World Food Books

Selling Ourselves for Dinner (+ poem print)
by Christopher Barnett

1982, English
Softcover (staple-bound + telex), unpaginated, 24.5 x 17.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by All Out Ensemble / Adelaide

$50.00 - Out of stock

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“The greatest Australian poet you’ve never heard of”—Anne Marsh

Very rare copy of Australian avant-garde poet and playwright Christopher Barnett's theatre poem, Selling Ourselves for Dinner, performed at the Adelaide Festival in 1982 with the All Out Ensemble (Nicholas Tsoutas, Peggy Wallach, etc.) in the Rundle Street Carpark. Printed at The Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide and published by the All Out Ensemble, this hand-made publication, final drafted in December 1981, presents the entire revolutionary performance—poem by Christopher Barnett, scene for scene, along with introduction, cast credits and bios. Starring Barnett as his hero, Soviet-Russian poet and playwright Vladimir Mayakovsky, the play opens at a reading of Mayakovsky's work at the Moscow Polytechnic in 1929. Directed by Nicholas Tsoutas, the cast of characters includes Lilya Brik, Jean Cocteau, Isadora Duncan, Alexander Fadeyev, Jim Morrison, Sergei Yesenin, etc. with visual and sound contributions from Michael Trudgeon, Derek Kreckler, Laughing Hands, Peter Cheslyn, Jacky Redgate, Ian de Gruchy, and many more.

In Adelaide and Melbourne in the early 1980s the hard talking, hard living poet Christopher Barnett was a force to be reckoned with—socially, artistically, politically, not that he made these distinctions. A charismatic public performer once described by the press as "one of the most controversial figures on the Australian art scene", this self-styled “Cultural Bolshevik”—a homage to his hero, Valdimir Mayakovsky—and a key collaborator with Nicholas Tsoutas and Peggy Wallach in the All Out Ensemble, Barnett left Adelaide for Fitzroy and then in the mid 80s relocated to Nantes in France where he became notable for co-founding an experimental company, Le Dernier Spectateur, working with the disenfranchised, where he remains to this day.

This copy with inserted dot matrix printed poem, “Telec".

Very Good copy.

File under: Michael Trudgeon Derek Kreckler Laughing Hands Peter Cheslyn Jacky Redgate Ian de Gruchy Nicholas Tsoutas Peggy Wallach Christopher Barnett Christopher Barnett All Out Ensemble / Adelaide Australian Art Performance / Dance / Theater Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry Poetry Sociology / Politics Art Socialism / Communism / Capitalism Sound / Music

Women At Work
A Week of Women's Performance June 1980

1980, English
Softcover (staple bound), 40 pages, 29.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by George Paton Gallery / Parkville

$70.00 - In stock -

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Very rare copy of Women At Work, an important catalogue published to accompany a week long event of performances, seminars and documentation from women around Australia held at the George Paton Gallery, Melbourne University Union, June 2—6, 1980. Includes valuable transcriptions of the seminars — 'Feminism in Performance' : An open discussion led by women from the Women's Art Movement, Adelaide (featuring: Cath Cherry, Peg Maguire, Judy Annear, Denise McGrath, Jan Hunter, Ann Marsh, Jane Kent, Shan Short, Ann Fogarty, Lorraine Bennington, Jackie Lawes, Bonita Ely, Helen Sherriff, Joan Grounds), plus a general discussion reflecting on the activities of the week (Jill Orr, Liz Paterson, Vineta Lagzdina, Anna Paci, Aleks Danko, Jan Ferrari). Heavily illustrated artist's pages with texts and performance documentation follows, featuring: Cath Cherry, Bonita Ely, Ann Fogarty, Joan Grounds, Jan Hunter, Jane Kent, Vineta Lagzdina, Jackie Lawes, Ann Marsh, Jill Orr, Anna Paci, Liz Paterson, WIMMINS CIRCUS, plus photographic documentation of the exhibition, and a detailed catalogue of the videos and slides shown.

"In 1979, Jane Kent, from the Women's Art Movement in Adelaide, had a three week installation in the Ewing Gallery. She and Ann Marsh, also from WAM suggested a weekend get together later in 1979 for Adelaide and Melbourne women artists. After discussion with Kiffy Rubbo and Judy Annear, the idea developed into a week long event of performances, seminars and documentation from women around Australia to be held June 2-6, 1980. The eventual make-up of the week was 14 performances by 12 women, plus a performance by the WIMMINS CIRCUS (courtesy Union Council). The women who performed were Cath Cherry, Jane Kent, Vineta Lagzdina, Ann Marsh, from Adelaide; Bonita Ely, Ann Fogarty, Jill Orr, Liz Paterson, from Melbourne; Joan Grounds, Jackie Lawes, Anna Paci, from Sydney, and Jan Hunter from Hobart. Documentation of performances by the above women and many others was exhibited in the gallery: this took the form of written material, videotapes, slides and installation."—Judy Annear and Aleks Danko, October 1980

Fair copy with moisture staining, damage and general tanning to extremities, rippling along spine.

File under: Cath Cherry Jane Kent Vineta Lagzdina Ann Marsh Bonita Ely Ann Fogarty Jill Orr Liz Paterson Joan Grounds Jackie Lawes Anna Paci Jan Hunter Peg Maguire Judy Annear Denise McGrath Shan Short Lorraine Bennington Helen Sherriff Joan Grounds) Aleks Danko Jan Ferrari George Paton Gallery / Parkville Australian Art Australian Photography Conceptual Art Feminism Film / Video Performance / Dance / Theater Art Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections Curatorial Sociology / Politics

Hermann Nitsch
Atlas

2018, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 16 x 24 cm
Published by A+m Bookstore / Viaindustriae

$60.00 - Out of stock

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This book looks at the work of Austrian avant-garde artist Hermann Nitsch, particularly his ritualistic and existential “public aktionen” under the Orgies Mysterien Theater. Presented through the documentation of these events as they were recorded (scored, directed, written down, photographed, published, and reported), this archiving method explores Nitsch’s performative practice, both in terms of how the performance is organised and by what means the organisation is effected by the original and primary scripts the artist prepared for his own actions. The book includes detailed materials, among them images, sketches, texts, staging, choreography, sound, and music.

File under: Hermann Nitsch A+m Bookstore / Viaindustriae Art Performance / Dance / Theater Sculpture / Installation

Günter Brus
Herzeigung / Disclosure

2023, English / German
Hardcover, 624 pages, 35.5 x 28.5 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$220.00 - In stock -

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The most comprehensive, exhaustive volume of collected works by Viennese Actionist, painter, graphic artist, experimental filmmaker and writer, Günter Brus (b. 1938).

