World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
OPEN 12—5 THU—FRI
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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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.
1989, Japanese / English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), unpaginated, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tsukasa Shobo / Tokyo
$90.00 - Out of stock
Rare 1989 fetishwear photobook and catalogue for famous Japanese store Azzlo, purveyors of all things bizarre fashion. Full colour gloss photography throughout by Kinichi Tanaka documenting models in erotic scenes fashioning Azzlo's "bizarre latex items, leather bondage-equipment, exotic high-heels, maids uniforms, pants, skirts, bras, victorian corsets, ballet shoes, masks, hoods, cat-suits, baby dolls, t-shirts, gloves, garters, wigs, bloomers, shoes & boots"... Heavy on pvc, latex, leather and lace, all catalogued with specifications, list prices and ordering information. Azzlo was established in Shinjuku at the end of the 1980's by artist, costume designer and student of Kaneko Kuniyoshi, Yumi Azzlo. Azzlo and her store/gallery space became vital to the Tokyo subculture in the 1990's.
VG—NF copy, light bowing.
1995, Japanese
Softcover, 208 pages, 15 cm x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tom Shobo / Japan
$140.00 - In stock -
Too Negative issue no. 4, April 1995. Now rare and highly collectible, Too Negative, the "Forbidden Picture Book", was a visceral and visually explosive glossy cult arts magazine that reflected the gory-depraved-beyond salvation-bad taste expressions visible in international subculture at the height of 1990s underground publishing, a time when art was pushing the limits of taste and morality. Edited solely by legendary Japanese publisher and gallery owner Kotaro Kobayashi and published by Tom Publication Inc. between 1994—2000, each thick, glossy volume takes on the aesthetics of a vibrant fashion magazine in the great Japanese "mook" format (the magazine book) packed cover to cover with themes of Eros and Thanatos, such as fetishism, erotica, medical/autopsy photography, death journalism, Japanese bondage, grotesque and neo-surrealist art, crime scene photography, tattooing/irezumi, piercing, and all things of the mondo, macabre, bizarro realm. Frequent collaborators and featured artists were Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Joel-Peter Witkin, Trevor Brown, Kiyoshi Ikejiri, to name a few. With a Japanese publishing lineage that may be found in earlier bounding-pushing periodicals such as the 1920s erotic grotesque magazine Hentai Shiriou (Pervert Documents), Tasuhiko Shibusawa’s incredible 1960s avant-garde journal Le Sang Et La Rose, or Fiction Inc’s SALE2 journal published from 1980—mid 1990s, Too Negative, and affiliated periodicals such as ORG, Spiral, Schizo, etc. took their subjects to another level of extremism, even by Japanese standards.
Not for the faint hearted.
This issue features the Columbian corpse/death photography of Kiyotaka Tsurisaki (featuring Orozco the Embalmer), Kiyoshi Ikejiri, the artwork of Yoshifumi Hayashi and Trevor Brown, loads of abnormal medical photography, insane collages, vintage gay porn, fetish photography, adipophilia porn, death scenes, deranged art, genital piercing, you name it.
Very Good copy.
1994, Japanese
Softcover, 210 pages, 15 cm x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tom Shobo / Japan
$150.00 - In stock -
Too Negative No. 2 December 1994, featuring the first publication of corpse photographer Kiyotaka Tsurisaki.
