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.
2019, English
Softcover, 221 pages, 23 x 18.2 cm
Published by
Sequence Press / New York
Radio Athènes / Greece
$65.00 - Out of stock
An encounter across time and space between Wols, a pioneering artist of the early twentieth century, and Eileen Quinlan, a contemporary American artist.
Wols (1913–1951) was celebrated posthumously as one of the pioneering artists of the Art Informel movement. His distinctive early photographic work of the 1930s is, however, very little known. In an unusual connection across time and space his work is discussed in relation to that of contemporary American artist Eileen Quinlan (b. 1972). This book, a companion to the exhibition Always Starts with an Encounter: Wols–Eileen Quinlan, curated by Helena Papadopoulos and organized by Radio Athènes at the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, in 2016, further explores the relationship between the work of the two artists.
Spectral and suggestive, but also precise and factual, through an indexical structure, a variety of textual forms and inflections, different registers of images and textures, this richly illustrated book reflects on a circular idea of time as it wanders in the abstruse physicality of the photographic. It includes texts by Olivier Berggruen, Quinn Latimer, Helena Papadopoulos, and Laura Preston, as well as two interviews with Eileen Quinlan.
1981, Japanese
Softcover, unpaginated, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Shueisha / Japan
$45.00 - Out of stock
1981 Winter edition of Japan's DELUXE Playboy, lavishly illustrated throughout with female nudes and semi-nudes in colour and b/w. Includes '82 calendar GALS Special Feature, plus fold-outs.
Very Good copy, like new.
1968, Japanese / English
Softcover, 100 pages, 25.5 x 36.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Camera Mainichi and The Mainichi Graphic / Japan
$200.00 - In stock -
First edition of the ambitious, and much acclaimed, first nude photography book by Kishin Shinoyama (b. 1940, Tokyo), well known in the west for photographing the covers for John Lennon and Yoko Ono's albums, Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey. A marvel of 1960s radical nude photography, published in 1968 by Camera Mainichi, "28 Girls" is widely considered to be one of the most important Japanese photobooks of the 20th Century. Breaking sharply from the traditional treatment of the nude as an ideal of beauty in favour of the wild expressionism of nature, Shinoyama applied experimental and psychedelic techniques such as solarization and favoured a variety of regular girls, artists, performers, pop idols, and friends as models over the traditional glamour physique with exceptional, and very unconventional, results. Decadent, grotesque, absurd and sensuous all at once. Only ever published in this first spectacular format — the iconic, pop colour-saturated oversized softcover with fold-out spreads. Art Directed by Gan Hosoya with an illustration by Makoto Wada. Texts in Japanese and English by Yukio Mishima and Makato Wada. A stunning, complex and surprising piece of photo publishing, unlike any other, cited in Ryuichi Kaneko & Ivan Vartanian's Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and 70s.
Good copy (general light wear/tanning to edges/spine from age, foxing, general handling wear from large size)
1973, English
Softcover (w. posters), 36.9 x 25.9 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Shueisha / Japan
$80.00 - In stock -
Rare first issue of Japan's Playgirl Pin-Up, published in 1973 in Tokyo. Oversized magazine full of full-colour nude photography by leading Japanese photographer Kishin Shinoyama, including appendix fold-out poster and the commonly missing large double-sided folded calendar poster of Maria Anzai and Reika Yamakawa photographed by Shinoyama, loosely inserted.
Very Good copy, complete with original posters.