Under the title ‘Disclosure’, what is probably in terms of its scope and quality the most outstanding private collection of Günter Brus’ work is now presented for the first time. Over the past few decades, the THP Private Foundation has built up an extensive collection of the artist’s work. This ranges from one of his first watercolours from the late 1950s through to the latest works during the lockdown of 2020. This comprehensive monograph contains major works from all of the artist’s creative periods and traces vividly the development of the exceptional artist Günter Brus from Viennese Actionist to celebrated picture-poet.

Published on occasion of the exhibition ‘Günter Brus: Disclosure – A Retrospective from the Collection of the THP Private Foundation’, 28 Oct 2022 – 5th March 2023, Neue Galerie Graz, Austria.

The exhibition was curated by Roman Grabner of Neue Galerie Graz, who edits and contributes to this book. English and German text.

Günter Brus (born 1938 in Ardning, Austria) is an Austrian artist known for his controversial films, performances, and paintings. He was notably a member of the Viennese Actionist Group alongside Otto Muehl and Hermann Nitsch. In 1960, the artist’s interest in the paintings of Jackson Pollock led his transition into making performance-based paintings regarding his own body. Many of the Viennese Actionist’s radical acts were intended as reactions to what they considered the ongoing legacy of Nazi fascism in Austrian culture. His 1968 performance Kunst und Revolution, consisted of the artist consuming his own urine, masturbating in public, and vomiting, he was subsequently jailed for six months. Brus currently lives and works in Graz, Austria.

File under: Günter Brus Roman Grabner Walther König / Köln Performance / Dance / Theater Art Drawing Film / Video Painting

Broken Music

1989, English / German / French
Softcover (w. flexi-disc), 280 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Daadgalerie / Berlin Gelbe Musik / Berlin

$280.00 - In stock -

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Rare first 1989 edition of Broken Music, an essential compendium for records created by visual artists. Complete with original flexi-disc. The publication was edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier and published in 1989 by DAAD and Gelbe Musik, Berlin. Broken Music focuses on recordings, record-objects, artwork for records, and record installations made by thousands of artists between WWII and 1989.

It also includes essays by both editors as well as Theodor W. Adorno, René Block, Jean Dubuffet, Milan Knizak, László Moholy-Nagy, Christiane Seiffert, and Hans Rudolf Zeller, as well as a flexi disc of the Arditti Quartet performing Knizak’s “Broken Music.” The centerpiece of the publication is a nearly 200-page bibliography of artists’ records.

Works chosen for the publication revolved around four criteria: (1) record covers created as original work by visual artists; (2) record or sound-producing objects (multiples/editions/sculptures); (3) books and publications that contain a record or recorded-media object; and (4) records or recorded media that have sound by visual artists.

Artists documented in the volume include Vito Acconci, albrecht/d., Laurie Anderson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Karel Appel, Arman, Hans Arp, Antonin Artaud, John Baldessari, Hugo Ball, Claus van Bebber, John Bender, Harry Bertoia, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Claus Böhmler, Christian Boltanski, KP Brehmer, William Burroughs, John Cage, Henri Chopin, Henning Christiansen, Jean Cocteau, William Copley, Philip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Hanne Darboven, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Fischli and Weiss, R. Buckminster Fuller, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Jack Goldstein, Peter Gordon, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Bernard Heidsieck, Holger Hiller, Richard Huelsenbeck, Isidore Isou, Marcel Janco, Servie Janssen, Jasper Johns, Joe Jones, Thomas Kapielski, Allan Kaprow, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Cheri Knight, Milan Knizak, Richard Kriesche, Christina Kubisch, Laibach, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Annea Lockwood, Paul McCarthy, Meredith Monk, Josef Felix Müller, Piotr Nathan, Hermann Nitsch, Albert Oehlen, Frank O’Hara, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, A.R. Penck, Tom Phillips, Robert Rauschenberg, The Red Crayola, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Gerhard Richter, Jim Rosenquist, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Robert Rutman, Sarkis, Thomas Schmit, Conrad Schnitzler, Kurt Schwitters, Selten Gehörte Musik, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Strafe für Rebellion, Jean Tinguely, Moniek Toebosch, Tristan Tzara, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, Emmett Walsh, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, and Lawrence Weiner.

Ursula Block is a curator living in Berlin, Germany. From 1981 until 2014, she ran gelbe Musik, a gallery and record shop in Berlin that featured work by artists at the crossroads between music and art. She was married to curator René Block.

Michael Glasmeier is a professor, writer, and editor living in Berlin, Germany. Since the early 1980s, he has curated dozens of shows that explore the intersection between the visual arts, music, film, and language.

Very Good copy all-round, light cover/corner wear.

File under: ×Vito Acconci albrecht/d. Laurie Anderson Karel Appel Arman Antonin Artaud John Baldessari Hugo Ball Claus van Bebber John Bender Harry Bertoia Jean-Pierre Bertrand Joseph Beuys Mel Bochner Claus Böhmler Christian Boltanski John Cage Henri Chopin Henning Christiansen Jean Cocteau William Copley Philip Corner Merce Cunningham Hanne Darboven Jim Dine Marcel Duchamp Max Ernst Lawrence Ferlinghetti Buckminster Fuller Fischli & Weiss Peter Fischli Peter Fischli & David Weiss David Weiss Allen Ginsberg Philip Glass Jack Goldstein Peter Gordon Hans Haacke Richard Hamilton Bernard Heidsieck Holger Hiller Richard Huelsenbeck Isidore Isou Marcel Janco Servie Janssen Jasper Johns Joe Jones Thomas Kapielski Allan Kaprow Martin Kippenberger Per Kirkeby Cheri Knight Milan Knizak Richard Kriesche Christina Kubisch Laibach John Lennon Sol Lewitt Roy Lichtenstein Annea Lockwood Paul McCarthy Meredith Monk Josef Felix Müller Piotr Nathan Hermann Nitsch Albert Oehlen Frank O’Hara Claes Oldenburg Yoko Ono Dennis Oppenheim Nam June Paik Charlemagne Palestine A.R. Penck Tom Phillips Robert Rauschenberg The Red Crayola Ursula Reuter Christiansen Gerhard Richter Jim Rosenquist Dieter Roth Gerhard Rühm Robert Rutman Sarkis Thomas Schmit Conrad Schnitzler Kurt Schwitters Selten Gehörte Musik Richard Serra Robert Smithson Michael Snow Keith Sonnier Strafe für Rebellion Jean Tinguely Moniek Toebosch Tristan Tzara Ben Vautier Yoshi Wada Emmett Walsh Andy Warhol William Wegman Lawrence Weiner Jean Arp (Hans Arp) K. P. Brehmer William S. Burroughs Theodor W. Adorno René Block Jean Dubuffet Milan Knizak László Moholy-Nagy Christiane Seiffert Hans Rudolf Zeller Ursula Block Michael Glasmeier Daadgalerie / Berlin Gelbe Musik / Berlin Art Conceptual Art Performance / Dance / Theater Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Counterculture Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections Curatorial Theory / Essay Fluxus Arte Povera Pop Art Sound / Music Dada Minimal Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Bauhaus Objects / Ephemera / A/V