Now rare and highly collectible, Too Negative, the "Forbidden Picture Book", was a visceral and visually explosive glossy cult arts magazine that reflected the gory-depraved-beyond salvation-bad taste expressions visible in international subculture at the height of 1990s underground publishing, a time when art was pushing the limits of taste and morality. Edited solely by legendary Japanese publisher and gallery owner Kotaro Kobayashi and published by Tom Publication Inc. between 1994—2000, each thick, glossy volume takes on the aesthetics of a vibrant fashion magazine in the great Japanese "mook" format (the magazine book) packed cover to cover with themes of Eros and Thanatos, such as fetishism, erotica, medical/autopsy photography, death journalism, Japanese bondage, grotesque and neo-surrealist art, crime scene photography, tattooing/irezumi, piercing, and all things of the mondo, macabre, bizarro realm. Frequent collaborators and featured artists were Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Joel-Peter Witkin, Trevor Brown, Kiyoshi Ikejiri, to name a few. With a Japanese publishing lineage that may be found in earlier bounding-pushing periodicals such as the 1920s erotic grotesque magazine Hentai Shiriou (Pervert Documents), Tasuhiko Shibusawa’s incredible 1960s avant-garde journal Le Sang Et La Rose, or Fiction Inc’s SALE2 journal published from 1980—mid 1990s, Too Negative, and affiliated periodicals such as ORG, Spiral, Schizo, etc. took their subjects to another level of extremism, even by Japanese standards.
Not for the faint hearted.
This issue, Too Negative No. 2 December 1994, features the corpse/death photography of Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, fetish photography of Kiyoshi Ikejiri, Kotaro Kobayashi, Setsuko Chiba, the artwork of Trevor Brown, photography of Nancy Burson, doll art by Katan Amano, loads of vintage medical, autopsy and death photography, tattoo and piercing fetish, freak postcards, sex dolls, and much more.
Very Good copy with some cover/extremities wear.
1983, Japanese
Hardcover (clothbound w. dustjacket), 152 pages, 20.5 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Orion Press / Tokyo
$160.00 - In stock -
Rare, exquisitely designed and produced book dedicated entirely to the photography of the German artist Hans Bellmer (1902—1975). Produced in French by Editions Filipacchi, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Musee National D'art Moderne in Paris in 1983, this very scarce Japanese printing (produced and printed in Japan that same year) features a different cover, with translations to the Japanese language of the introductory essay and texts. A beautiful photo book densely illustrated with colour and black and white reproductions of Bellmer's infamous doll photography, his many studies of the female nude (including those of his wife, artist Unica Zürn), and rare photography of his objects and sculptural assemblages, his studio, and more, this volume captures an important Surrealist visionary and one of the most daring artists of the 20th century through his stunning photography. Features the wonderful "La Poupee" — Hans Bellmer's articulated, anatomically amorphous Surrealist doll, reconfigured and captured through Bellmer's intimate hand-painted photographic images. "La Poupee" acquired iconic status as perhaps the purest exemplification of the Surrealist ideal of "convulsive beauty." Bellmer constructed his first doll in the early 1930s. André Breton and Paul Eluard described it as "the first and only Surrealist object with a universal, provocative power".
German artist Hans Bellmer (1902—1975) was one of the most subversive artists associated with Surrealism, famous—notorious, even—for his erotic engravings, objects and photographs. Many of Bellmer's works were inspired by the literary works of Comte de Lautréamont, Marquis de Sade and Georges Bataille, amongst others.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket with light wear/tan.
1985, English
Softcover, 300 pages, 27.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Quartet Books / London
$120.00 - In stock -
First 1985 edition of the first fundamental and comprehensive study of Hans Bellmer (1902—1975), the most provocative representative of Surrealism, authored by Peter Webb with Robert Short and published by Quartet in London. English edition. Heavily illustrated throughout with many rare images, in colour and b/w, many photographs and artworks, with bibliography, catalogue and references. An essential, illuminating book for anyone interested in Bellmer's work and life and the development of his historical Doll project, playing close attention to the often neglected but integral visionary texts by Bellmer that accompanied his artworks, with an abundance of written works translated throughout in English for the first time.
"Surrealism was one of the most exciting and influential of twentieth century art movements and much has been written about it since its great flowering in the 1930s. The lives and work of its leading figures (Ernst, Magritte, Dali and Miró) have been extensively researched, but Hans Bellmer, perhaps the most controversial and misunderstood of all the surrealists, has until now remained a mystery. Peter Webb, who interviewed Bellmer shortly before his death, has spent two years unravelling the story of this photographer, sculptor, painter, engraver and writer, and his book provides the first opportunity to evaluate Bellmer's considerable artistic achievement."—book jacket blurb
Very Good copy, mild wear.