1991, Japanese
Softcover, 160 pages, 28.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
SPY / Tokyo
$20.00 - Out of stock
SPY was a monthly cultural magazine in Japan with monthly special features. This issue, from September 1991, presents the "Truth of Sex", a perfect example of how progressive Japanese mainstream publishing was by comparison to much of the world. Alongside the usual reports on art, global issues, technology, theatre, video, film, music, food, etc. this issue is largely dedicated to ilustrated features on Sadomasochism, "New Age Sex and Modern Primitive", Transgenderism (with photography by Takeshi Ishikawa), "Sex Drug Roppongi", Auto-Eroticism (by Merzbow's Masami Akita), "Attachment for Girls", the Japanese Gay scene, Scatology (by Masaaki Aoyama), the Duchamp-esque readymade "Ultimate Sex Catalogue" compiled by Japanese photographer Ryosuke Handa, plus artwork by Richard Cerf, Joel Peter-Witkin, Arnulf Rainer, Sam Haskins, Lucas Samaras, Romain Slocombe, Gottfried Helnwein, ENEG, Gilles Berquet... and more.
2021, English
Hardcover, 128 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Published by
MACK / London
$89.00 - In stock -
The Shabbiness of Beauty is a visual dialogue that crosses generational divides with the easy intimacy of a late-night phone call. Multidisciplinary artist Moyra Davey delved into Peter Hujar’s archives and emerged mainly with little-known, scarcely seen images. In response to these, Davey created her own images that draw out an idiosyncratic selection of shared subjects. Side by side, the powerfully composed images admire, tease, and enhance one another in the manner of fierce friends, forming a visual exploration of physicality and sexuality that crackles with wit, tenderness, and perspicacity. Spiritually anchored in New York City – even as they range out to rural corners of Quebec and Pennsylvania – these images crystallise tensions between city and country, human and animal. Nudes pose with unruly chickens; human bodies are abstracted toward topography; seascapes and urban landscapes share the same tremulous plasticity. These continuities are punctuated by stark differences of approach: Davey’s self-aware postmodernism against Hujar’s humanism and embrace of darkroom manipulation. The rich dialogue between these photographs is personal and angular, ultimately offering an illuminating reintroduction to each celebrated artist through communion with the other’s work.
"Davey shows us how we all build a sense of who we are through adulation and imitation (through feeling in step with our heroes), and that our past selves can be found as much in the worlds of others (their pictures, writings, notes, songs) as among the memorabilia of our own acts of creation.” – Lou Stoppard, Aperture
”These photographs place the past in the present tense. By mingling her own work with Hujar’s, Davey creates a sense of time that is richer than could be offered by a single artist’s archive, unearthing a capacious continuum of resonance and resemblance.” – Frieze
“Their spheres do not so much collide as coalesce, giving rise to a constellation of shared subjects ... enigmatic yet easy harmonies ... are offset by tensions which run deeper than the tonal schisms between Hujar’s sumptuous blacks and Davey’s simmering greys.” – British Journal of Photography
2020, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 160 pages 24 x 17 cm
Published by
Prestel / Munich
$65.00 - Out of stock
An elegant new hardcover edition of Bernd and Hilla Becher's classic black-and-white photographic study of industrial buildings.
During their 40-year career, Bernd and Hilla Becher created their own architectural typology as they photographed buildings in a unique style. Basic Forms represents the culmination of their career. Although the subject matter is unglamorous - mine shafts, blast furnaces, cooling towers, water towers, silos, and gas tanks - the Bechers' passion for their work imbues these photographs with beauty and solemnity. The Bechers restricted the conditions of each photograph - taking them early in the morning, on overcast days, so as to eliminate shadow and distribute light evenly. Each image is centered and frontally framed, its parallel lines set on an even plane. There are no human figures, nor are there birds in the sky. The result is a treasury of precisely functional architectural forms, a sublime example of conceptual artistic practices, and a series of "perfect sculptures of a bygone industrial age."
Bernhard "Bernd" Becher (1931-2007) and Hilla Becher (1934-2015) were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures. As founders of what has come to be known as the "Becher" or "Dusseldorf" School of Photography, they influenced generations of documentary photographers and artists.
Thierry de Duve is a Belgian art historian, curator, and professor of modern and contemporary art theory. He is the author of numerous books. He has taught at many institutions including the Sorbonne in Paris, MIT, and John Hopkins University.
