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:
CLOSED FOR SUMMER.
RE-OPENING 01.02.24
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
Theory / Essay
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Curatorial
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Signed Books
World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
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Dada
'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
Concrete Poetry
Pop Art
Surrealism
Arte Povera
Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
Ceramics / Glass
Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
Anarchism
Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1984, English
Loose-leaf pages in plastic sleeve, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
ADN / Milan
$90.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of Italian electronic/experimental/industrial fanzine ADN, issue No. 6, published circa 1984. One of the great pioneering European experimental music fanzines of the period, this issue comes unbound as loose-leaf xeroxed pages in original issue plastic bag, and features articles/interviews/discographies/graphics on/with Art Zoyd, Bourbonese Qualk, Die Form & Nulla Iperreale, Esplendor Geométrico, New 7th Music, Smegma, Steve Feigenbaum, along with cassette listings for the phenomenal ADN label. Virtually never seen! Texts all in English.
ADN was an Italian electronic/experimental/industrial label based in Milan, run by Marco Veronesi, Piero Bielli and Alberto Crosta (with Carla Crotti also involved at some point). ADN was established in 1983 as the first Italian fanzine for experimental new music published in English. The very first issue was called "L'Amore del Nipote" which set the trend for all labels as acronyms of ADN. The fanzine published 8 issues through to Spring 1986, with the later issues (co-released with "Skeletal Work") including optional sampler cassettes. The booklet and cassette idea carried on with the series of various artist releases called "Out Of Standard". Most of their early releases were ADN Cassettes. For their vinyl releases, post new-wave and industrial music came out on the label 'A Dull Note', whilst avant-garde and "RiO" Rock In Opposition (left-field experimental rock) releases came out on 'Auf Dem Nil'. There was also a short-lived CD label 'Alma De Nieto' and some other name variations. A few 'Auf Dem Nil' releases were also branded "Recommended Records Italia"... Artists included Riccardo Sinigaglia, Pascal Comelade, Die Form, Nu Creative Methods, Cinéma Vérité, Vidéo-Aventures, Doxa Sinistra, Merzbow, D.D.A.A., Reportaż, Nulla Iperreale, Roberto Mazza...
Very Good in original bag w. sticker.
1985, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 54 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
ADN / Milan
Skeletal Work / Biella
$90.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of this special collaborative issue of two of Italy's most important electronic/experimental/industrial fanzines, ADN from Milan and Skeletal Work from Biella, issue 7 and 5, respectively, published Summer 1985. Bumper issue featuring articles/interviews/discographies/graphics on Borbetomagus, Coil, Lol Coxhill, Yoshiaki Kinno (Onnyk/Allelopathy label/Fifth Column label), Anima (Paul and Limpe Fuchs), Craig Burk, Bump, loads of reviews, along with listings for the phenomenal ADN label. Virtually never seen! Texts all in English.
ADN was an Italian electronic/experimental/industrial label based in Milan, run by Marco Veronesi, Piero Bielli and Alberto Crosta (with Carla Crotti also involved at some point). ADN was established in 1983 as the first Italian fanzine for experimental new music published in English. The very first issue was called "L'Amore del Nipote" which set the trend for all labels as acronyms of ADN. The fanzine published 8 issues through to Spring 1986, with the later issues (co-released with "Skeletal Work") including optional sampler cassettes. The booklet and cassette idea carried on with the series of various artist releases called "Out Of Standard". Most of their early releases were ADN Cassettes. For their vinyl releases, post new-wave and industrial music came out on the label 'A Dull Note', whilst avant-garde and "RiO" Rock In Opposition (left-field experimental rock) releases came out on 'Auf Dem Nil'. There was also a short-lived CD label 'Alma De Nieto' and some other name variations. A few 'Auf Dem Nil' releases were also branded "Recommended Records Italia"... Artists included Riccardo Sinigaglia, Pascal Comelade, Die Form, Nu Creative Methods, Cinéma Vérité, Vidéo-Aventures, Doxa Sinistra, Merzbow, D.D.A.A., Reportaż, Nulla Iperreale, Roberto Mazza...
Very Good copy, some light wear/marks.
1991, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Drawing Legion / Iowa City
$35.00 - In stock -
Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.
