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.
1997, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 40 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Midnight Media / UK
$50.00 - In stock -
Rare English film digest / filmography by Lucas Balbo and Laurent Aknin on one of cinema's most fascinating and complicated human beings, Klaus Kinski. Kinski was a German actor. Equally renowned for his intense performance style and notorious for his volatile personality, he appeared in over 130 film roles in a career that spanned 40 years, from 1948 to 1988. Published in this one edition in 1997 by Published by Midnight Media, Disorder & Genius is an excellent introduction and concise synopsis of Kinski's acting career, and an indispensable reference tracing his complete filmography chronologically, each listing with film details and short overview, profusely illustrated with film stills, poster artwork, vhs covers, and publicity images in colour and b/w.
"Klaus Kinski died in 1991 amid almost general indifference. Nikolaus Gunther Nakszynski—his real name—was born in Zoppot, Poland on 18 October 1926; in his autobiography, "Dying to Live" (released in the USA as "All I Need Is Love" and subsequently withdrawn and banned — then in 1996 was re- issued, in both the UK and USA, as “Kinski Uncut", with extra text but with 'minor' alterations to avoid possible lawsuits!), he went into great detail about his childhood, a nightmare of poverty, promiscuity and incest... After the war, he went on the German stage where he came in contact with some of the greatest directors of the period. He achieved a certain notoriety with his recitals of poems by Rimbaud and above all the Medieval French bawdy poet Villon. Later he appeared in some of Cocteau's plays such as "The Typewriter" and "The Human Voice", this last being a long monologue by a woman on a telephone. Kinski played the woman and provoked a scandal. But, he earned Cocteau's admiration. He ended his theatrical career with an "adaptation" of the New Testament which provoked a riot.
From the end of the 1940s, Kinski was offered many parts in films which he took up sporadically, believing, as he said himself, that all that was merely shit..."—from the introduction
Near Fine copy.
2015, English
Softcover, 426 pages, 23 x 18 cm
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$90.00 - In stock -
This long-awaited biography of Alfred Jarry reconstructs a life both "ubuesque" and pataphysical.
When Alfred Jarry died in 1907 at the age of thirty-four, he was a legendary figure in Paris-but this had more to do with his bohemian lifestyle and scandalous behavior than his literary achievements. A century later, Jarry is firmly established as one of the leading figures of the artistic avant-garde.
Even so, most people today tend to think of Alfred Jarry only as the author of the play Ubu Roi, and of his life as a string of outlandish "ubuesque" anecdotes, often recounted with wild inaccuracy. In this first full-length critical biography of Jarry in English, Alastair Brotchie reconstructs the life of a man intent on inventing (and destroying) himself, not to mention his world, and the "philosophy" that defined their relation.
Brotchie alternates chapters of biographical narrative with chapters that connect themes, obsessions, and undercurrents that relate to the life. The anecdotes remain, and are even augmented- Jarry's assumption of the "ubuesque," his inversions of everyday behavior (such as eating backward, from cheese to soup), his exploits with gun and bicycle, and his herculean feats of drinking. But Brotchie distinguishes between Jarry's purposely playing the fool and deeper nonconformities that appear essential to his writing and his thought, both of which remain a vital subterranean influence to this day.
"Alastair Brotchie brilliantly evokes the avant-garde artistic movements of fin-de-siecle Paris in all their glittering grubbiness."—Charlotte Keith, Varsity
"An enthralling, scrupulously researched, and elegantly written biography."—Mark Ford, The New York Review of Books
"[Brotchie] gives us an unmatched and vivid picture of the belle epoque's avant-garde, of which Jarry was an important, original part."—Michael Moorcock, The Guardian
"[Brotchie] skilfully moves between providing a relatively straightforward and sympathetic account of the writer's life and critically sorting through the narratives that have sustained and shaped the long-standing image of Jarry... Brotchie's refusal to mythologise stands as the book's greatest strength, and as a fitting testament to the manifold complexity of Alfred Jarry."—Karl Whitney, 3:AM Magazine
"How a schoolboy caricature evolved into Jarry's best-known creation, his monstrous 'every-man', Pere Ubu, is a fascinating story which Brotchie tells with impressive scholarship, sympathy and wit."—Peter Blegvad, The Spectator
"Brotchie's painstaking and drily funny biography is now the most ample account of Jarry and his importance that is available in our language; it is unlikely ever to be bettered."—Kevin Jackson, The Literary Review
2025, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 20.3 x 12.7 cm
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
$38.00 - In stock -
A masterful study of the elusive French composer, on the centenary of his death.
Composer, pianist, and writer Erik Satie was one of the great figures of Belle Époque Paris. Known for his unvarying image of bowler hat, three-piece suit, and umbrella, Satie was a surrealist before surrealism and a conceptual artist before conceptual art. Friend of Cocteau and Debussy, Picabia and Picasso, Satie was always a few steps ahead of his peers at the apex of modernism. There's scarcely a turn in postwar music, both classical and popular, that Satie doesn't anticipate. Moving from the variety shows of Montmartre's Le Chat Noir to suburban Arcueil, from the Parisian demimonde to the artistic avant-garde, cult critic Ian Penman's masterful Erik Satie Three Piece Suite is an exhilarating and playful three-part study of this elusive and endlessly fascinating figure, published to mark the centenary of Satie's death.