2023, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 224 pages, 29 x 29 cm
Published by
George Schwarz and Charis / East Sydney
$190.00 - In stock -
Powerful Paradise the Art of George Schwarz and Charis is an artists book, a collaboration between George Schwarz, his partner Charis, Linda Dement and Craig Judd. It is an introduction to a wonderful life and to beautiful, complex and intriguing art. Ernest Georg Schwarz and Charis Elizabeth McKittrick enjoy a unique partnership beginning 1964. The word collaborators in this case is an inadequate descriptor. In their presence one is witness to but a force of nature, a swirling vortex of creative mutuality. Simultaneously lovers, artists, apiarists, activists, authors, film and wine makers, 'Powerful Paradise' is a celebration and a legacy.
This extremely limited hardcover edition is the first survey of the couple's life in art, the last survivors of bohemian Kings Cross. Creators of the first Australian hardcore sex films to be passed by the censors (and also refused classification), George and Charis were ahead of the curve in every aspect of their practice. This volume features the only writing covering their film output, extensive photographic work and global travels. Simultaneously erotic, taboo, progressive, liberated; lives dedicated to their work and one another and perhaps too provocative/evocative for the Australian art establishment.
2005, English
Softcover (in card slipcase), 160 pages, 19 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Atlas Press / London
$190.00 - Out of stock
Rare first edition of this slipcased first English translation of Hans Bellmer's subversive Surrealist classic, Die Puppe (The Doll), first published in German in 1962, here translated and Introduced by Malcolm Green and published by the great Atlas Press, London.
Hans Bellmer (1902—1975) is one of the most illustrious names in the field of erotic art and Surrealism. The Doll comprises a series of photographs that have acquired iconic status and which exemplify the Surrealists’ conception of “convulsive beauty”. They are accompanied by a body of theoretical, poetic and speculative texts written between the 1930s and early 1960s which reveal Bellmer as one whose ideas are a “scandal for reason” (Joë Bousquet). But there is a lot more to Bellmer’s work than is at first apparent and the insights his writing provides into his work is crucial to its understanding, in particular those from the final edition of The Doll which are here translated in full. (The other editions widely available on the net mostly contain only the illustrations.) In these texts Bellmer weaves together a remarkably disparate set of concepts — covering such diverse fields as the body, psychology, anagrams, chance, the laws of optics and mathematics, the fourth dimension, hermaphroditism, the marvellous, intuition — into a theory of eroticism which forms the underlying rationale of his fearsome art.
Apart from the extensive texts by Bellmer it includes a suite of poems by Paul Éluard, 15 colour photographs, 10 in black and white, plus numerous line drawings. This English edition is based exactly upon the final edition overseen by Bellmer himself, the texts having been translated for the first time from the final German version rather than the preliminary French versions.
Near Fine copy.
1989, English / Japanese
Softcover, 196 pages, 39.5 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Comme des Garçons / Tokyo
$350.00 - In stock -
The incredible fourth issue of Comme des Garçons 'Six' magazine (1989) featuring avant-garde photography exploring the idea of the 'Sixth Sense' while reflecting the Fall 19891 collection, including photography by Robert Frank, Arthur Elgort, Josef Koudeika, Saul Leiter, Peter Lindbergh and Mike and Doug Stern. All incredible full-bleed photography spanning 196 over-sized pages!
Between 1988 and 1991, Comme des Garçons explored the theme of the sixth sense via eight special biannual oversized, unstapled magazines titled 'Six'. These magazines were launched to coincide with Comme des Garçons fashion collections and were privately distributed at the time. The magazine visually represented the brand in a way that no other fashion company had before. Rei Kawakubo invited Tsuguya Inoue to art direct and Atsuko Kozasu to edit the issues, whilst contributions came from different designers and artists.
Issues of Comme des Garçons 'Six' have become very sought after collectors items.
Very Good—Near Fine copy.