$OUL — DÉCADA DEL 70 — INTERCÂMBIO ENTRE MAC E CAYC
Organised by Jorge Glusberg

1976, Portuguese
Double-sided fold-out, 4 panels, 47 x 30 cm (unfolded)
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo / São Paulo

$45.00 - In stock -

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Very rare fold-out catalogue for the important international art exhibition surveying conceptual art, concrete poetry, experimental art, performance art, mail art ("activity with a critical view of society") in the 1970s organized by Argentine author, publisher, curator, professor, and conceptual artist, Jorge Glusberg, who was director of the Center for Art and Communication of Buenos Aires (CAYC). With text by Brazilian professor, historian, art critic and curator by Walter Zanini, director of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de Sao Paulo (MAC). With a number of the exhibited heliographic documents from the exhibition illustrated throughout, the brochure catalogues the exhibited works by participants including: Dan Graham, Lawrence Weiner, Genesis P-Orridge, Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden, Öyvind Fahlström, Július Koller, Tim Ullrichs, Luis Fernando Benedit, Jaime Davidovich, Jorge Glusberg, Víctor Grippo, Lea Lublin, Luis Pazos, Julio Plaza, Jonier Marin, Jiří Valoch, Guillermo Deisler, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Manuel Barbadillo, MH de Ossorno, Valcárcel Medina, Felipe Ehrenberg, César Bolaños, Pawel Petasz, José Urbach, Lydia Okumura, Haroldo González, Les Levine, and many others.

Very Good copy with light wear.

File under: Dan Graham Lawrence Weiner Genesis P-Orridge Ian Burn Mel Ramsden Öyvind Fahlström Július Koller Walter Zanini Jorge Glusberg Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo / São Paulo Out-of-print / Rare Conceptual Art Concrete Poetry Art Group Shows / Collections Pop Art Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Performance / Dance / Theater Curatorial Film / Video Fluxus Minimal Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Painting Photography Poetry Protest / Revolt Sound / Music

Selected Prose Of Heinrich Von Kleist
by Heinrich Von Kleist

2010 / 2022, English
Softcover, 283 pages, ‎18 x 15.24 cm
Published by Archipelago Books / New York

$32.00 - Out of stock

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In this extraordinary and unpredictable cross-section of the work of one of the most influential free spirits of German letters, Peter Wortsman captures the breathlessness and power of Heinrich von Kleist's transcendent prose. These tales, essays, and fragments move across inner landscapes, exploring the shaky bridges between reason and feeling and the frontiers between the human psyche and the divine. From the "The Earthquake in Chile," his damning invective against moral tyranny; to "Michael Kohlhaas," an exploration of the extreme price of justice; to "The Marquise of O . . . ," his twist on the mythic triumph of love story; to his essay "On the Gradual Formulation of Thoughts While Speaking," which tracks the movements of the unconscious decades before Freud; Kleist unrelentingly confronts the dangers of self-deception and the ultimate impossibility of existence in a world of absolutes. Wortsman's illuminating afterword demystifies Kleist's vexed history, explaining how the century after his death saw Kleist's legacy transformed from that of a largely derided playwright into a literary giant who would inspire Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka. The concerns of Heinrich von Kleist are timeless. The mysteries in his fiction and visionary essays still breathe.

“Kleist’s narrative language is something completely unique. It is not enough to read it as historical – even in his day nobody wrote as he did. . . . An impetus squeezed out with iron, absolutely un-lyrical detachment brings forth tangled, knotted, overloaded sentences painfully soldered together . . . and driven by a breathless tempo.”–Thomas Mann

“Kleist was one of the first of a line of German writers whose inwardness is so intense it seems to dissolve the weak bonds of his society. . . . Even as order and paternalism struggled to assert themselves in the private and public life of the nineteenth century, Kleist was introducing scenes of mob violence, cannibalism, and less than benevolent fathers.”–Times Literary Supplement

File under: Heinrich von Kleist Peter Wortsman Archipelago Books / New York Fiction / Poetry Poetry Performance / Dance / Theater Theory / Essay Eros

KATHY ACKER: GET RID OF MEANING

2022, English
Softcover, 400 pages, 25 x 34 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$89.00 $60.00 - In stock -

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An essential compendium on the work, life and legacy of the transgressive autofiction pioneer.

The American author Kathy Acker was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Working through a tradition spanning Bataille, Burroughs, Schneemann, French critical theory and pornography, she wrote numerous novels, essays, poems and novellas from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, among them the classics The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula, Blood and Guts in High School and In Memoriam to Identity. A truly pioneering postmodernist, plagiarist and postpunk feminist, Acker continues to inspire generations of writers, philosophers and artists, from her contemporaries such as Dodie Bellamy, Avital Ronell, McKenzie Wark and Chris Kraus to younger writers such as Bhanu Kapil and Olivia Laing.

Get Rid of Meaning is the first comprehensive publication to synthesize art and literary perspectives on Acker's work. It shows Acker's own visual sensibility in her cut-up notebooks and her use of mail-art idioms, and orients her emergence within the 1970s art scenes in New York and California populated by Eleanor Antin, Lynn Hershman Leeson and Constance DeJong, among others--artists who made innovations in performance, of which Acker would make use.

Also included is previously unpublished material from Acker's personal archive and other collections, including correspondence, her library and various personal effects.

Contributors include: Kathy Acker, Dodie Bellamy, Hanjo Berressem, Ruth Buchanan, Anja Casser, Georgina Colby, Leslie Dick, Claire Finch, Johnny Golding, Anja Kirschner, Chris Kraus, Sylvère Lotringer, Douglas A. Martin, Jason McBride, Karolin Meunier and Kerstin Stakemeier, Avital Ronell, Daniel Schulz, Matias Viegener and McKenzie Wark.