2025, Englush
Softcover, 96 pages, 7.6 x 10.5 cm
Published by
Hanuman Editions / US
$36.00 - In stock -
I LOVE THE PAIN. I TELL HER HOW WONDERFUL PAIN CAN BE. HOW SHE SHOULD USE IT ON ME. I'M RAVING. I'M TRIPPING. I'M COMING.
Since his on-screen 'death' by erogenous torture device in Nine Inch Nails’ notorious 'Happiness in Slavery' music video, writer and artist Bob Flanagan has been a looming legend in domains of art, pain and sex. First published by Hanuman Books in 1987, Fuck Journal chronicles Flanagan’s liaisons with his beloved romantic and artistic partner Sheree Rose over the course of a year. Composed at Rose’s prompting and anticipating Flanagan’s extraordinary Pain Journal, the volume is so direct in its account of the couple’s conjugal life that the Indian authorities tossed its original print run into the ocean before the books could ship from Chennai to New York. By luck, 300 copies which had traveled with the editors to the US remained in circulation: an origin story that chimes with Flanagan’s aura of irreverence. Fuck Journal is characterised by a transfixing rhythm of total divulsion, a document of union amid, and through, pain with resonances in current discourses around sadomasochistic desire, crip experience, gender politics and beyond.
With a foreword by Sheree Rose
Introduction by Johanna Hedva
Based in Southern California, Bob Flanagan (1952-1996) was an provocateur of the highest order, known for poems and performances centreing on BDSM activity and living with cystic fibrosis. Famously featured in censored videos for Danzig and Nine Inch Nails, Flanagan achieved a unique pitch of sexual spectacle and tender expression through visceral collaborations with the photographer, artist and dominatrix Sheree Rose. Flanagan’s published writings include Pain Journal (1996) and the anthology Fun to be dead: The Poems of Bob Flanagan (2024), edited by Sabrina Tarasoff.
The steward of Flanagan’s legacy and an icon in her own right, the photographer and performance artist Sheree Rose has been a leading figure in Los Angeles underground culture since the 1980s. Through her partnership with Flanagan and ongoing projects, Rose has brought to the fore a new form of heterosexual politics, an erotics of intimacy as it intersects with the personal and social.
Johanna Hedva is a Korean American writer, artist, and musician from Los Angeles. Their most recent essay collection is How To Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom. They are also the author of the novels Your Love Is Not Good and On Hell. Their art has been exhibited internationally, and their albums are Black Moon Lilith in Pisces in the 4th House and The Sun and the Moon.
2025, English
Softcover, 460 pages, 26 x 20.3 cm
Published by
Primary Information / New York
$85.00 - In stock -
Started in 1989 by designer and writer Robert Ford, THING magazine was the voice of the Queer Black music and art scene in the early 1990s. Ford and his editors were part of the burgeoning House music scene, which originated in Chicago’s Queer underground, and some of the top DJs and musicians from that time were featured in the magazine, including Frankie Knuckles, Gemini, Larry Heard, Rupaul, and Deee-Lite. THING published ten issues from 1989-1993, before it was cut short by Ford’s death from AIDS-related illness. All ten issues of THING are collected and published here for the first time.
As House music thrived, THING captured the multidisciplinary nature of the scene, opening its pages to a wide range of subjects: poetry and gossip, fiction and art, interviews and polemics. The HIV/AIDS crisis loomed large in its contents, particularly in the personal reflections and vital treatment resources that it published. An essay by poet Essex Hemphill was published alongside the gossip columnist Michael Musto and Rupaul dished wisdom alongside a diary from the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Joan Jett Blakk’s revolutionary presidential campaign is contained in these pages, as are some of the most underground, influential literary voices of the time, such as Dennis Cooper, Vaginal Davis, Gary Indiana, Marlon Riggs, David Wojnarowicz, and even David Sedaris.
THING was very much in dialogue with the club kids in New York and other Queer publishing ventures, but in many ways, it fostered an entirely unique perspective—one with more serious ambitions. In a moment when the gay community was besieged by the HIV/AIDS crisis and a wantonly cruel government, the influence and significance of this cheaply-produced newsprint magazine vastly exceeded its humble means, presenting a beautiful portrait of the ball and club culture that existed in Chicago with deep intellectual reflections. THING was a publication by and for its community and understood the fleetingness of its moment. To reencounter this work today, is to reinstate the Black voices who were so central to the history of HIV/AIDS activism and Queer and club culture, but which were often sidelined by white Queer discourse. In many ways, THING offered a blueprint for the fundamental role a magazine plays in bringing together a community, its tagline summing up the bold stakes of this important venture: “She Knows Who She Is.”