1986, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 36.5 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Cross Culture Foundation / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
Rare inaugural issue of the almost unknown but incredible Japanese magazine, Rag. Was this the only issue? Published in 1986 in over-sized, staple-bound format, Rag issue 1 includes a beautiful photo feature on Butoh performer Goro Namerikawa, a large feature on "Art's Destroying Angel" Tadanori Yokoo, photography by Nobuyoshi Araki, Keiichi Tahara, Yasushi Handa, Shunji Kaida, Herbie Yamaguchi, Sachiko Kuro, Kaoru Ijima, experimental musician and playwright Koharu Kisaragi, costume designer Michiko Kitamura, designers Issey Miyake, Junko Shimada, musician Eitetsu Hayashi, and much more.
Good copy with some large format wear to spine/extremities.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 276 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Camera Mainichi and The Mainichi Graphic / Japan
$120.00 $80.00 - In stock -
First printing of NEW NUDE 2, published in Japan in 1985 as part of a unique and short-lived book series published by the mighty Camera Mainchi house, showcasing leading photographers and artists on the subject of the nude. Opening with illustrated essays by photo critic Kōtarō Iizawa and others, this lovely volume, printed in Japan, presents works generously and sympathetically presented in colour and black-and-white across various paper-stocks. Includes the work of Masahisa Fukase, Hans Bellmer, Yoshiichi Hara, Masaaki Nakagawa, Nobuyoshi Araki, Lee Friedlander, Alice Odilon, E. J. Bellocq, Heinrich Zille, Donald Woodman, Florence Chevallier, Laurence Sackman, Joel Peter Witkin, Marie Bume, James Wedge, Franco Fontana, Lucas Samaras, Miron Zownir, Herlinde Koelbl, and others.
Good-Very Good copy. General wear.
1986, Japanese
Softcover, 276 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Camera Mainichi and The Mainichi Graphic / Japan
$120.00 $80.00 - In stock -
First printing of NEW NUDE 3, published in Japan in 1985 as part of a unique and short-lived book series published by the mighty Camera Mainchi house, showcasing leading photographers and artists on the subject of the nude. Opening with illustrated essays by photo critic Kōtarō Iizawa and others, this lovely volume, printed in Japan, presents works generously and sympathetically presented in colour and black-and-white across various paper-stocks. Includes the work of Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Masahisa Fukase, Keiichi Tahara, Noriaki Yokosuka, Irina Ionesco, Hennri Maccheroni, Keizo Kitajima, Takashi Ishii, Richard Cerf, Ayako Parks, Taku Aramasa Seiji Kurata, Jean-Jacques Dicker, Flip and Debra Schulke, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marie-Claire Montanari, Lee Friedlander, Jaques Schumacher, Joyce Tenneson, Herlinde Koelbl, and many others.
Very Good copy. Light wear, crease to one front cover bottom corner.
1982, Italian / English / French / Japanese / German
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 212 pages, 22 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Edizioni L'Agrifoglio / Milan
$160.00 - Out of stock
First and only edition of the scarce and wonderful "Le Vetrine Di Milano", published in 1982 by Edizioni L'Agrifoglio in Milan. If you ever wished to know what is was like to wander the piazzas and gaze through the shop windows of Milan in the early 1980s, this book lets you do just that. "Milan "presents itself" by way of its shopwindows, it expresses and fulfills itself in them." In 1982, local photographer Maurizio Montanari documented the latest designs and displays of boutiques and gallerias throughout the streets and squares of Milan, from Fiorucci to Christian Dior, Krizia to Arteluce, Pierre Cardin to Gucci. Views of delicate laces, day-glo sports wear, shimmering Alfa Romeos and ornate tapestries are reflected with the gaze of passers-by and the surrounding city landscape in Montanari's photographic flânerie. Illustrated throughout in vivd colour with texts in Italian / English / French / Japanese / German.
Good copy in VG dust jacket. Would be Very Good but only with loosening stitch binding (still strong and intact) and a couple of editing design notes in pencil (copy from collection in Milan).