Retrofuturism no. 14, January 1991 features: STATE OF THE ART FOR TODAY'S ARTIST by the Bureau of Control; THE MAGIC OF BIGAMY by Dr. Al Ackerman; SENSORIA MEDIA-TORS; CODES AND CHAOS by Thomas Wiloch; CASSETTE REVIEWS by Paul Neff; PRINT REVIEWS; TAPE-BEATLE NEWS; REPORT from the IOWA CHAPTER of the AGGRESSIVE SCHOOL of CULTURAL WORKERS; and much more!
Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.
1991, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Drawing Legion / Iowa City
$35.00 - In stock -
Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.
Retrofuturism no. 15, August 1991 features: Plans for an INTERNATIONAL NETWORKING CONGRESS 1992, THE WAR AND THE SPECTACLE by the Bureau of Public Secrets, CODES AND CHAOS by Thomas Wiloch, THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF eSCHATOLOGY by Ben G. Price, CONFESSIONS OF A POSTERIST by Barney Rubble, A NEW YORK EXPERIENCE by Eliza Blackweb, THE NEED FOR PLAGIARISM by Karen Eliot, TAPE-BEATLE NEWS, Reviews and Listings of Audio and Print Productions From Around The World..
Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.
1992, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Drawing Legion / Iowa City
$35.00 - In stock -
Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.
Retrofuturism no. 16, March 1992 features: The group NEGATIVLAND presents THE CASE FROM OUR SIDE in their dispute with Island Records; The IMMEDIAST UNDERGROUND unveils its plans for SEIZING THE MEDIA; Stephen Perkins and Mark Palmer offer new insights concerning the subject of PLAGIARISM: is it a BASTARD CHILD, or is there some TRUTH IN DOUBLING? And, of course, the usual columns, reviews, and listings of other marginalia from around the world. RETROFUTURISM, the sporadic quarterly, uses only the finest ingredients, and encourages your input into the process.
Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.
2024, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 456 pages, 24 x 33.5 cm
Published by
Les Presses Du Reel / Paris
Sprint / Milan
$90.00 - Out of stock
Out of the Grid presents a critical selection of 100 Italian zines from 1978 to 2006 that display a broad spectrum of social, political, aesthetic, and technological changes in the use of language and communication strategies across the territory of self publishing.
Widely mapping Italian society, particularly youth culture—over an extended period that can be symbolically defined as the "post-movement" and "pre-internet3.0"—, this outpouring of creativity gave visibility to small, imaginative and technical shifts on paper that made mimeographs, photocopiers and offset machines tremble, and often erupted into the need to communicate through other mediums. The titles selected originated from different scenes—musical, social, artistic, literary...—within which the distances between authors and readers is eliminated. To help navigate this multitude of subcultures, each zine is introduced by a profile that provides further analysis and information. No specific structure has been imposed, leaving room for the specific characteristics of each project to emerge. 100 titles ∞ paths.
Edited by Dafne Boggeri with Sara Serighelli.
Contribution by Marta Zanoni; interviews with Dafne Boggeri, Gino Gianuizzi, Stefano Gilardino, Glezös, Fabiola Naldi, Lorenza Pignatti, Pietro Rivasi, Giulia Vallicelli [Compulsive Archive].
Graphic design: Dafne Boggeri.
Published with Sprint (sprintmilano.org) and O' (www.on-o.org), Milan.
2024, French / English
Softcover, 256 pages, 13.5 x 20 cm
Published by
Shelter Press / France
$40.00 - In stock -
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
1976, English
Softcover (staple bound), 23 x 17.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Impetus Publications / London
$140.00 - Out of stock
Very rare copy of the inaugural issue of Impetus magazine, 1976. Impetus was an important British magazine of "new music", avant-garde, experimental and improvised musics, edited by Kenneth Ansell. Features Stomu Yamashta, György Ligeti, Carla Bley, Keith Tippett, Can, Darius Milhaud, Manfred Mann Chapter Three, Alexander Scriabin, plus further "new music" news and reviews, illustrated throughout.
Good copy with general age/soft edges/wear.