The magazine included contributions from Trent D. Adkins, Joey Arias, Aaron Avant Garde, Ed Bailey, Freddie Bain, Basscut, Belasco, Joan Jett Blakk, Simone Bouyer, Lady Bunny, Bunny & Pussy, Derrick Carter, Fire Chick, Chicklet, Stephanie Coleman, Bill Coleman, Lee Collins, Gregory Conerly, Mark Contratto, Dennis Cooper, Dorian Corey, Ed Crosby, The Darva, Vaginal Davis, Deee-Lite, Tor Dettwiler, Riley Evans, Evil, The Fabulous Pop Tarts, Mark Farina, Larry Flick, Robert Ford, Scott Free, David Gandy, Gemini, Gabriel Gomez, Roy Gonsalves, Chuck Gonzales, Tony Greene, André Halmon, Lyle Ashton Harris, Larry Heard, Essex Hemphill, Kathryn Hixson, Sterling Houston, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Gary Indiana, Candy J, Jamoo, Jazzmun, Gant Johnson, Owen Keehnen, Lady Miss Kier, Spencer Kincy, Iris Kit, Erin Krystle, Steve LaFreniere, Larvetta Larvon, Marc Loveless, Lypsinka, Malone, Marjorie Marginal, Terry A. Martin, Rodney McCoy Jr., Alan Miller, Bobby Miller, Michael Musto, Ultra Naté, Willi Ninja, Scott “Spunk” O’Hara, DeAundra Peek, Earl Pleasure, Marlon Riggs, Robert Rodi, Todd Roulette, RuPaul, Chantay Savage, David Sedaris, Rosser Shymanski, Larry Tee, Voice Farm, Lawrence D. Warren, Martha Wash, LeRoy Whitfield, Stephen Winter, David Wojnarowicz, and Hector Xtravaganza.
Managing Editors: James Hoff and Sam Korman
Designer: Rick Myers
Copy Editor: Allison Dubinsky
2013, Japanese
Softcover, 212 pages, 28.2 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Amana / Japan
$160.00 - In stock -
First edition of this wonderful collection of Japanese photographers that captured 1970s Tokyo, now out-of-print. In the world of fine art photography, post-war Japanese photography is continuing to gather attention. Many Japanese photographers were active specifically during the large cultural and political development of the 70s as the country experienced rapid economic growth. At the time, new styles of expression with a strong focus on the individual viewpoint were beginning to develop, which were distinct to the social documentary photography prior to that. This also coincided with the development of photography within the fashion and advertising field, reflecting a period where the works of many unique photographers and styles began to grow. A careful selection of 160 bodies of works by 9 prominent photographers of the time, each individually portraying the excitement and rapid growth which symbolised the era. Taiji Arita, Eikoh Hosie, Daido Moriyama, Masatoshi Naito, Hajime Sawatari, Issei Suda, Yoshihiro Tatsuki, Shuji Terayama, Katsumi Watanabe.
Very Good copy with good dust jacket.
2025, English
Softcover, 640 pages, 24 x 16.99 cm
Published by
Intellect Ltd / US
$110.00 - In stock -
Industrial music has long been recognized for its sonic innovations, but the radical visual culture that accompanied this underground movement has remained largely unexplored. Shock Factory: The Visual Culture of Industrial Music presents the first comprehensive examination of how industrial artists created a coherent aesthetic language across multiple media—from xerox art and mail art to installation and performance—fundamentally challenging modernist utopias while prophetically anticipating contemporary discourse about media manipulation and technological control.
Emerging in mid-1970s Britain from the post-punk underground before expanding globally throughout the 1980s, artists like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Test Dept, Laibach, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Coil, Psychic TV, Boyd Rice, Whitehouse, Merzbow, Hijokaidan, Hunting Lodge, Controlled Bleeding, Hafler Trio, Z'EV, Nocturnal Emissions, 23 Skidoo, Clock DVA, Master/Slave Relationship, and Monte Cazazza developed sophisticated visual strategies that matched their abrasive soundscapes with equally confrontational imagery.
At 640 pages, this award-winning monograph reveals how industrial artists systematically appropriated reprographic techniques—particularly xerox art and photocollage—to create disturbing visual narratives investigating mind control, criminality, occultism, pornography, psychiatry, and totalitarianism. Through détournement strategies borrowed from Situationist theory, they exposed the coercive mechanisms of mass media and technological society, creating a visual vocabulary that challenged viewers to confront uncomfortable truths about modern power structures. What emerges is a movement that perceptively anticipated contemporary concerns about surveillance, media manipulation, and collective psychological control. Industrial artists' exploration of these themes through deliberately provocative imagery served not as mere provocation but as sophisticated critique of the very media systems they inhabited. Their radical aesthetic choices—degraded reproduction quality, found imagery manipulation, shock tactics—created hybrid forms that defied traditional categorization while establishing independent networks that bypassed conventional art world structures.
Shock Factory positions industrial music's visual culture within broader art historical narratives, revealing connections to Dada, Surrealism, and conceptual art while demonstrating the movement's unique contributions to contemporary visual culture. The book arrives at a moment when questions about technology, media manipulation, and social control have never been more urgent, demonstrating how these artists' radical visual strategies continue to offer valuable insights for our digital age.
For scholars of contemporary art, music history, and media studies, this book provides essential documentation of an overlooked movement that significantly influenced subsequent artistic developments. For readers interested in underground culture and avant-garde aesthetics, Shock Factory reveals the sophisticated visual thinking that accompanied one of the most innovative musical movements of the past half-century.