1995, English / Italian
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 260 pages, 30.5 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Edizioni L'Archivolto / Milan
$90.00 - In stock -
First 1995 edition of Vetrine a Milano, a lavish hardcover photographic document of window displays in the fashion capitol of Milan in the mid—1990's, published by L'Archivolto. Stunning gloss full-page and double-page colour photographic spreads by Alberto Ferraro capture the displays of the most famous and prestigious shops in Milan (Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Hermés, Artemide, Krizia, Moschino, Valentino, Missoni, et al.) designed by leading interior designers and window-dressers of the day, all mapped out street by street, with comprehensive indexes and profiles.
Silvio San Pietro is an architect and publisher. In 1980 he founded L'Archivolto, a combined publishing company, bookstore, and gallery specializing in architecture and design. Since 1986 he has created, edited and published over 130 books for Edizioni L'Archivolto.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
2024, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 31 x 23 cm
Published by
Bill / Brussels
$92.00 - In stock -
‘Bill’ is annual magazine that prioritises visual reading of its photographic stories without the distraction of text. This issue contains 192 offset pages printed in CMYK, silver, and black and white on a dozen different paper stocks, along with some Japanese bound signatures. Designed, edited, and produced by Julie Peeters and associate editor Elena Narbutaite.
Sand, wind, tide, bills, tulips, LA, parking lots, waves, thoughts, bagels, prints, Tokyo, orchids, horses, backs, balm, magazines, updates, shadows, Elena's shoe, two mudbaths and a garage door...
by Boyle Family, Jochen Lempert, Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Gillian Garcia, Beat Streuli, Takashi Homma, JP, Adrianna Glaviano, Mimosa Echard, Rosalind Nashashibi, Gerald Domenig, Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, Martiniano, Blommers Schumm
2024, English
Softcover, 56 pages, 22.86 × 17.78 cm
Ed. of 500,
Published by
Friend Editions / New York
$48.00 - In stock -
KERN IS BACK ONCE AGAIN WITH A POT BOOK OF YOUR DREAMS. THIRD IN THE SERIES OF HIGH BOOKS FEATURING NEW YORK AND MIAMI GIRLS SMOKING. SHOT BETWEEN 2016 AND 2024. IT'S REALLY GOOD.
2024, English / French
Softcover, 256 pages, 24 x 17.5 cm
Published by
May Revue / Paris
$34.00 - In stock -
Introduction to Sylvère Lotringer's Interviews by Chris Kraus, interviews with David Wojnarowicz and Kathy Acker by Sylvère Lotringer, Machines for Looking by Karl Holmqvist, Anette Freudenberger on Hélène Fauquet, Gianmaria Andreetta on Yuki Kimura, Nick Irvin on Sam Pulitzer, Annie Ochmanek on Marc Kokopeli, Benoît Lamy de la Chapelle on Nicolas Ceccaldi, Shiv Kotecha on Klara Lidén and Hannah Black, Anke Dyes on Marie Angeletti, E.C. Feiss on Andrea Fraser, Thea Westreich Wagner, Our Guide to Comedy-Adventure by Bernadette Van-Huy.
Conceived as a collective space in which to develop thoughts and confront positions on artistic production, May magazine examines, once a year, contemporary art practice and theory in direct engagement with the issues, contexts and strategies that construct these two fields. An approach that could be summed up as critique at work – or as critique actively performed in text and art forms alike.
Featuring essays, interviews, art works and reviews by artists, writers and diverse practitioners of the arts, the magazine also intends to address the economy of the production of knowledge – the starting point of this reflection being the space of indistinction between information and advertisment typical of our time. This implies a dialogue with forms of critique produced in other fields.
2021, English
Softcover (w. print), 208 pages, 23 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
A Magazine / Antwerp
$200.00 - In stock -
On the occasion of our 20th anniversary, A Magazine presents a limited-edition reprint of A Magazine Curated By Maison Martin Margiela. Originally released in 2004, this project can be traced back to the Belgian origins of A Magazine, which was founded in Antwerp by Walter Van Beirendonck in 2001.