File under: Kathy Acker Walther König / Köln Art Feminism Performance / Dance / Theater Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Fiction / Poetry Transgressive / Visceral / Abject SALE

Jan Švankmajer
Švankmajer's Museum : Tactile Art, Objects, Collages

2001, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 164 pages, 25.8 x 19.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Kokusho Kankokai / Japan

$100.00 - Out of stock

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First edition of this wonderful hardcover monographic survey on the work of Czech Surrealist artist, puppeteer, animator, and filmmaker, Jan Švankmajer (b. Prague, 1934), published in Japan in 2001. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and b/w with chapters dedicated to his sculpture, collage, ceramics, “tactile experiments”, and much more. Well-known for his dark re-imaginings of well-known fairy tales and for his avant-garde merging of live action, stop-motion animation and puppetry, Švankmajer is one of the most distinctive and acclaimed Czech filmmakers. Since the mid-1960s, his films have shocked, mesmerized, repulsed and delighted audiences, amassing international cult-like following. His prolific work off-screen across assemblage and collage mediums, using both man-made and organic materials, share the central thematic elements of his subversive films, such as black humour, metamorphosis, sex, decomposition, mythology, scatology, death, humour and the absurd. Over 300 illustrations with texts by Hideto Fuse, Maki Kumagai, Petr Holly, Jan Švankmajer.

Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.

File under: Jan Svankmajer Eva Švankmajerová Kokusho Kankokai / Japan Art Sculpture / Installation Drawing Film / Video Out-of-print / Rare Surrealism Performance / Dance / Theater Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Ceramics / Glass Transgressive / Visceral / Abject

Tetsumi Kudo
Pollution, Cultivation, New Ecology, Your Portrait

1972, Dutch
Softcover, 32 pages, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Stedelijk Museum / Amsterdam

$140.00 - Out of stock

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Catalogue produced on the occasion of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo's exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 25 Feb - 9 April 1972. "Pollution, Cultivation, New Ecology, Your Portrait", designed by Wim Crouwel (Total Design), features beautiful photo documentation of the artist's works of sculptural assemblage, his happenings, installations, etc. along with texts in Dutch, all wrapped in an original two-colour silk-screened card cover of drawings by Tetsumi Kudo. Scarce.

In his wide-ranging practice, Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo (1935–1990) promoted environmental awareness through found object assemblages, reminiscent of gardens, and cubes that seemed to contain vast inner worlds in states of metamorphosis. A staunch antimodernist, he freely sampled abject imagery, like feces, eyeballs, breasts, and penises, presented in combination with household objects, transistors, and early electronics, to criticize the rampant consumerism of the postwar recovery. Kudo, who was an early proponent of performance-based painting, was an important figure of Tokyo’s “Anti-Art” movement before relocating to Paris in 1962, where he gained recognition for the Happenings he staged and began making art in the vein of Nouveau Réalisme. His lasting legacy can be traced in such artists as Paul McCarthy and Takashi Murakami, who once called him “the father of us all.”

Very Good copy.

File under: Tetsumi Kudo Stedelijk Museum / Amsterdam Art Out-of-print / Rare Sculpture / Installation Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Performance / Dance / Theater

Oskar Kokoschka: The Painter As a Playwright
by Henry I. Schvey

1983, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 164 pages, 23.5 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Wayne State University / Detroit

$50.00 - In stock -

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First 1983 hardcover edition.

The Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) is primarily known as an exponent of Expressionism in the visual arts, through his paintings and through his graphics. His role in the history of modern German drama has rarely been acknowledged, although he was the author of five plays, written over a period of fifty years. Murderer Hope of Women, The Burning Bush, Job, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Comenius are dramatic visual spectacles on themes recurrent in Kokoschka's paintings and graphic work.

Oskar Kokoschka: The Painter as Playwright focuses on the visual elements of the stage works, specifically on the use of color, light, and scenic imagery in their dramatic as well as their symbolic function. It pays close attention to the stylistically and thematically related pictorial works and takes account of Kokoschka's illustrations for each of his plays.

This is the first complete critical discussion of Kokoschka's dramas to appear in any language; it is also the first consideration of Kokoschka's work from an interdisciplinary perspective. Included are over fifty photographs, many of them in color. The text is based on much previously unpublished information, the result of the author's many hours of recorded interviews with Kokoschka and his extensive correspondence with Kokoschka's wife, Olda.

This study eloquently shows the paintings, graphics, and dramas of Oskar Kokoschka to be one "language of images" and identifies him as one of the foremost innovators of twentieth-century theater, the first German Expressionist dramatist.

Good—VG copy, general overall wear, small closed tear to jacket top-back.

File under: Oskar Kokoschka Henry I. Schvey Wayne State University / Detroit Out-of-print / Rare Performance / Dance / Theater Painting Drawing Art Theory / Essay

Jean Cocteau: The Juggler’s Revenge
THE JUGGLER’S REVENGE

2024, English
Hardcover, 224 pages, 26.7 x 20.3 cm
Published by Marsilio / Venice

$90.00 - In stock -

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Rediscovering Cocteau’s artistic output, from perfume boxes to sketches of Peggy Guggenheim. Edited with text by Kenneth E. Silver. Text by Blake Oetting.

The multifaceted and surprising artist Jean Cocteau was undoubtedly one of the major figures of the Paris cultural scene in the years between the World Wars. In addition to his literary works, Cocteau was a brilliant visual artist: draftsman, filmmaker and muralist and fashion, jewelry and textile designer. The Juggler’s Revenge embraces the versatility for which the artist was often criticized by his contemporaries, retracing the development of his aesthetics and the key moments of his tumultuous life through works created by a variety of techniques and mediums.

Attention is paid to his ambivalent relationship with Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism, as well as his central role in the “new classicism” of Europe between the wars. A selection of surprising drawings highlights the centrality of desire and sensuality in Cocteau’s practice. His little-studied fashion and jewelry designs show the artist’s incorporation of “high” and “low” culture. This volume corresponds with an exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, an appropriate setting through which to explore his work. Cocteau had close ties with Guggenheim, who in 1938 opened her first gallery with an exhibition of his drawings. He also had a great love for the city itself, traveling there for the first time at the age of 15 and returning regularly for the Film Festival in the years following World War II.

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) was an author, artist, film director and a key member of French avant-garde culture. Cocteau preferred to be called a poet and referred to his various works as different forms of poetry. He collaborated with dozens of artists throughout his career, including Erik Satie, Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso.

File under: Jean Cocteau Jean Cocteau Kenneth E. Silver Blake Oetting Marsilio / Venice Surrealism Art Drawing LGBTQ+ Eros Fiction / Poetry Painting Ceramics / Glass Performance / Dance / Theater Film / Video

The Aesthetics of Murder: A Study in Romantic Literature and Contemporary Culture
by Joel Black

1991, English
Softcover, 304 pages, 23 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by John Hopkins University Press / Baltimore

$45.00 - Out of stock

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First 1991 John Hopkins edition.

What connects the Romantic essays of Thomas De Quincey and the violent cinema of Brian De Palma? Or the "beautiful" suicides of Hedda Gabler and Yukio Mishima? Or the shootings of John Lennon and Ronald Reagan? In The Aesthetics of Murder, Joel Black explores the sometimes gruesome interplay between life and art, between actual violence and images of violence in a variety of literary texts, paintings, and films.