1970, Japanese
2 Softcover volumes (w. dust jackets), printed slipcase, 27 × 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The 2nd Japan Architectural Festival Executive Committee / Osaka
$420.00 - Out of stock
The scarce architectural photo-album published in 1970 to accompany the Japan World Exposition (Expo '70) held in Osaka, this beautiful 2-volume slipcase edition, designed by leading Japanese graphic designer Mitsuo Katsui, was compiled to document one of the most dynamic moments in new Japanese architecture and the highest concentration of work by Japan's Metabolist movement.
The master plan for the Expo was designed by the renowned Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, assisted by 12 other Japanese architects who designed elements within it, including Arata Isozaki for the Festival Plaza mechanical, electrical and electronic installations; and Kiyonori Kikutake for the Landmark Tower. Bridging the site along a north/south axis was the Symbol Zone. Planned on three levels it was primarily a social space which had a unifying space frame roof. The theme of the Expo was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." The Theme Space under the space frame was divided into three levels, each designed by the artist Tarō Okamoto - past, present and future. Tange envisioned that the exhibition for the future would be like an aerial city and he asked architects Fumihiko Maki, Koji Kamiya, Noriaki Kurokawa, and critic Noboru Kawazoe to design it. The Theme Space was also punctuated by three towers: the Tower of the Sun, the Tower of Maternity and the Tower of Youth.
The first of the two books is a photo-book, profusely illustrated cover to cover with full-bleed architectural monochrome photography of each and every pavilion of the Expo, reproduced using stunning matte gravure printing and capturing all of the above environments in shimmering detail. The book is littered throughout with rich colour fold-out spreads that document in even further detail, including signage, environmental architecture, building interiors and the expositions themselves. Book two is a comprehensive collection of materials covering all key infrastructure and pavilions, architectural materials, drawings, and commentaries. Includes the introduction text "Basic concept of the Japan World Expo" by Kenzo Tange.
A beautiful architectural publication like no other. Printed and bound in Japan. First edition with both books (Very Good) preserved in VG slip-case.
2018, English
Hardcover, 150 pages, 23 x 31 cm
Published by
Capricious / New York
$80.00 - In stock -
Throughout the 1970s, filmmaker Barbara Hammer toured the United States, Africa, and Europe, making film after film about women and the lesbian experience, both of which had seldom been seen by a woman, for women on screen before. She made a slew of now-legendary experimental films, including Sisters! (1973), Dyketactics (1974), Multiple Orgasm (1976), Sappho {1978), and Double Strength {1978), more or less inventing lesbian cinema at a time when such material had largely been relegated to the pornographic imagination of male artists and filmmakers. During this prolific period, Hammer photographed her travels, her lovers, moments of community and kinship between her collaborators on set, private and public performances, friends, strangers. Through these photographs, Hammer explodes traditional notions of female sexuality by showing it for what it is: complex, messy, abstract, human.
Barbara Hammer is an experimental filmmaker whose work has pioneered feminist and lesbian cinema for five decades. She has had film retrospectives at the Jeu de Palme (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Modern (London), National Gallery of Art (Washington, Dq, Kunsthall (Oslo, Norway), Toronto Film Festival, and Pink Life Queer Festival (Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey). Her work was included in the 1985, 1989, and 1993 Whitney Biennials and is included in the permanent collections of the Australian Center for the Moving Image, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Centre Georges Pompidou, and elsewhere. She is the author of Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and life (Feminist Press 2009). An exhibition of her notebooks was presented at Company Gallery in Fall 2014. A follow-up exhibition at Company, Truant: Photographs, 1970 – 1979, featuring unseen photographs from the 1970s, opened in October 2017.