After the magazines N°A, N°B, N°C, N°D and N°E, A Magazine Curated By Maison Martin Margiela was the first ever issue to bear the ‘Curated By’ title, and is a testament to this core concept thanks to Martin Margiela’s insightful mix of collaborators and projects that unveils many key names working quietly behind-the-scenes as parts of his anonymous fashion collective. Though not a single contribution bears his name, every page is imbued with the essence of the Maison, with written recounts via fax and photocopy as well as photographic and artistic projects by permanent staff members, trainees, assistants, models, artists, photographers, musicians, set designers and filmmakers.
Nearly two decades after its original release, the issue remains a bold statement that acknowledges the season-less, timeless nature of A Magazine. As a cult and collectible object in the realm of printed matter, it is a testament to the ongoing relevance of the founding ideals of the Maison Martin Margiela: from the deconstruction of garment-making and the disruption of classical ideals in photography, to such phenomena as street casting, unconventional beauty, subversive communication, and a Dadaist approach to the very concept of fashion and object design.
The 2021 edition is an identical reprint of the original magazine with matched paper stock and cover treatments, with all original content preserved.
Accompanying the issue, a selection of 6 archival images from Mark Borthwick, Anders Edström, Marina Faust, Jonathan Hallam, Ola Rindal and Ronald Stoops have been issued as 240 x 180mm unsigned prints.
Each copy contains a single print placed at random – in the spirit of the Maison Martin Margiela.
Contributor:
Åbäke, Ali Mahdavi, BLESS, Bob Verhelst, Claudia Riedel, David Ballu, Dorothee Perret, Elisabeth Broekaert, Eric Traoré, Frank Pay, Gerdi Esch, Hilde Bouchez, Hilde Decock, Inge Grognard, Jacques Habbah, Jane Birkin, Jonathan Hall House, Kanako B. Koga, Katerina Jebb, Kristina De Coninck, Kyoichi Tsuzuki, Laurence Passera, Laurent Mercier, Lutz Huelle, Marina Faust, Mark Borthwick, Nigel Bennett, Nigel Scott, Ola Rindal, Patrick Scallon, Paul Boudens, Paul Helbers, Peter Pilotto, Pierre Gayte, Ronald Stoops, Roxane Danset, Sébastien Meunier, Sherald Lamden, Tetsuya Kitayama, Violeta Sanchez, Yung
1998, Japanese
Softcover, 130 pages, 30 x 22.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Studio Voice / Tokyo
$140.00 - In stock -
Rare 1998 special collector's issue of Japan's celebrated Studio Voice, dedicated to the work of Martin Margiela. Outside of the Margiela STREET issues, this would have been the largest feature committed to the Belgian fashion designer at the time, with most of the content unseen elsewhere. Almost 50 pages of large colour and b/w Margiela photographic shoots by Marina Faust, Mark Borthwick, and Ronald Stoops, amongst others, plus the Margiela exhibition at the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam, the Bacteria Project, "Working By Hand - Artisanal Production", Margiela's first collection for HERMÈS (98/99 AW), "Endless Threads" (text by Sydney Picasso), and a rare Q&A with Margiela himself.
As a bonus, this issue also includes artwork by EYƎ (Boredoms, etc.)!
Very Good copy. Light wear.
1973, Japanese
Softcover, 108 pages, 28 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Mainichi Shimbun / Tokyo
$300.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1973 edition of acclaimed Japanese photographer Hajime Sawatari's cult photo book "Nadia" (aka Doll Forest Museum/Nadia in the Woods). Sawatari began working as a freelancer in 1966, photographing for many leading fashion magazines in Japan. Sawatari fell in love with the Italian fashion model Nadia Galli while working with her on an advertisement back in 1971. Driven by the photographer’s desire to capture on film everything about the person he loved, Sawatari took Nadia with him on an extensive journey. Traveling around Karuizawa in the summer, Venice, Sicily and other locations in Nadia’s home country, Karuizawa in the Winter, and Tokyo, his focus on Nadia switched between viewing her as a photographic subject and a lover, resulting in Sawatari establishing his own unique semi-fictional style of “capturing a woman in a back-and-forth between reality and fiction,” which marked a clear departure from his previous female portraits, and opened a new frontier in the realm of photography. This dreamlike and intimate series of monochrome portraits of Nadia weaves a fairytale-like, visual travelogue akin to Sawatari's other cult classic of the same year, Alice. Playful, intimate and at times hallucinatory, the book closes with a lovely hand-written letter by Nadia in Japanese and a photographic portrait of Sawatari, also by Nadia. A gorgeous book.