"A history of industrial music needed to be written. Nicolas Ballet has accomplished this. Thoroughly. This is the book's greatest strength. It explores the significance of noise as a reflection of a world in decay and screaming as a need. And doing it so it reveals a significant connection between industrial music and contemporary art. This is also what makes it an essential book: its contribution to dismantling categories and rethinking history from mixed creative territories."—David G. Torres
Nicolas Ballet is an art historian and assistant curator at the Centre Pompidou in the New Media Department. He is the author of books and articles exploring the visual and sonic contributions of countercultures and experimental artistic practices.
1992, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 238 pages, 22 x16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Seikyūsha / Tokyo
$200.00 - Out of stock
MB, Negativland, SPK, Nocturnal Emissions, Werkbund, Asmus Tietchens, Monte Cazazza, Throbbing Gristle, William S. Burroughs, Aleister Crowley, COME, Whitehouse, Esplendor Geometico, Lustmord, Ramleh, Club Moral, Mail Music, The Hafler Trio, Organum, The New Blockaders, Etant Donnes, Pirate Radios, P16.D4, S.B.O.T.H.I., Anti Records, Gum, Trax, MC5, Gordon Mumma, Boyd Rice / NON, Vagina Dentata Organ, The Haters, RRR Records, Schimpfluch, Entre Vifs, Moholy Nagy, Luigi Russolo, Carcass....
First (only) hardcover edition of the seldom seen and highly coveted "Noise War", written by Merzbow's Masami Akita and published only in Japan in 1992. Long out-of-print, "Noise War" surveys 10 years of noise, tracing developments and interests in the work of Burroughs and Crowley into the the birth of industrial music, power electronics, experimental noise and noise art/performance, bionic noise, metal alchemy, noise electronics, anti-information and avant-garde radio, mail art, noise collage/exchange music, media attack, record destruction, ambient noise, and much more, delving into the work of keys artists and record labels from all over the world within the survey period, but also influential historical figures. Heavily illustrated throughout in black and white with record sleeves, posters, photographs, and finishes with Akita's compiled noise record list.
Merzbow is a noise project created in Tokyo, Japan in 1979 under the direction of noise technician Masami Akita. As well as a legendary underground noise artist, Akita is a prolific writer in Japan and frequently writes on the arts, music, erotica, esoterica, modern architecture, and animal rights, with articles on emerging subcultures and underground extreme cultures appearing in publications like SM Sniper, Studio Voice and Fool's Mate. His development of the Merzbow aesthetic ran parallel with a series of investigative books in which he catalogued and introduced a vast amount of hermetic types of music, sexual practices and autonomous creativity to a fairly conservative (but not close-minded) Japanese audience. "Noise War" is the most sought after of these very books.
Japanese text, fine copy with fine metallic endpapers, metallic illustrated hardcovers, and illustrated dust jacket. Tight with little-to-no wear.
1990, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 206 pages, 13.6 cm x 19.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Seikyūsha / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
First hardcover edition of "Fetish Fashion", written by Merzbow's Masami Akita and published only in Japan in 1990, an in-depth exploration of the eroticisation and transformation of the body through fetish fashion that revolutionised the world of sexuality, from SM Bizarre, Transvestism, Rubber/latex, mistresses and dominatrixes, bondage clubs, male and female castration, restraints, piercing, the fascist artificial body, medical fetish/medical art (including Romain Slocombe), and much more, all subjects illustrated in b/w. Merzbow is a noise project created in Tokyo, Japan in 1979 under the direction of noise technician Masami Akita. As well as a legendary underground noise artist, Akita is a prolific writer in Japan and frequently writes on the arts, music, erotica, esoterica, modern architecture, and animal rights, with articles on emerging subcultures and underground extreme cultures appearing in publications like SM Sniper, Studio Voice and Fool's Mate. His development of the Merzbow aesthetic ran parallel with a series of investigative books in which he catalogued and introduced a vast amount of hermetic types of music, sexual practices and autonomous creativity to a fairly conservative (but not close-minded) Japanese audience. "Fetish Fashion" is one of these very books.
First edition, Japanese text, fine copy with fine illustrated dust jacket.
1992, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 140 pages, 26 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
MIMA / Melbourne
$35.00 - In stock -
Scarce catalogue edited by Adrian Martin and published in 1990 to accompany experimenta — A Major Survey of Film and Video Art, Melbourne, November 20—December 4, 1990, presented by Modern Image Makers Association Inc. (MIMA) and founded in 1988. Showcasing Australian video art, media art, installation and performance works.
