Paddington, April 19th—May 7th, 1977. This early exhibition presented MacPherson's iconic "Scale From The Tool" works on canvas (1976-77), whose proportions and scale dictated by the use of the artist's tool, a four inch Oldfield housepainters brush, the brush-stroke, and the artist's reach. Includes biography, collections list, artist's statement, work-list with prices, and gallery information.
Over the course of his 40 plus-year career, Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson (1937–2021) explored the philosophical propositions of what constitutes a work of art. He often incorporated familiar imagery, everyday materials and visual elements from daily life, honouring the beauty of the mundane. MacPherson’s fascination with systems of objects and language is manifested through broad fields of knowledge, including art history and social history, biology and mythology.
Established in 1970 by Australian grazier, art collector, gallerist, art dealer, and art patron Chandler ("Channy") Phillip Coventry AM (1924–1999), The Coventry Gallery was a landmark in Australian gallery history, energetically showing new and emerging Australian artists, notably abstract, colourfield and hard-edge artists (in the early years), as well as staging exhibitions by leading overseas artists such as Bridget Riley and David Hockney.
Very Good, light tanning, light wear.
1987, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 20 pages, 20.5 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Various Artists Inc. / Sydney
$65.00 - Out of stock
Scarce catalogue of Australian artist Robert MacPherson's exhibition at Artspace, Sydney, 1987. Curated by Ingrid Periz, the exhibition (neither a retrospective nor a survey) presents works from 1975—1983; Exhibition 1 : The Rectangle Is a Container; Exhibition 2 : I See a Can of Paint as a Painting Unpainted. Illustrated in b/w with accompanying text by Periz, text by MacPherson, list of works and biography.
Over the course of his 40 plus-year career, Australian conceptual artist Robert MacPherson (1937–2021) explored the philosophical propositions of what constitutes a work of art. He often incorporated familiar imagery, everyday materials and visual elements from daily life, honouring the beauty of the mundane. MacPherson’s fascination with systems of objects and language is manifested through broad fields of knowledge, including art history and social history, biology and mythology.
Very Good copy with light pinch to lower spine, otherwise nicely preserved.
1989, English
Softcover, 6 page foldout (colour & b/w ill.), 21 x 29.5 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / As New,
Published by
Queensland Art Gallery / Brisbane
$65.00 - Out of stock
Rare catalogue/artist's publication for John Nixon's solo exhibition "Tableaux", at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1989. Texts, score and red printed monochrome by Nixon.
John Nixon (1949-2020) was a seminal figure in contemporary Australian abstraction. Since 1968 his work has been dedicated to the ongoing experimentation, analysis and development of radical modernism, minimalism, the monochrome, constructivism, non-objective art and the readymade – key reference points in his work. Experimental Painting Workshop (EPW), which began in 1978, forms the basis of Nixon’s rigorous and long-standing intellectual investigation into the making of art, over time expanding to encompass not only painting, but collage, photography, video, dance and experimental music performance.
Very Good, New copies from storage, some rust to staples, light ageing.
1989, English
Softcover, 10 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Artspace / Auckland
$40.00 - In stock -
Rare catalogue/artist's publication for John Nixon's solo exhibition at Artspace, Auckland, 7 February—10 March, 1989. Texts, scores and imagery by Nixon.
John Nixon (1949-2020) was a seminal figure in contemporary Australian abstraction. Since 1968 his work has been dedicated to the ongoing experimentation, analysis and development of radical modernism, minimalism, the monochrome, constructivism, non-objective art and the readymade – key reference points in his work. Experimental Painting Workshop (EPW), which began in 1978, forms the basis of Nixon’s rigorous and long-standing intellectual investigation into the making of art, over time expanding to encompass not only painting, but collage, photography, video, dance and experimental music performance.
Very Good, New copies from storage, some rust to staples, light ageing.
1987, Italian / German
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 22 pages, 21 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Galleria Pieroni / Rome
$360.00 - Out of stock
Very rare, collectable catalogue published on the occasion of the two-person exhibition between then married artist-couple Isa Genzken and Gerhard Richter ("Isa Genzken e Gerhard Richter") held at Galleria Pieroni, Rome, Italy, December 1987. Illustrated throughout with sculptures by Genzken and paintings by Richter, reproduced in colour along with text by Paul Groot (in parallel Italian and German), and four double self-portraits of Genzken and Richter together. In the early 1970s, Richter was Genzken’s professor at the Dusseldorf Art Academy. Upon graduating in 1977, Genzken taught sculpture at the academy. She married Richter in 1982 and moved to Cologne in 1983. The couple separated in 1993.
Very Good copy.