Rather than exclude murder from critical consideration by dismissing it as a crime, Black urges us to ponder the killer's artistic role—and our own experience as audience, witness, or voyeur. Black examines murder as a recurring, obsessive theme in the Romantic tradition, approaching the subject from an aesthetic rather than a moral, psychological, or philosophical perspective. And he brings into his discussion contemporary instances of sensational murders and assassinations, treating these as mimetic or cathartic activities in their own right.

Combining historical documentation with theoretical insights, Black shows that the possibilities of representing violence—and of experiencing it—as art were recognized early in the nineteenth century as logical extensions of Romantic theories of the sublime. Since then, both traditional art forms and the modern mass media have contributed to the growing aestheticization of violence.

Very Good copy, light wear.

File under: Brian De Palma René Magritte Thomas de Quincey Yukio Mishima John Hopkins University Press / Baltimore Surrealism Crime / Violence Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy Film / Video Fiction / Poetry Art Performance / Dance / Theater Sociology / Politics

SPECTRES Volume 4
A Thousand Voices

2024, French / English
Softcover, 256 pages, 13.5 x 20 cm
Published by Shelter Press / France

$40.00 - In stock -

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The voice is everywhere, infiltrating everything, making civilisation, marking out territories with infinite borders, spreading from the farthest reaches to the most intimate spaces. It can be neither reduced nor summarised. And accordingly, when taken as a theme, the voice is inexhaustible, even when seen in the light of its very particular relation with the sonic or the musical, as is the case in most of the texts collected in this volume. There is no point therefore in trying to circumscribe or amalgamate the multiple avatars of the voice. We must rather try to apprehend what the voice can do, to envisage its landscape, its potential effects.

Authors: Francois J. Bonnet, John Giorno, David Grubbs, Yannick Guedon, Lee Gamble, Sarah Hennies, Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix, Stine Janvin, Joan La Barbara, Youmna Saba, Akira Sakata, Pierre Schaeffer, Peter Szendy, Ghedalia Tazartes

File under: Shelter Press / France Periodicals Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Sound / Music Art Performance / Dance / Theater

Silvestar Club 6

1987, Japanese
Softcover, 176 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo

$120.00 - In stock -

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The 1987 "Noise" issue of cult Japanese underground magazine Silvestar Club, published and edited by Yuichi Konno and Atelier Peyotl (publishers of Night Vision/Yaso/Peyotl/Wave...). Features Zoviet France, H.N.A.S., Nurse with Wound, SPK, Etant Donnes, P16.D4, M.B. / Maurizio Bianchi, Sema / Robert Haigh, Coil, Whitehouse, Current 93, Chris & Cosey, Monte Cazazza, Throbbing Gristle, Genesis P-Orridge, Organum, Nocturnal Emissions, Tamia, Ramleh, Club Moral, Esplendor Geometico, Lustmord, Mnemonists, Die Tödliche Doris, The Hafler Trio, Cranioclast, Cabaret Voltaire, Zos-Kia, Test Department, Diamanda Galas, Z'ev, Danielle Dax, and much more. Articles on iconic live performances by Wire and Dome, plus essays by music critic, editor (Rock Magazine, Ego, et al) and Vanity label owner Yuzuru Agi; noise artist Merzbow's Masami Akita; experimental musician Keiji Haino; noise artist Toshiji Mikawa; experimental programmer Ryoichiro Debuchi; plus Tokyo Grand Guignol Theater group artists Norimizu Ameya and Kyusaku Shimada; theatre director Koharu Kisaragi; computer graphics artist for films Haruhiko Shono; visual artist Seiko Mikami; music critic Kuniharu Akiyama... ! Discographies, performance documentation, related artworks, record sleeves, flyers, and much more, printed across multiple raw paper stocks. A must! A perfect pre-cursor (and certainly as good as) Masami Akita's Noise War book of 1992. Texts in Japanese.

Very Good—Fine copy.

File under: Masami Akita (Merzbow) Norimizu Ameya Kyusaku Shimada Koharu Kisaragi Haruhiko Shono Seiko Mikami Keiji Haino Toshiji Mikawa Ryoichiro Debuchi Tokyo Grand Guignol Theater Group MB (Maurizio Bianchi) Maurizio Bianchi (MB) Sema (Robert Haigh) Zoviet France H.N.A.S. Nurse with Wound SPK Etant Donnes P16.D4 Genesis P-Orridge Coil Whitehouse Current 93 Throbbing Gristle Organum Nocturnal Emissions Tamia Ramleh Club Moral Monte Cazazza Chris and Cosey Cosey Fanni Tutti Lustmord Mnemonists Die Tödliche Doris The Hafler Trio Cranioclast Cabaret Voltaire Zos-Kia Test Department Diamanda Galas Z'ev Danielle Dax Masami Akita (Merzbow) Kuniharu Akiyama Yuzuru Agi Atelier Peyotl / Tokyo Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Art Film / Video Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Theory / Essay Counterculture Transgressive / Visceral / Abject

Dada: Art and Anti-Art
by Hans Richter

1965, English
Softcover, 246 pages, 20.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Harry N. Abrams / New York

$30.00 - Out of stock

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First 1965 English edition of German Dada painter, graphic artist, avant-garde film producer, and art historian, Hans Richter's important book of the Dada movement. "Where and how Dada began is almost as difficult to determine as Homer's birthplace" writes Hans Richter, who was associated with Dada from its early days. The noted artist and film-maker records here the history of that boisterous and fantastic movement, from its beginnings in wartime Zurich to its collapse in the Paris of the 1920s Dada invited the world to misunderstand it and fostered all kinds of confusion; nearly fifty years later its contradictions still intrigue us.

By skilful quotation from manifestoes and other documents of the time Professor Richter re-creates the events of those turbulent days. Looked at in retrospect Dada's role in the development of modern art seems inevitable, and the creative force of its planned outbursts can now be perceived: Dada led on from Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism, and in its turn prepared the way for Surrealism. Dada was enlivened by extravagant, bizarre personalities: Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray. Today the wheel has turned again; the gestures and provocations of the original movement reappear, hardly changed, in such forms as Pop art. The final section discusses this phenomenon.

"Mr.Richter, one of the original adherents of Dada, describes their attitude in a first-rate history, as objective and sober as the laughter was once derisive."—THE TIMES OF LONDON

Very Good copy, light wear to extremities, tanning to covers.