Contents include: An introduction to Experimenta 1992 by Lizzette Atkins, Of Prisms and Tools: The Possibility of an Avant Garde by Vikki Riley, Australian Screenings, Introduction by Steven Ball, Opening Night, Signposts To The Imagination Re-animated; (re)constructing an art, Techknowledge, Dusan Marek's Cobweb On A Parachute — Essay by Arthur Cantrill, David Perry's The Refracting Glasses, Interview with David Perry, Passionate Uncertainty, Text and Textures, Engineering Memory: Views of History, Politics, Culture and Geography, Helical Scans: Diverse Ways of Seeing (Video) Programme 1 and 2, One Way Street: Fragments for Walter Benjamin, Sound and Image, Experience and The Other, The Fall Of The Berlin Wall, The Open 'Iron Curtain' and Post-Socialist Drama, Artists seen by artists, Die Mauer—The negative horizon, The Czech Avant Garde 1911-1941 essay by Jaroslav Andel, Programme 1, Programme 2, Video Programmes From 'New Europe' curated by Heiko DaxI, U.K., Intimate Imaginaries, Artist Screening: Michael Maziere, Slow Glass, U.S.A., Shalom Gorewitz-Experimental Television Center, New York, WAX, or the discovery of television among the bees, Flesh Histories, Programme 1, Programme 2, Japan, Emotional Wave: Image Network Japan, V.I.E.W., Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Interview with Shinya Tsukamoto, Performance: Introduction by Jeffrey Fereday, Artist statements, Installation: Introduction by Jennifer Phipps, Artist statements, Medienkunst—A survey of German, installation art— introduction by Heiko Daxl, Medienkunst-Artist statements, Special Events, Noisefest 2, Techno Garden, Century Endings - An Afternoon of Performance in the Great Hall, Seminars and Talks, Essays: Video As Art: Personal Observations From New York by Shalom Gorewitz, Some Thoughts on the German State of Things: Teaching Video by Ingo Petzke, An Attempt Toward The Anti-Oedipus-Japanese Video Art After The '80s by Junji Ito, Schedule of events, Artist index, Title index...
Includes the work of Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, Arf Arf, Ian Haig, GANG, Jun Kurosawa, Warren Burt, Chris Mann, Anne Ferran, Sadie Benning, Michelle Handelman, Monte Cazazza, Pete Spence, Fiona MacDonald, Cyber Dada Manifesto, Dale Nason, Troy Innocent, Dusan Marek, Critical Art Ensemble, John Maybury, David Perrt, Steven Ball, Karel Hašler, Otakar Vávra, Jiří Lehovec, Michael Maziere, David Blair, Danny Fass, Joe Kelly, Shelly Silver, Laurens Tan, John Gillies, and many more.
VG copy light wear to extremities/DJ.
1991—1997, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 70 pages ea. approx x 9 issues, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Musicworks / Toronto
$80.00 - In stock -
Lot of 9 issues (1991—1997) of Musicworks, The Journal of Sound Exploration, published out of Toronto. Launched in January 1978 by Andrew Timar and John Oswald, best known for his plunderphonics, Musicworks was a long-running Canadian avant-garde music magazine devoted to experimental, improvised and Electroacoustic music. These issues together feature an abundance of exclusive interviews, essays, reviews, theoretical texts, scores, colloquies, artworks, features on and by Stan Brakhage, Chris Cutler, John Cage, Tibor Szemző, Pauline Oliveros, Trevor Wishart, Carolee Schneemann, Josef Režný, Jerry Hunt, Kazue Sawai, Glenn Branca, Yūji Takahashi, Tim Hodgkinson, Louis Andriessen, Glenn Gould, Harry Partch, Akio Suzuki, Fergus Kelly, Petr Kotik, Nicholas Gebhardt, Barbara Benary, Andrew Culver, Udo Kasemets, Franz Van Rossum, R.I.P. Hayman, Iva Bittová, Nobuo Kubota, David Rokeby, François Girard, J.S. Bach, Jocelyn Robert, Don Ritter, Glenn Gould, Paul Rapoport, and many more. Scarce and incredible resource for improvised and avant-garde compositional music/performance/video histories from this publisher and cassette label.
Good copy with with general light magazine wear.
1990, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 54 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
MIMA / Melbourne
$25.00 - In stock -
Scarce catalogue edited by Adrian Martin and published in 1990 to accompany experimenta — A Major Survey of Film and Video Art, Melbourne, November 20—December 4, 1990, presented by Modern Image Makers Association Inc. (MIMA) and founded in 1988. Showcasing Australian video art, media art, installation and performance works, this iteration also included programs of Lettrist Cinema and French Avant-Garde film from the 1980s. Illustrated throughout with information on all of the works, accompanied by essays: Adrian Martin – "The Adventures of Form", John Conomos – "Video as Moonlighting", Christian Lebrat – "The Lettrist Cinema of the 1950s", Vikki Riley – "The Picture Can't Get Any Louder", John Flaus – "In the Eye's Mind - Paul Winkler Retrospective.
Includes the work of Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, Maria Kozic and Ian Haig, Peter Callas, Josko Petkovic, Edward Colless, Tona Keane, Arf Arf, Shelley Lasica, Peter Tyndall, Gerald Murnane, William Yang, John Nixon, Primary Source, Warren Burt, Chris Mann, Stelarc, Pete Spence, Philip Brophy, David Cox, Maurice Lemaitre, Frederique Devaux, Cyber Dada Manifesto, Dale Nason, Troy Innocent, Lydia Lunch, Foil, Swans, Einsturzende Neubauten, Butthole Surfers, Violinda, Steven Ball, and so many more...