2019, English
Softcover, 272 pages, 23 x 16.5 cm
Published by
Texte Zur Kunst / Berlin
$32.00 - Out of stock
"EVIL," the theme of this latest issue of TEXTE ZUR KUNST is often understood as simply the opposite of “good,” and as pure immorality, evil is everywhere today, and somehow also nowhere. It is the “other” par excellence; something we ourselves never are, but by which one always measures one’s own distance. “Evil is over there, not here, not with me.” Given its ubiquity today, we offer texts that investigate what this thing we call “evil” is, as it so often functions as the polar opposite of that which people hold to be just and right. Indeed, who could argue that point, and yet. In this issue, we look specifically at evil’s manifestations in the art world, and in film, politics, and theory, always with an eye toward evil as something potentially playful and ironic.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
OLIVER PRECHT
TALKING ABOUT EVIL / Reflections on Moral Judgment
SUPERNATURE / Amanda Schmitt in Conversation with Loretta Fahrenholz, Madeline Hollander, and Monica Mirabile
MAX CZOLLEK
EVIL / Some Thoughts on the Contemporaneity of a Category
REMAIN IN DARK / Interview between Colin Lang and Stephen O’Malley
A BRIEF GLOSSARY OF SOCIAL SADISM / by Ana Teixeira Pinto and Kerstin Stakemeier
NEW DEVELOPMENT
BESEELTE GABEN IM TAUSCHSYSTEM / Überlegungen zur Malerei von Jack Whitten anlässlich der Ausstellung “Jack Whitten. Jack’s Jacks“ im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
ROTATION
BEING POROUS / Alice Blackhurst on Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs
IMPURITY AND ENTANGLEMENT / Adam Butler in Conversation with Ben Lerner
REVIEWS
A CHIROGRAPHIC IMAGINARY / Colin Lang on Edmund de Waal at Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
ANDERE ORTE / Elisa R. Linn über Ariane Müller bei Schiefe Zähne, Berlin
ARCHIVING INSPIRATION / Dave Beech on Albert Oehlen at the Serpentine Gallery, London
MYALGIE / Jessica Aimufua über Diamond Stingily im Kunstverein München
GO TELL IT ON THE ISLAND / Nadja Abt über die 16. Istanbul Biennale
INTIMATE INVESTIGATIONS / Jesi Khadivi on Sharon Hayes at Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin
ICH BIN ELEKTRISCH / Hans-Christian Dany über Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo) in der Halle für Kunst Lüneburg
HUNGRY MINDS / Rachel Haidu on Leidy Churchman at the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
VERFREMDEND NAH / Stephanie Holl-Trieu über „The Making of Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue“ in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
POETS AND ARTFANS / Pujan Karambeigi on Sarah Rapson at Essex Street, New York
EROSION UND WACHSTUM / Markues über „Soil Is an Inscribed Body. Über Souveränität und Agrarpoesien“ bei SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin
MATERIAL FUTURES / Adrienne Ange Rooney on Lubaina Himid at the New Museum, New York
DIES IST KEIN PHALLUS / Francesca Raimondi über „Maskulinitäten. Eine Kooperation von Bonner Kunstverein, Kölnischem Kunstverein und Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf“
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? / Chris Reitz on Latoya Ruby Frazier at the Renaissance Society, Chicago
MAGISCHE POLITIK / Fiona Geuß über Andrea Bowers in der Weserburg, Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen
MOTHER OF PEARL / Enzo Shalom on Nicolás Guagnini at Bortolami, New York
(BE-)ZEUG DICH! / Alida Müschen über Julia Phillips im Kunstverein Braunschweig
GHOSTS NOT WELCOME / Nina Prader on Omer Fast at the Salzburger Kunstverein
CRITICAL AFFECTIONS / Sophie Goltz über „Awakenings: Art in Society in Asia 1960s–1990s“ in der National Gallery in Singapur
ZWISCHEN ALLEN STÜHLEN / Dorothea Zwirner über Senga Nengudi im Lenbachhaus, München
NACHRUFE / OBITUARIES
SARAH SCHUMANN (1933−2019) by Vojin Saša Vukadinović
DOUGLAS CRIMP (1944–2019) by Marc Siegel
DOUGLAS CRIMP (1944-2019) by Louise Lawler
DOUGLAS CRIMP (1944-2019) by Juliane Rebentisch
EDITION
JESSICA STOCKHOLDER
RAPHAELA VOGEL
JORINDE VOIGT
1993, Japanese
Hardcover (clothbound), 20 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Byakuya Shobo / Tokyo
$220.00 - Out of stock
Very rare first edition of this uncommon Araki photobook from 1993. A beautiful hardcover collection of photographs by Nobuyoshi Araki, one of Japan's leading photographers. In April 1992, a photo exhibition of Araki's "Photo Maniac's Diary" saw 8 positive films seized by the Metropolitan Police Department and the Public Prosecutor's Office for showing genitals. Araki was fined for obscenity. This work, published just a year later, was accompanied by Araki's statement, "This photo book is more obscene but not seized."