1977, English
Softcover (staple bound), 30 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Impetus Publications / London
$140.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of Impetus magazine issue 6, 1977. Impetus was an important British magazine of "new music", avant-garde, experimental and improvised musics, edited by Kenneth Ansell. This special issue is dedicated to Company, the improvisation collective formed in 1976 by Derek Bailey, including interviews with Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Steve Lacy, Han Bennink, Leo Smith, Steve Beresford, Paul Rutherford, Tristan Honsinger, Lol Coxhill, Maarten van Regteren Altena, Terry Day, Misha Mengelberg and more, plus further "new music" news and reviews, articles, discographies, illustrated throughout.
Very Good copy.
1978, English
Softcover (staple bound), 30 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Impetus Publications / London
$120.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of Impetus magazine issue 7, 1978. Impetus was an important British magazine of "new music", avant-garde, experimental and improvised musics, edited by Kenneth Ansell. This issue with cover feature on Eberhard Weber with interview and discography, plus Johnny Dyani, Daevid Allen (Gong), Rock In Opposition, John Renbourn Group, Bead Records, Roger Dean & Lysis, Salman Shukur, plus further "new music" news and reviews, illustrated throughout.
Good—Very Good copy.
1979, English
Softcover (staple bound), 30 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Impetus Publications / London
$120.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of Impetus magazine issue 10, 1979. Impetus was an important British magazine of "new music", avant-garde, experimental and improvised musics, edited by Kenneth Ansell. This special issue is devoted to The Swedish Alternative Music Movement, tracing the networks, politics, teaching projects, philosophies and discographies centred around the artist-led record label and collective Ett Minne För Livet, including articles and interviews with Archimedes Badkar, Marie Selander, Spjärnsvallet, Iskra, Vargavinter, plus further "new music" news and reviews, illustrated throughout.
Good copy.
1973, Japanese
Softcover, 106 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$140.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, No. 18, Summer 1973. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita,, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special features on Cecil Taylor with loads or rare photographs, Cecil Taylor live at Carnegie Hall, a complete illustrated Cecil Taylor discography, article and catalogue on new solo piano recordings (heavy ECM, etc.), West Coast Now!, Izumi Suzuki, Billy Holiday, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
1973, Japanese
Softcover, 114 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$140.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, No. 20, Autumn 1973, with Don Cherry cover. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special features on Sonny Rollins at the Village Vangaurd (photography by Seiichi Sugita), the Newport Jazz Festival New York — Archie Shepp, Milford Graves, Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Ella Fitzgerald, Keith Jarrett, etc. (photography by Seiichi Sugita), Montreux Jazz Festival Summer 1973 (photography by Aoki), a message to Japanese music friends from Chick Corea (about Scientology!), articles on narcotics, improvisation, natural foods, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
1974, Japanese
Softcover, 130 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, No. 24, August 1974, a special John Coltrane issue. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special feature and homage to John Coltrane with a huge Coltrane interview, rare photographs, articles, a complete illustrated discography, a photo-report and interview with Japanese saxophonist Kosuke Mine in New York (photography by Seiichi Sugita), Duke Ellington, Eric Dolphy, Celestial Music, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
1974, Japanese
Softcover, 130 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$60.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, September 1974. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special features on Herbie Hancock with a full chronology and discography, Montreux Jazz Festival 1974 w. Sonny Rollins, Johm McLaughlin, Gil Evans, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Jean-Luc Ponty, Rufus Harley, Don Moyer, Alphonse Mouzon, etc. (photography by Seiichi Sugita), interview with jazz pianist Mikio Masuda, Duke Ellington, Eric Dolphy, Celestial Music, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
1975, Japanese
Softcover, 120 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$160.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, January 1975. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special features on Miles Davis with loads of rare photographs (inc. Miles Davis at the Newport Festival 1969 shot by Seiichi Sugita), article on Miles, complete Mile Davis discography, Japanese jazz pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi in New York (photography by Seiichi Sugita), European Jazz report, Eric Dolphy, Celestial Music, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
1973, Japanese
Softcover (w. poster), 318 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Swing Journal / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
Super rare, MILES DAVIS special Autumn 1973 issue of ADLIB, Japan's magazine for jazz / fusion fans, published by Swing Journal. Heavy volume packed with Miles from all periods, loads of Electric Miles, Miles at home, Miles in the studio, Miles on tour, Miles live, an illustrated history of Miles' fashion styles by Yasuhiko Kobayashi, loads of rare photographs from around the world, a pull-out colour Miles Davis poster, interviews, in-depth articles, extensive discographies, history of collaborations, chronology, biography, records reviews, news, wild illustrations, and excellent Japanese home stereo and instrument advertising, many featuring Miles endoresments, naturally. A must for any fan!