Number 3 in Camera Mainichi's Private series.
Very Good copy, tightly bound and clean with some wear to covers, corners. Very nice copy for a book that is usually heavily damaged.
2017, English
Paperback, 128 pages, 17 x 25 cm
Published by
Bergen Kunsthall / Norway
Dancing Fox Press
$65.00 - In stock -
This latest book by New York–based artist Moyra Davey is based on two related projects, Les Goddesses (2011) and Hemlock Forest (2016), which each take form through text, photography, and film. Layering introspection and personal narratives with meditations on the lives and works of other writers, filmmakers, and artists—ranging from 18th-century feminist writer and activist Mary Wollstonecraft to Chantal Akerman, Karl Ove Knausgård, and Davey’s own five sisters—the artist explores such themes as compulsion, artistic production, family, and life and its passing.
Edited by Karen Kelly and Barbara Schroeder.
Texts by Moyra Davey and an introduction by Aveek Sen.
Design by Filiep Tacq.
2000, German
Softcover, 80 pages,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fridericianum / Kassel
Haus der Kunst / Munich
$35.00 - In stock -
Heavily illustrated out-of-print German catalogue published with Sophie Calle on the occasion of her major exhibition at Museum Fridericianum Kassel, 8 April— 21May 2000 and Haus der Kunst, Münich, 26 August—12 November 2000. Artworks are accompanied by texts by Calle in German.
Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement known as Oulipo.
Very Good copy.
1989, Japanese
Softcover, 208 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Issue No.36 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.36, the "Female Foot Fetishism Special Issue" with the wonderful wraparound Pierre Molinier cover is packed with imagery and essays around the theme of "Foot and Fetish Heel" throughout history, literature, film and fetish publishing, etc. profusely illustrated with drawings, photography, bondage illustrations, film stills, catalogue clippings, and artworks, including works by Bill Ward, Pierre Molinier, Nobuyoshi Araki, and so many more. It also features the Fiction, Inc. section that samples a cross-section of content from catalogue publications including the work of John Willie, Bill Ward, Carlo, Eric Stanton, Irving Claw, Betty Page, and periodicals such as Rubber Magazine, Amateur Bondage, Bizarre Comix, Bizarre Classix, Bizarre Fotos, Stiletto, and much more... Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy.
1988, Japanese
Softcover, 208 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Issue No.35 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.35, the "EROTIK!!" issue features erotic writings and artwork throughout by Hans Bellmer, Dorothea Tanning, André Berg, Pierre Molinier, Max Ernst, Armando Calvelli, articles on vintage stag films, nude French postcards, interspersed with lots of mysterious vintage erotic imagery, bondage illustration, and catalogue/advertisments/clippings of Eric Stanton, Irving Klaw, Jim, John Willie, Bizarre Comix, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy, tanning to pages.
1989, Japanese
Softcover, 184 pages, 21 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$70.00 - In stock -
Issue No.38 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, circa late 1980s and early 1990s. Published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. Each issue covers different themes and features, heavy on fetishism.
Issue No.38, the "Glamour" issue features Marc Attali, Carlo Mollino, Irving Claw, John Willie, Marie-Claire Montanari, Richard Cerf, Lucien Clergue, Marlo Broekmans, Stephan Lupino, Pierre Molinier, Claude Alexandre, Betty Page, clippings and adverts from Centurian periodicals, Sweet Gwen, Bondage Fantasy, and much more...
Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.