Bound in black cloth with the original obi-strip simply reading - in bold double entendre - "Graduate", this collection is made entirely of photographs of 30 young women in Japanese sailor suit school uniforms. It is of course unknown whether his models are in fact high school students, but here Araki intentionally creates more eros than the exposed genitals that landed him such controversy the year before. There is no nudity, yet Araki's erotica is heightened in the viewer's reading of situations and poses, facial expressions, the distance to the subject, and visual euphemism. Araki's intimate document of staged schoolgirl truancy is simultaneously a playful thumbing of the nose to Japanese censorship and a touching series of adolescent portraits in gorgeous monochrome.
Beautifully printed in gloss by publishers Byakuya Shobo.
Very Good/Fine copy.
1985, English
Softcover (stapled), 12 pages, 20.3 x 23.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Wright State University / Ohio
$25.00 - In stock -
Lovely scarce catalogue produced on the occasion of Barbara Kasten: Toward an Interconnectedness of All Things at University Art Galleries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, September 23 - October 24, 1985. Documents the making-of and presentation of one of Kasten's most iconic installations through colour and b/w photography.
Barbara Kasten (b. 1936) trained as a painter and textile artist, receiving her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) in Oakland in 1970. Since the 1970s Kasten has developed her expansive practice of photography through the lens of many different disciplines, including sculpture, painting, theater, textile, and installation. Spanning her nearly five-decade engagement with abstraction, light, and architectonic form, this publication situates Kasten’s practice within current conversations around sculpture and photography.
Very Good, As New old stock.
2020, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 13.2 x 20.3 cm
Published by
New Directions / New York
$34.00 - Out of stock
In these essays, the acclaimed artist, photographer, writer, and filmmaker Moyra Davey often begins with a daily encounter--with a photograph, a memory, or a passage from a book--and links that subject to others, drawing fascinating and unlikely connections, until you can almost feel the texture of her thinking. While thinking and writing, she weaves together disparate writers and artists--Mary Wollstonecraft, Jean Genet, Virginia Woolf, Janet Malcolm, Chantal Akerman, and Roland Barthes, among many others--in a way that is both elliptical and direct, clearheaded and personal, prismatic and self-examining, layering narratives to reveal the thorny but nourishing relationship between art and life.
1983, French / English
Hardcover (clothbound, w. dust jacket), 192 pages, 30.4 x 21.3 cm
Published by
Philippe Sers Éditeur / Paris
$420.00 - Out of stock
Man Ray "Objets de Mon Affection" is the original and only Catalogue Raisonné of Man Ray's sculptures and objects.
"The Object of my affection
Is to change complexion
From Pink, to rosey red...