VG copy light wear to extremities.
1987, Japanese
Softcover, 168 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Issue No.30 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.30, the "Special Issue" features Hans Bellmer, Leonor Fini, Richard Cerf, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Paul Wunderlich, Robert Maplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Man Ray, Lewis Carroll, John Willie, Bernard Montorgueil, Guido Crepax, Van Rod, Carlo, Betty Page, Tealdo, clippings from periodicals such as Amateur Bondage, Bondage Life, Bondage Fantasies, Bizarre Comix, Bizarre Classix, Bizarre Fotos, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy with tanning to pages.
1987, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 205 pages, 22.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
St. Martin's Press / New York
$45.00 - In stock -
First hardcover edition.
Dedicated to Samuel Beckett in honor of his eightieth birthday, the present book provides a focus on Beckett's later fiction and drama-his fiction since How It Is (1961) and his drama since Endgame (1957). Published here for the first time, the thirteen essays are characterized by originality of material and freshness of view-point. They will be especially helpful to the reader who is drawn to the recent work of one of the twentieth century's most important authors, but who feels the need of some help in coming to terms with it.
As testimony to Beckett's international reputation, the contributors are drawn from various parts of the English-speaking world, and include many of the leading Beckett scholars of the day.
VG—VG.
2003, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 24 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo
$60.00 - In stock -
"Gothic" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, published in 2003, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Heavily illustrated with texts in Japanese with in-depth profiles, interviews with and essays on Trevor Brown, Gottfried Helnwein, Kuniyoshi Kaneko, ero-manga master Keizo Miyanishi, influential Gothic Lolita illustrator Mitsukazu Mihara, Floria Sigismondi, Marilyn Manson, Alice Auaa, loads of "Modern Primitive" material (piercing, body modification, body performance, etc.), and much more...
Near Fine copy.
1982/1992, Japanese
Softcover, 192 pages, 21 x 14.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo
$60.00 - In stock -
"Corpse" Special Feature Issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Yaso, first published in 1982, then re-printed in 1992, edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave/Silvester Club...). Heavily illustrated with texts in Japanese that look at the theme of death and the dead in the arts, literature, occultism, ancient sciences, philosophy, mythology, poetry, film, crime, and much more. Features John Duncan, Tetsumi Kudo, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Masahisa Fukase, Franz Kafka, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Guillaume Apollinaire, Joe Potts (LAFMS), Takashi Ishii, Rudolf II — Holy Roman Emperor, Akinari Ueda, Marcel Duchamp, Chris Burden, Paul Celan, Alain Resnais, Gilyak Amagasaki, Shusaku Arakawa, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Shuji Terayama, Andy Warhol, Charles Manson, Brian Wilson, Kyoko Endoh, Princess Yongtai, Salvador Dalí, Ono no Komachi, Kiyoshi Kasai, Caravaggio, Throbbing Gristle, Takizawa Bakin, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Manson Family, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Wu Zetian, Genesis P-Orridge, Yusuke Nakahara, Ranpo Lagrange, Mitsusada Fukasaku, Nakai Hideo, Richard Wagner, and many more.
Very Good copy.
1981, English
Fold-out booklet, 20.4 x 22.6 cm (folded), 72 x 22.6 cm (unfolded)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
The Tate Gallery / London
$50.00 - In stock -
Rare 1981 fold-out booklet published to accompany Marc Camille Chaimowicz's performance of Partial Eclipse… at the Tate Gallery, London in September, 1981.
Born in 1947, Paris, Marc Camille Chaimowicz is a London-based artist whose cross-disciplinary work in painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, installation, furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles, and wallpaper challenges the categorical divisions between fine and applied arts, masculine and feminine, public and private, past and present.
Fine copy.
1981, English
Die cut folded exhibition card, 18 x 14.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Nigel Greenwood Inc. / London
$90.00 - In stock -
Rare die-cut folded exhibition card produced by Marc Camille Chaimowicz on the occasion of the exhibition Macquettes… at Nigel Greenwood Inc, London, 10 December, 1981—30 January, 1982.
Born in 1947, Paris, Marc Camille Chaimowicz is a London-based artist whose cross-disciplinary work in painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, installation, furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles, and wallpaper challenges the categorical divisions between fine and applied arts, masculine and feminine, public and private, past and present.
Fine copy.
1993 / 1999, English
Softcover, 109 pages, 19.5 x 12.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
John Calder / London
$25.00 - In stock -
Antonin Artaud is now recognized as the twentieth century's most radical influence on the theatre and on performance. In this, the most famous of his writings, he redefines the nature and the purpose of drama, what the theatrical reaction of audiences should be an experience to shake their certainty of everyday existence and how actors should approach their work. Peter Brook, Grotowski, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and many others have used Artaud's theories in their work, and in drama colleges everywhere it is obligatory reading.
The Manifestos of the Theatre of Cruelty, the text of Seraphim's Theatre and other major texts are all included here.
This remarkable French playwright and poet was born in 1896. He was a leading figure in the Surrealist movement and despite a divergence of ideas remained a dedicated Surrealist all his life, devoting his time to the study of problems of conflict between man's physical and intellectual natures. He died in 1948.