Very Good copy.
1980, Japanese
Softcover, 166 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Swing Journal / Tokyo
$20.00 - In stock -
Rare April 1980 issue of ADLIB, Japan's magazine for jazz / fusion fans, published by Swing Journal. Packed with rare photographs, interviews, in-depth articles, discographies, catalogues, records reviews, news, illustrations, and excellent Japanese home stereo and instrument advertising, this issue, with Pat Metheny cover, features Pat, Y.M.O., Annette Peacock, Spyro Gyra, Larry Carlton, Hiroshima, Commodores, Kazumi Watanabe, Dionne Warwick, Ohio Players, and many more.
Very Good copy.
1975, Japanese
Softcover, 238 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Swing Journal / Tokyo
$20.00 - In stock -
Rare Spring 1975 issue of ADLIB, Japan's magazine for jazz / fusion fans, published by Swing Journal. Packed with rare photographs, interviews, in-depth articles, discographies, catalogues, records reviews, news, illustrations, and excellent Japanese home stereo and instrument advertising, this "Super Guitar Special" issue, with Carlos Santana cover, features Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin, Santana, Cornell Dupree, Jeff Beck, George Harrison, Wes Montgomery, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, John Lee Hooker, Kenny Burrell, George Benson, Son House, Chuck Berry, T-Bone Walker, Cornell Dupree, and many more.
Good—VG copy.
1996—2000, English
Softcover (staple-bound w. inserted photographs), 20—70 pages each, 17.7 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Omni Press / Millbrae
$320.00 - In stock -
Scarce lot of 11 issues of Sun Ra Research and it’s predecessor Sun Ra Quarterly, an exceptional fanzine project edited by Sun Ra devotee Peter Hinds, founded in 1995 to publish extensive, illuminating interviews and conversations with Sun Ra and members of his Arkestra, spanning the 1970's to Sun Ra’s passing in 1993. With each issue featuring exclusive insights from Sun Ra and the Arkestra themselves, plus transcriptions of rehearsals, radio shows, articles, Sun Ra declarations and poetry, and rare, unpublished Arkestra images by many photographers, all risographed on different paper stocks, hand-bound, and independently published by Omni Press in Millbrae, California, Sun Ra Research forms a valuable "product of a lunatic obsession and deranged scholarship" in homage to the cosmic jazz philosopher.
Issues range from years 1996—2000, 3 of which are Sun Ra Quarterly (of which only 5 issues were made), with promotional original live concert photograph inserted by the publisher. Please contact if in need of specific issue numbers.
Very Good copies all.
1999, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 48 pages, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Midnight Media / UK
$20.00 - In stock -
Rare second issue of Diabolik magazine, edited by Jason J. Slater and published in England by Midnight Media around 1999. The foremost English language fanzine dedicated to Italian Fantastic Cinema, Diabolik featured contributing writers such as Giles Clark, Mitch Davis, Antonella Fulci, Julian Grainger, Cliff Pounder, and editor Jason J. Stater. Each issue devoted to the world of Italian cult and genre cinema, issue 2 featuring Renato Polselli interview, filmography and pull-out posters, "The Italian Apocalypse Part 2" (apocalypse films from Italy), interview with Al Festa and Stefania Stella, interview with Vincenzo Luzzi, Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, reviews galore, gore and gloss, illustrated throughout.
Very Good copy.
1993—2000, Japanese
Softcover, 300—400 pages ea., 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$300.00 - In stock -
Huge lot of 11 issues of Sabu, "Magazine For Men Who Love Men", the trailblazing gay erotic magazine from Japan, founded in 1974. All issues from the 1990s, with one issue from 2000 thrown in, 1993—2000, all featuring the gorgeous wrap-around (front and back) cover artwork by legendary gay erotic illustrator Ben Kimura (1947—2003). Packed with illustrations by Gengoroh Tagame, Gekko Hayashi, Go Mishima, Ben Kimura, and many other artists, at roughly 350—400 pages in each issue, Sabu is more of a book (a "mook" as it were). Filled to the brim with gay erotic art galleries, glossy hardcore erotic photography, loads of fetish and bondage materials, wild "bara" manga, classifieds/letters/sexmate messageboards, articles, ads for Japanese gay bars, clubs, saunas, dungeons, gyms, mail-order toys, publications, media, news and reports on international scenes, and much more.