"In whatever form it is finally presented: by a drawing, by a painting, by a photograph, or by the object itself in its original dimensions, it is designed to amuse, bewilder, annoy or to inspire reflection, but not to arouse admiration for any technical exellcence usually sought in other works of art." (Hollywood, September, 1944) - Man Ray
Wonderful first printing of this truly magnificent and very collectable Man Ray book. "Objets de Mon Affection" was first published in 1983 by Philippe Sers Éditeur, Paris. The book is page after page of Man Ray's objects, sculptures, assemblages, readymades. Amongst the well-known objects in here are countless reproductions of never before published sculptural works. This book includes a Catalogue Raisonné of Man Rays magnificent, poetic, humorous and provocative objects, alongside hand-written captions, reflections/anecdotes by Man Ray in English and French, and accompanying texts (in French) by Jean-Hubert Martin, Rosalind Krauss, and Brigitte Hermann. Also includes photography of exhibitions held by Man Ray, as well as domestic displays and studios documentation of his many objects. A really fantastic book, all wrapped up in bright pink cloth covers and dust-jacket - recommended to any fan of Man Ray's work.
2007, Japanese / English
Newspaper (folded, unbound with numbered obi and publisher's sleeve), 48 pages, 54 x 40cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Tokyo: Artbeat / Tokyo
$60.00 - Out of stock
Peter Sutherland's HISTORY OF EARTH, published in newspaper format (folded and unbound) by Tokyo: Artbeat in 2007 in a numbered limited edition of 1000 copies. Only available in Japan and now long out-of-print.
Peter Sutherland (b. 1976) is an New York City based photographer, who takes pictures, makes films and plays soccer.
Fine - As New copy numbered obi and publisher's sleeve.
2021, English
Hard slipcase containing ten volumes, each 16 pages, signed and numbered box, 30.5 x 21.5 cm
Ed. of 25, signed and numbered,
Published by
Self-Published / Melbourne
$90.00 - Out of stock
Slipcase edition of Trees and Fences, published as a limited edition artist zine, in ten volumes, each 16 pages, 16 photographs per volume, 160 photographs in total. This complete slipcase edition collects all ten volumes in a limited edition of 25 copies, each box numbered and signed by the artist.
Highly recommended!
Yanni Florence (b. 1965, Melbourne, Australia) co-founded, edited and designed the seminal art publication Pataphysics Magazine (1989). He completed a Bachelor of Architecture at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (1997). Yanni has been making and publishing photographs since 1990. His monographs comprise thoughtfully nuanced and sequenced selections of images. Yanni’s work has been included in several group exhibitions, including Melbourne Now in 2013. His first solo exhibition, Tram Windows, was held at ReadingRoom in 2019.
There are seven published books of his photographs: Self Conscious (2009), Southland (2014), Animal Life (2014), Street Porn (2014), Immolation (2015), HE IS IN THE CITY (2017) and Tram Windows (2019).
2014, English
Hardcover, 56 pages, 29 x 21 cm
Ed. of 50,
Published by
M.33 / Melbourne
$35.00 - In stock -
Forty six photographs by Yanni Florence that in the city light and streets captures the animal figure and print in fashion and the bodies that inhabit it. Accompanying essay by Archeologist Grey Deftereos. Hard back bound book with animal print end papers.
“All this pertains to the perception that appearance reflects upon the wearer, their state of mind, their perception of self and how they are choosing to present themselves to others. Clothes are like sentences in a language and what they communicate is a large part of the performance of self within a larger syntax. With animal prints the wearer conflates the aspects of the totem with the self, or the self they are at that time performing. They, in a sense, become the embodiment of the animal, or at least that reading is there for others to make. Wearing animal prints is also, tacitly, a kind of animism, the belief that the spirit of animals and living beings are present throughout all time within inanimate objects. Some aspect of wearing animal prints is the conflation of the self with characteristics of the animals portrayed, and most often – aside say, from the portrayal of kittens, (but then again) - this is sexual.” Greg Deftereos, How to Wear Animal Prints.
Published by M.33 (Melbourne) in a signed edition of 50 copies.