File under: Hans Richter Tristan Tzara Francis Picabia Hans Arp Kurt Schwitters Marcel Duchamp Max Ernst Man Ray Raoul Hausmann George Grosz Giorgio de Chirico Marcel Janco Hans Richter Tristan Tzara Louis Aragon Andre Breton André Breton Richard Huelsenbeck Philippe Soupault Harry N. Abrams / New York Dada Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Painting Drawing Performance / Dance / Theater Photography Sociology / Politics Protest / Revolt Art 'Pataphysics / Oulipo

Semiotext(e) Vol. III, No. 2, 1978 — Schizo-Culture

1978, English
Softcover, 226 pages, 25.5 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$200.00 - Out of stock

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Rare copy of the breakthrough "Schizo-Culture" issue of the original Semiotext(e) journal, published and edited by Sylvère Lotringer between 1974—1985, with later book-length issues appearing in the 1990s. This historical, controversial issue, “consummated the magazine’s rupture with academe”—Sylvère Lotringer. "Schizo-Culture' was published in the wake of the legendary 1975 “Schizo-Culture” conference, conceived by the early Semiotext(e) collective, that began as an attempt to introduce the then-unknown radical philosophies of post-’68 France to the American avant-garde. The event featured a series of seminal papers, from Deleuze’s first presentation of the concept of the “rhizome” to Foucault’s introduction of his History of Sexuality project. The conference was equally important on a political level, and brought together a diverse group of activists, thinkers, patients, and ex-cons in order to address the challenge of penal and psychiatric institutions. The combination proved to be explosive, but amid the fighting and confusion “Schizo-Culture” revealed deep ruptures in left politics, French thought, and American culture. The “Schizo-Culture” issue of the Semiotext(e) journal came three years later. Designed by a group of artists and filmmakers including Kathryn Bigelow and Denise Green with schizophrenia type/image-setting, the issue’s contributors included a kind of who’s who of New York’s downtown art scene (Jack Smith, William S. Burroughs, Kathy Acker...), documenting the artistic chaos, offering interviews with artists, theorists, writers, and No Wave and pre-punk musicians together with new texts from Deleuze, Lyotard, Foucault, Laing, and other conference participants and key “French theory” figures. It also featured a delirious essay about markings on the savage body, by one Alphonso F. Lingis; an intimate interview with a member of an all-female street gang in the Bronx; and a detailed history of behavior-modification programs inside US correctional institutions (post-Attica), written from inside by prisoner activist Eddie Griffin. Gary Indiana has said that reading “Schizo-Culture” was one of the things that made it clear to him that he would inevitably move to New York.

Includes: Michel Foucault, Robert Wilson, Francois Peraldi, Guy Hocquenghem, The Ramones, William S. Burroughs, Louis Wolfson, Lee Breuer, Eddie Griffin, Wendy Clark, Elie C. Messinger, David Cooper, Martine Barrat, John Giorno, Alphonso F. Lingis, Bernard-Henri Levy, Kathy Acker, Richard Foreman, André Cadere, Ulrike Meinhof, Gilles Deleuze, John Cage, Pat Steir , Jean-Jacques Abrahams, Phil Glass, Jack Smith, Jean Francois Lyotard, Douglas Dunn, and others...

Good copy with age wear, marking and tanning to raw stocks.

File under: Robert Wilson The Ramones Lee Breuer Kathryn Bigelow Denise Green André Cadere John Cage Philip Glass Jack Smith Richard Foreman Jean-François Lyotard Michel Foucault Robert Wilson Francois Peraldi Guy Hocquenghem Kathy Acker Louis Wolfson Lee Breuer Eddie Griffin Wendy Clark Elie C. Messinger David Cooper Martine Barrat John Giorno Alphonso F. Lingis Bernard-Henri Levy Ulrike Meinhof Gilles Deleuze Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari Felix Guattari John Cage Jean-Jacques Abrahams Douglas Dunn Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Counterculture Feminism Film / Video Art Philosophy Fiction / Poetry Anarchism Sociology / Politics Socialism / Communism / Capitalism Drugs / Psychedelia Psychoanalysis Out-of-print / Rare Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Eros Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+ Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Performance / Dance / Theater Sound / Music Theory / Essay

Semiotext(e) The German Issue
Edited by Sylvère Lotringer

1982, English
Softcover, 336 pages, 255.5 x 17.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$100.00 - In stock -

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Rare copy of one of the remarkable special book issues of the original Semiotext(e) journal — the Semiotext(e) The German Issue, published in 1982, edited by Sylvère Lotringer, featuring the work of Joseph Beuys, Michel Foucault, Christo, Christa Wolf, Walter Abish, Alexander Kluge, Paul Virilio, Ulrilke Meinhof, William Burroughs, Jean Baudrillard, Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Maurice Blanchot, Hans Jürgen Syberberg, Heidegger, Félix Guattari, Fritz Teufel, André Gorz, Helke Sander...

First edition. Not the 2009 reprint.

The German Issue (1982) was originally conceived as a follow-up to Semiotext(e)’s Autonomia/Italy issue, published two years earlier. Although ideological terrorism was still a major issue in Germany, what ultimately emerged from these pages was an investigation of two outlaw cities, Berlin and New York, which embodied all the tensions and contradictions of the world at the time. The German Issue is the Tale of Two Cities, then, with each city separated from its own country by an invisible wall of suspicion or even hatred. It is also the complex evocation of the rebelling youth—squatters, punks, artists and radicals, theorists and ex-terrorists—who gathered all their energy and creativity in order to outlive a hostile environment.

Like a time capsule, The German Issue brings together all the major "issues" that were being debated on both sides of the Atlantic—which eventually found their abrupt resolution in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. It involved the most important voices of the period—from writers and filmmakers to anthropologists, activists and poets, terrorists and philosophers. The book opens with Christo's “Wrapping Up of Germany” and the celebrated dialogue between East German dramaturge Heiner Müller and Sylvère Lotringer on the Wall (“Mauer”). Since it has been published in many languages, The German Issue offers a first-hand account of the Western world on the threshold of a major global mutation.

Founded in 1974, Semiotext(e) began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylvère Lotringer at the Columbia University philosophy department. Initially, the magazine was devoted to readings of thinkers like Nietzsche and Saussure. In 1978, Lotringer and his collaborators published a special issue, Schizo-Culture, in the wake of a conference of the same name he had organized two years before at Columbia University. The magazine brought together artists and thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Kathy Acker, John Cage, Michel Foucault, Jack Smith, Martine Barrat and Lee Breuer. Schizo-Culture brought out connections between high theory and underground culture that had not yet been made, and forged the "high/low" aesthetic that remains central to the Semiotext(e) project.

Good—Very Good copy with general cover wear.