Good copy.
2010, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
As Loud As Possible / UK
$150.00 - In stock -
Quickly out-of-print, inaugural and solitary volume of the UK noise music magazine, As Loud As Possible, published in 2010 and edited by Chris Sienko and Steve Underwood (Harbinger Sound). Not surprisingly an instant collector's item, this first ambitious issue (names after the Incapacitants 1995 album) is packed with articles, interviews and reviews with both "seminal and newly emerging sound artists that specialize in atonal sonic brutality." Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Broken Flag (Maurizio Bianchi, Unkommuniti, Mauthausen Orchestra, Satori, Controlled Bleeding, Irritant, JFK, Mauro Teho Teardo (M.T.T.), Con-Dom Sigillum S, Agog, Giancarlo Toniutti, Vortex Campaign, Le Syndicat, Krang....), No Fun, Putrefier, Sewer Election, The Haters, The Rita / Sam McKinlay, Zone Nord / Jean-Luc Angles (Blowhole, Prick Decay, Small Cruel Party), Cheapmachines, Climax Denial, Interchange fanzine, Alien Brains / Storm Bugs / Anti-Messthetics, and much more...
Contents: “Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock: “Artaud, Aktionkunst, Abreaction and Eb.er” : texts by Alice Kemp, accompanied by new drawings from Rudolf Eb.er, and a detailed “Aktiongraphy”; The Broken Flag Story: An extensive indepth interview with Gary Mundy, covering the career of Ramleh, the complete output of his legendary Broken Flag record label, and also featuring new interviews with the artists responsible for those releases, including: Maurizio Bianchi, Unkommuniti, Mauthausen Orchestra, Satori, Controlled Bleeding, Irritant, JFK, Mauro Teho Teardo (M.T.T.), Con-Dom Sigillum S, Agog, Giancarlo Toniutti, Vortex Campaign, Le Syndicat, Krang and many more, plus unseen artwork and photographs; No Fun: Festival curator Carlos Giffoni talk about the New York festival's past, present and future, and covers his work with the No Fun Productions label. The Politics of HNW: The Rita’s Sam McKinlay talks about the obsessive nature of the harsh-head. Includes a list of Sam's essential Wall Noise picks spanning the past two decades. An excellent introduction to wall-riding; 30 Years of The Haters: G.X. Jupitter - Larsen provides a personal history, as well as a delineation of his ideas, methods, and tricks accrued over three decades. The inside story from the man who has made entropy his life's work. Putrefier: An interview with Mark Durgan, covering his twenty years in the UK's wilderness, from Birthbiter's heyday to the present-day. Includes reminiscences from Andy Bolus about their infamous duo project, Olympic Shit Man! Sewer Election: Sweden's loudest, Dan Johansson talks about his music, ideas, art and running a tape label. Interview by Mikko Aspa of Grunt; Zone Nord: An album -by- album look at the discography of this retired French noise legend, including brief commentary from Mr Zone Nord himself, Jean-Luc Angles; Apraxia: An interview with Patrick Barber, the man behind the label. Covers the output of this legendary label who released Blowhole, Prick Decay, Small Cruel Party and others in the early '90s; Cheapmachines: An interview with London sound-sculpter and all-'round sonic chameleon Phil Julian.
Climax Denial: An interview with this Milwaukee-based Power Electronics lecher, including an album-by-album analysis; Alien Brains, Storm Bugs and Anti-Messthetics: A study of the non-careers of two early eighties UK outfits that were very much connected. Includes input from some of the key players, plus lots of vintage artwork; Interchange: A look at this influential UK fanzine from the mid-80s, plus an interview with its creator, John Smith. Tunnel Canary: G. X. Jupitter - Larsen tells us about his first memories in Vancouver of this volatile bunch. IDES: An overview of the primary output of this American tape label, and an interview with its owner, Nicole Chambers; Classic Albums: A regular feature dedicated to both in-depth analysis and memories of overlooked but not forgotten gems from yesteryear. Issue #1 features articles on The Lemon Kittens (We Buy A Hammer For Daddy), XX Committee (Network) and RJF (Greater Success In Apprehensions & Convictions). A collection of thoughts and interviews, including an exclusive interview with ex- XX front-man, Scott Foust. Opinion Columns: A regular feature from a rotating pool of participatory players with the music they ponder. Includes John Olson (Wolf Eyes), Andy Ortmann (Panicsville), Mikko Aspa (Grunt), Steve Underwood (Harbinger Sound), Hicham Chadly (Nashazphone), Jonas Kellagher (Segerhuva), C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core) and Mark Wharton (Idwal Fisher) amongst others. Covering artists including Masonna, Vomir, and The Black Phelgm, and ranging from Bizarre Uproar all the way to Christian bluegrass bluegrass music! Extensive reviews section. Back cover artwork by Richard Rupenus (The New Blockaders).
Very Good copy with light wear.