Each issue Very Good—Good, with light wear and tear. Specific shipping costs may apply.
1984, English
Softcover, 128 pages, 25.5 x 17.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
$70.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of one of the remarkable special book issues of the original Semiotext(e) journal — Semiotext(e) Oasis, published in 1984, edited by Timothy Simone, Peter Caravetta, Frank Mecklenberg, Brigitte Ouvry-Vial and Gregory Whitehead. This issue from 1984, titled Oasis: Fourth World, was secretly produced and handed to Lotringer with an ultimatum: “Take it or leave it.”. Features texts by Joseph Saruva, Leslie Dick, Mustafa Isrui, Franco Beraldi, Theo Kneubuehler, Dambudzo Marechera, Chris Marker, Nuruddin Farrah, Gregory Whitehead, Unica Zürn, Françoise Gründ, Ariel Dorfman, Maurizio Torrealta, Paul Foss, Michel Serres, Wole Soyinka, Serge Galam. Marco J. Jacquemet, Ninotchka Rosca, Henri Pierre Jeudy. Timothy Simone, Lynne Tillman, Cornel West, Arnold Barkus, Peter Wortsman, Damona Wolff, Marylene Delbourg-Delphis, Frank Ungemut, Alphonso Lingis, Bahadur Tejani, Bernhard Mueller and Karel Dudesek, Sun Ra.
"Human bodies consist primarily of water. Body chemistries perform best at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Human skin provides both vessel and thermometer for body water. If exposed to extended periods of heat or exertion, bodies dehydrate; skins dry out. Hard science tells us this is true for all skins, from the First through the Fourth world."
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 copy with some wear and creasing to the covers, tanning and tape repair to top of spine.
1987, English
Softcover, 352 pages, 27 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
Autonomedia / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of one of the remarkable special book issues of the original Semiotext(e) journal — the notorious Semiotext(e) U.S.A., published in 1987, edited by Jim Fleming and Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey), and designed by Sue Ann Harkley. Complete with the unprintable 4-pages, in still-sealed plastic pocket. ("Calling it "subversive" and "obscene," five book printers in the spring of 1987 refused to print Semiotext(e) USA. A sixth printer agreed to do all but four pages, which we have printed separately and included here.") Semiotext(e) U.S.A. is an absolute treasure and time-capsule of subcultural publishing in the 1980s—1990s, centering around Autonomedia and Semiotext(e). The original publisher's blurb says it all:
"THE JOURNAL DENOUNCED IN THE U.S. SENATE FOR ITS ADVOCACY OF "ANIMAL SEX" PRESENTS..."
"A huge compendium of works in AMERICAN PSYCHOTOPOGRAPHY Areas not found on the official map of consensus perception — Maps of energies, secret maps of the USA in the form of words and images.
We are amazed. We are NOT BORED. We have discarded the outworn charm of post-modern incommunicadismo. Passion and involvement, self-abandoned craziness, funny, sexy, dangerous, unabashedly precious, punk, loud and direct. SF, speculative fiction, weird fantasy — Pornography — Other mutated genres — Sermons, rants, broadsheets, crackpot pamphlets, manifestoes — Xerox and mimeo zines — Punkzines — Mail art — Kids' poetry — Subverted advertisements — American samizdat — Astounding rhetoric, elegant propaganda — Underground comix — Geographical documentation (maps, monuments, guides to weird places, photographs) — Stolen top secret documents — And a special feature: scores of personal and classified ads. each one with a box-number or address, to connect YOU with the edges of the USA — Anarchists, unidentified flying leftists, neo-pagans, secessionists, the lunatic fringe of survivalism, cults, foreign agents, mad bombers, ban-the-bombers, nudists, monarchists, children's liberation, tax resisters, zero-workers, mimeo poets, vampires, feuilletonistes, xerox pirates, prisoners, pataphysicians, unrepentant faggots, witches, hardcore youth, poetic terrorists...
For the realization of almost-unheard of desires"
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—VG copy with some wear and creasing to the covers and a couple of loose pages at the end. Complete with still-sealed additional censored pages.