File under: Joseph Beuys Christo Joseph Beuys Michel Foucault Christo Christa Wolf Walter Abish Alexander Kluge Paul Virilio Ulrilke Meinhof William Burroughs Jean Baudrillard Hans Magnus Enzenberger Maurice Blanchot Hans Jürgen Syberberg André Gorz Helke Sander Martin Heidegger Félix Guattari Fritz Teufel SylveÌre Lotringer Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Sociology / Politics Socialism / Communism / Capitalism Out-of-print / Rare Anarchism Art Conceptual Art Fiction / Poetry Philosophy Psychoanalysis Crime / Violence Feminism Fluxus Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Performance / Dance / Theater Periodicals Theory / Essay Protest / Revolt

Javier Maderuelo
UNA MUSICA PARA LOS 80 / A MUSIC FOR THE 80's

1981, Spanish
Softcover, 104 pages, 17 x 12 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Editorial Garsi / Madrid

$70.00 - In stock -

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Very rare copy of UNA MUSICA PARA LOS 80 by Spanish experimental composer, poet and art critic Javier Maderuelo (b. 1950), published in 1981 in Madrid by Editorial Garsi. This essential compact chronicle was written by Maderuelo to introduce the phenomenon of so-called contemporary music in Spain (electroacoustic, musique concrète, experimental, ambient, sound art, et al.) and analyse the varied positions of its leading protagonists, such as the Zaj group, Suso Sáiz, Eduardo Polonio, Llorenç Balsach, Amadeu Marin, Llorenç Barber, Carles Santos, José Iges, Antoni Caimari, Pedro Estevan, Josep Lluís Berenguer Moreno, Javier Maderuelo (himself a member of studio Alea between 1973-1977 and the musical movement Elenfante), amongst others. With critical overviews, profiles, discographies, bibliographies, chronologies of exhibitions and concerts, this is indeed a vital document on Spanish avant-garde sound c. 1970—1981.

Javier Maderuelo (Madrid, 1950) became interested in experimental poetry and art in 1972 under the influence of Fernando Millán, José Luis Castillejo and Felipe Boso, as well as artists like Elena Asins, Juan Hidalgo and Javier Aguirre, with whom he collaborated. He began producing typewritten poems and collages with texts extracted from newspapers, which converge in the unpublished book Arte Cisoria (1981). Felipe Boso introduced him to the world of phonetic poetry and with Pedro Estevan and María Villa he cofounded the Glotis Group (1979), dedicated to disseminating both the work of avant-garde poets, as well as neo-avant-garde works, some of them expressly written for Glotis. As a composer, he worked at the electronic music studio Alea (1973-1977) and was part of the musical movement Elenfante. He was a member of the Seminar of Analysis and Automatic Generation of Musical Forms, run by Florentino Briones, collaborating on the SIMO concerts. At the end of the eighties he abandoned poetic and musical creation to devote himself to an academic career.

Very Good copy with cover wrap cleanly disconnected from book block (old glue), tanned spine, otherwise VG throughout.

File under: Zaj group Suso Sáiz Eduardo Polonio Llorenç Balsach Amadeu Marin Llorenç Barber Carles Santos José Iges Antoni Caimari Pedro Estevan Josep Lluís Berenguer Moreno Javier Maderuelo Walter Marchetti John Cage Editorial Garsi / Madrid Sound / Music Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Art Performance / Dance / Theater Concrete Poetry

The Geijutsu Seikatsu No. 291, Nov 1973
"Doll Love" Special Feature

1973, Japanese
Softcover, 182 pages, 25.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by The Geijutsu Seikatsu / Tokyo

$70.00 - Out of stock

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Magnificent "Doll Love" Special Feature issue of The Geijutsu Seikatsu, one of the leading arts magazines in post-war Japan, with a cover feature shot by Kishin Shinoyama on Japanese doll master Simon Yotsuya. From Hans Bellmer to Hajime Sawatari's doll photography to the Ayakashi Doll Museum shot by Shigeo Anzaï to the metaphysics of "Doll Love" written by the great Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, this issue is filled with photographic features and articles on doll artists, doll museums, western automatons, karakuri dolls... plus a photo feature on Nakamura Utaemon, considered the greatest onnagata (male actors who play female roles in kabuki theatre) of the post-War period ("a divine messenger given to kabuki from heaven"), performing the legendary Japanese ghost story "Yotsuya Kaida", and much much more (Kobayashi Kiyochika, Tadanori Yokoo, Hisako Nishino, Yasufumi Konishi, Yosuke Inoue...). Always a treasure-trove!

Good copy with some wear and creases to covers.

File under: Masuo Ikeda Hans Bellmer Hajime Sawatari Kishin Shinoyama Simon Yotsuya Tadanori Yokoo Francisco de Goya Yosuke Inoue Shigeo Anzai Kobayashi Kiyochika Hisako Nishino Yasufumi Konishi Nakamura Utaemon Tatsuhiko Shibusawa The Geijutsu Seikatsu / Tokyo Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare Art Painting Performance / Dance / Theater Sculpture / Installation Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Surrealism Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Japanese Photography Occult / Esoterica Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Let It Bleed: Essays 1985—1995
by Gary Indiana

1996, English
Softcover, 246 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Serpent's Tail / London

$40.00 - Out of stock

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First 1996 edition of this long out-of-print collection of essays by Gary Indiana, "One of the most important chroniclers of the modern psyche."—The Guardian

Gary Indiana's essays, like his fiction, take no prisoners. In his fifteen years of writing cultural criticism, he has altered the way we look at ourselves and our society. Ignoring good taste, Indiana writes discomforting home truths, because his views of home are unique and never comfortable. His insights are acute, brash, bracing, intelligent; his subjects and speculations range from Rodney King's beating to Mary McCarthy's friendship with Hannah Arendt to the presidential campaign of 1992. Let It Bleed collects for the first time some of the most engaging, provocative, and exciting writing that has been seen and produced in a long time.

Good—VG with light wear/creasing to covers.

File under: Gary Indiana Serpent's Tail / London LGBTQ+ Theory / Essay Film / Video Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry Art Sociology / Politics Performance / Dance / Theater

Fun to be Dead: The Poems of Bob Flanagan
by Bob Flanagan

2024, English
Softcover, 170 pages, 25 x 15 cm
First Edition,
Published by Pep Talk / Los Angeles

$75.00 - In stock -

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The first complete collection of Bob Flanagan’s poetry, edited by Sabrina Tarasoff and with contributions by Jack Skelley, Sheree Rose, Chiara Moioli, David Trinidad, Dodie Bellamy, and Dennis Cooper.