2016, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 27.8 x 21.4 cm
Published by
Seagull Books / London
$39.00 - In stock -
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith
Edited with a Preface by Évelyne Grossman
A poet, philosopher, essayist, playwright, actor, and director, Antonin Artaud was a visionary writer and a major influence within and beyond the French avant-garde. A key text for understanding his thought and his appeal, 50 Drawings to Murder Magic is rooted in the nine years Artaud spent in mental asylums, struggling with schizophrenia and the demonic, persecutory visions it unleashed. Set down in a dozen exercise books written between 1946 and 1948, these pieces trace Artaud’s struggle to escape a personal hell that extends far beyond the walls of asylums and the dark magicians he believed ran them.
The first eleven notebooks are filled with fragments of writing and extraordinary sketches: totemic figures, pierced bodies, and enigmatic machines, some revealing the marks of a trembling hand, others carefully built up from firm, forceful pencil strokes. The twelfth notebook, completed two months before Artaud’s death in 1948, changes course: it’s an extraordinary text on the loss of magic to the demonic—the piece that gives the book its title.
“Artaud matters,” wrote John Simon in the Saturday Review years ago. Nearly seventy years after his death, that remains true—perhaps more than ever.
"A gloriously reproduced edition . . . . There is something in this text that speaks to the creative process--especially to the degree to which so much of what the writer or artist commits to the page (or canvass) extends from a place beyond conscious attention, to be received actively but without specific intention."—Rough Ghosts
1973, English
Softcover, 158 pages, 19.5 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Picador / USA
$15.00 - Out of stock
1973 Picador edition of MURPHY by Samuel Beckett, with cover art by John Holmes. First published in 1938 and reissued by Picador in 1973, this early Beckett novel is a bleakly hilarious tour through madness, metaphysics, and the daily slog of simply existing.
"Followed to England by a riotous collection of Irish eccentrics, Murphy ventures disastrously from the calm of his rocking chair in a Kensington mews. He falls in love with Celia, a prostitute. Fascinated by Eastern • mysticism, he pursues swamis and fortune-tellers. His eventual employment as an orderly in a mental hospital leads to a devastatingly ironic conclusion.
Historically, Murphy forms a bridge between the novels of James Joyce and the new literature of the post-war world, in which Beckett's work occupies such a prominent place. Murphy, though revolutionary in its perceptions, is also exuberantly readable. Though imbued with its author's characteristic pessimism, it is a comic masterpiece."
"One of the greatest prose-writers of the century'—THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
"Can scarcely be matched by another living writer'—NEW STATESMAN
Very Good copy.
1999, English
Softcover, 272 pages, 23 x 21.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Atlas Press / London
$200.00 - In stock -
First 1999 edition of the long collectible English-language anthology of Writings of the Vienna Actionists, published by the legendary Atlas Press.
Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. These four artists from the sixties created a form of performance art which has become legendary for the extreme violence of its expression. Fined, gaoled, forced into exile, they were ignored by the art establishment of the day only to now be hailed as one of Europe's most outstanding contributions to post-war art. This anthology of their writings and documentation, brought together with the collaboration of the artists, Brus, Nitsch and Muehl, illustrates their intentions for the first time and shows how they established and explored a new territory for art.
Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. "Four artists who, during the Sixties, became notorious for pushing the definition of art to an extreme which has yet to be surpassed.
Variously fined, gaoled, and forced into exile, they were ignored by the art establishment of the day, only to be hailed in recent years as one of the most outstanding and unique contributions to post-war art in Europe. Exaggeration and myth still obscure their activities, however, and their actual motives for an art centred on the examination of taboos, the "hidden" secrets of the body, the aesthetics of destruction and the possibilities of regeneration have remained elusive. Subsequent generations of artists have claimed them as their forefathers or unscrupulously borrowed their ideas (but without approaching the intensity of their actions), and while international exhibitions have reclaimed their work for the visual arts, their writings have remained largely unpublished since they first appeared in small mimeographed editions, or are long since out of print.
This anthology of photo-documentation and writings - which includes manifestos, theoretical texts, action scores, even police and psychiatric reports - has been assembled in collaboration with the three surviving artists. It provides the first comprehensive survey of their work, and for the first time illuminates their differing intentions. These texts employ humour and vitriol to elaborate a position in total opposition to contemporary social, political and aesthetic mores. A lucid narrative emerges of a determined exploration of these conditioning factors, by means of an art that used life itself as its material.
The Vienna Actionists were indeed unique - at the very outset of post-war performance art they trod a path very different from the "Happenings" in the USA or the belated neo-Dada pranks of many of their contemporaries. They not only established a new territory for art but they explored it so thoroughly as to make most subsequent "body art" simply irrelevant.
Very Good—Near Fine copy.
1964, English
Softcover, 48 pages, 18 x 12 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Faber & Faber / London
$15.00 - In stock -
First 1964 Faber paperback edition of Beckett's PLAY (and Two Short Pieces for Radio).
"It is totally fascinating and satisfying because, in its smaller scale, its polyphonic dialogue uses much the same astonishing intervals of resonance and echo and discovery as "Godot"; and because it shows Beckett at his most carelessly masterful, using comedy to scour the tragic, to put flesh upon our lies, and to give the lie to our flesh."—Anne Duchene, The Guardian
Good copy with general cover wear and foxing.