Cause for celebration: Bob Flanagan’s tortured, elegant poetry is finally back in print! Alive with carnality, love, abjection, relentless self-exposure and fatalist laughs, these poems are as fresh and stunning as when they were first written. Bob's work lays bare the eroticism of punishment and the punishing possibilities of the erotic. Every meticulously chosen word between these covers drips with blood, cum and tears.—Amy Gerstler, author of Index of Women, Bitter Angel, and Early Heaven

Bob Flanagan makes me sick and I love it. Is there a right way to be ill? I dunno. Probably you’re meant to keep quiet or frighten anybody too much, just be a strung-out angel in waiting, please. This is very much fucking not what Bob Flanagan did. He took his wrecked body, his pain, his urges and, yup, his death, everything that he was supposed to keep to himself, and he turned it into work that’s ferociously alive, hilarious, strange. In these poems, he’s singing to you in the back of the ambulance while the dogs prowl outside and ‘the sky glows orange like a match.’ It’s beautiful, it hurts.—Charlie Fox, author of This Young Monster

Bob Flanagan (1952—1996) was an American poet and performance artist known for his work on sadomasochism and lifelong struggle with cystic fibrosis. Flanagan's first volumes came into being in the context of a small contemporary poetry and art scene orbiting the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, CA in the early 1980s, which included poets and writers such as Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Ed Smith, Jack Skelley, and David Trinidad, amongst others. Flanagan's body of work came to occupy a unique position within their cohort as the poems evoked a personal vocabulary of illness, death and restraint through the poet's edgy, endearing, quirky sense of humor and mischievous spirit. Spirit Halloween, Americana, and pop culture act as the inexpressible backdrop for a performative, comic poetic practice in close dialogue with poets such as Charles Bukowski Ted Berrigan, John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and Ron Koertge. Though a portion of the work remains unfinished in the wake of Flanagan's death in 1996, the legacy left by these poems is undoubtedly one of the more important, surprising, heartbreaking, wacky, and profoundly original contributions to American verse of the period.

File under: Bob Flanagan Sabrina Tarasoff Jack Skelley Sheree Rose Chiara Moioli David Trinidad Dodie Bellamy Dennis Cooper Pep Talk / Los Angeles Poetry Performance / Dance / Theater Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Eros Fetishism / BDSM

Dispersed Events. Selected Writings
by Nick Mauss

2024, English
Softcover, 296 pages, 12 x 18.5 cm
Published by After 8 Books / Paris

$48.00 - Out of stock

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Dispersed Events brings together for the first time Nick Mauss’ essays from the last fifteen years. Shimmering with the urgency of a new generation of queer thinkers, Mauss’ writing refracts contemporary art through histories of decorative art, film, theater, and dance.

An artist renowned for critically and poetically reconfiguring inherited genealogies and hierarchies of visual culture and art history, Mauss engages writing as a space for relentlessly activating counter-histories, repositioning the voice of the artist and the readers along the way. Whether he considers the practice of artist Lorraine O’Grady, the radical fashion of Susan Cianciolo, the anarcho-vaudevillian theater of Reza Abdoh, or the potential for textiles to disclose a different way of thinking, Mauss insists on the intense power of forms and feelings in their actual rather than enforced prehistories. Reevaluating experiments in fashion, dance, and the decorative arts on the same plane as painting, sculpture and cinema, he locates art as taking shape in the middle of conversations—“between art history and any afternoon.”

“Among what might initially appear, following Mauss, ‘a wildly inscrutable web of lineages,’ the reader quickly perceives unexpected, unheralded, conjunctions: affiliations, alignments, and affinities. . . . It generates a conviction that, in the best sense, is partisan. Singular, independent, illuminating.”—from the foreword by Lynne Cooke

“What I adore in this book is first that it doesn’t abide by any category, nor proposes any definition for what queer art or culture could be or for what research in art history should be, even expanded to certain comforting genealogies or influences.
On the contrary, the actual disparity of “events” is at the core of the book, and shapes its narrative. It allows Nick Mauss to associate, affiliate, link and weave a “widely inscrutable web,” in which the author and the reader shift their positions and points of view, constantly redirecting the conversation. What I adore in this book is that Nick Mauss tells what art, whatever it is, does to him.”—Elisabeth Lebovici

“In these cruel times, when too many operate as if ignorance, popularity, and money set the metronome of meaning, Nick Mauss, beneficent as Mother Ginger, lifts a flounce to release his polichinelles of untimely thinking. Easy to imagine Tina Chow and Edwin Denby, critical representatives of the knowing hereafter, nodding their approval at these keen syncopations to now’s drab, monocultural rhythm.”—Bruce Hainley

“These pages are written through a sensuous eye; encounters with art are laid bare and made tactile. With an insistent curiosity that is generous and imagistic, Mauss makes contemporaries of predecessors, creating connective tendrils and textures that generatively rupture the past. I cannot help but feel that the artworks and practices written about here love and revel in being witnessed and revisited by Mauss. They are seen-touched and responded to without closure or fixity; in the artist’s words, they ‘'cast long shadows forward.”—Lotus L. Kang

“This is the book I want to be reading right now.”—Josephine Pryde

Edited by Antonia Carrara and Benjamin Thorel.
Foreword by Lynne Cooke.
Design by Marco Caroti.

File under: Nick Mauss Lynne Cooke Antonia Carrara Benjamin Thorel Nick Mauss After 8 Books / Paris Art Theory / Essay Performance / Dance / Theater LGBTQ+ Painting Fashion

WYNDHAM LEWIS : FICTIONS AND SATIRES
by Robert T. Chapman

1978, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 192 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Vision / London

$25.00 - In stock -

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First 1973 hardcover edition of WYNDHAM LEWIS : FICTIONS AND SATIRES by Robert T. Chapman.

Wyndham Lewis played a leading part in the cultural life of England at the beginning of this century. Setting himself up as 'The Enemy', he vociferously opposed Establishment art and received opinion, and for fifty years iconoclastically attacked modish dilettantism and falsity. Novelist, painter, editor, poet, dramatist, critic, philosopher — Lewis was the most versatile of the 'men of 1914', yet his reputation has long been overshadowed by Pound, Eliot and Joyce, and he is only just beginning to be accepted as one of the major figures in twentieth-century literature.

This study concentrates on Lewis as an imaginative writer, and, whilst his philosophy, polemics and paint ing are considered whenever relevant, the major novels are given central importance. The approach is chronological and aims to reveal the development of Lewis's art from the Bergsonian physical comedy of the early stories, through the Vorticist period, the social satires of the Thirties, to the late non-fiction stories and the new mythology of

The Human Age. Formerly a post-graduate assistant in the Department of English at the New University of Ulster, Robert Chapman is at present completing his doctoral thesis on aesthetics in the modern novel and working for the Open University.

VG copy in G dust jacket with closed tears and rubbing wear.

File under: Wyndham Lewis Wyndham Lewis Robert T. Chapman Vision / London Art Sociology / Politics Fiction / Poetry Painting Theory / Essay Philosophy Performance / Dance / Theater Poetry Out-of-print / Rare Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language