2015, English
Hardcover, 28 pages, 29.7 x 26 cm
Ed. of 5,
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
M.33 / Melbourne
$300.00 - Out of stock
Immolation is a book of photographs by Yanni Florence of people on fire. Not in flames running down the street screaming, but quietly burning. There is smoke coming from a man seen from behind as he waits to cross the road at the traffic lights. It looks like he is on fire. Self-combusting. Slowly burning up from the inside. He and others in this book are giving off smoke signals. The book is a studied selection of nineteen photographs from hundreds of photographs that were taken to decipher these signals.
This is a copy of the very rare special edition of only 5 copies: over-sized hardbound photographic inkjet prints on cotton rag paper, 297 x 260 cm, numbered and signed by Florence.
Yanni Florence is an Australian based photographer and award-winning book designer. He has been involved in the design and publishing of numerous publications in the art world for public art museums, cultural institutions, private collectors and artists. He was cofounder of the seminal publication Pataphysics Magazine, which he now runs as guest posts on his blog of mainly vernacular photography that he collects. Other books of Yanni’s photographs include Self-conscious (Skoob 2009), Animal Life (M.33, 2014), Street Porn (M.33, 2014) and Southland (M.33, 2014).
2020, English
Softcover, 248 pages, 31 x 24 cm
Published by
Koenig Books / London
CCA / Montreal
$85.00 - Out of stock
Gordon Matta-Clark was born in 1943 in New York, son of American artist Anne Clark, and Chilean Surrealist painter Roberto Matta. He entered the architecture program at Cornell University in 1962 but left in 1963 and spent the following year in Paris living with his father and studying French Literature. He returned to Cornell 1964-1968, he did not, however, practice as a conventional architect; he worked on what he referred to as "Anarchitecture." In mid-1969, Matta-Clark moved to New York City and his architectural "Cuttings", as well as his large corpus of drawings made him a prominent figure among his colleagues, including close friends and collaborators such as Jan Dibbetts and Robert Smithson. His influence as "artist's artist" on future generations cannot be overstated. Matta-Clark died at the age of 35. Many of his works are destroyed.
In 2011, the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark handed over the entire archive – his library, manuscripts, films, correspondence, drawings, notes and works of art - to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, where it now has been published annotated and edited in an exemplary way in this incredible volume. Only with this publication will his work become fully visible.
This book unpacks the comprehensive Gordon Matta-Clark collection at the CCA (CP138), opening it up to provisional readings from different points of view. Yann Chateigné reorganizes Matta-Clark’s library into areas of inquiry, from alchemy to psychoanalysis, as a framework for gathering traces—written and drawn—of his thinking. Hila Peleg reassembles hours of discarded film footage, challenging the notion of documentation and returning to view the physical and social contexts—the relational space—of Matta-Clark’s interventions. And from hundreds of travel photographs, Kitty Scott constructs a panorama of Matta-Clark’s visual notes on the world around him—a foil to his artworks. In foregrounding seemingly incidental parts of the collection, these studies manifest an exploratory way of working with archives, by which selecting, presenting, and writing are processes of ongoing research. Rather than synthesize, CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark: Readings of the archive by Yann Chateigné, Hila Peleg, and Kitty Scott extends the scope of what constitutes Matta-Clark’s body of work and thus the physical and intellectual terrain within which to situate it.
1995, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 250 pages, 21 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
PARCO / Tokyo
$30.00 $15.00 - Out of stock
First edition of Street Fashion 1945-1995, a compendium of Japanese Youth street photography spanning 50 years, published on the occasion of an exhibition at the mighty PARCO gallery in Tokyo in 1995. Illustrated throughout in colour and b/w with texts in Japanese.
A modern department store dedicated to cutting edge fashion, Parco were also instrumental in exhibiting, publishing and promoting Japanese and international graphic artists and new pop culture throughout the 1960s-1990s.
Fine copy.
1999, English
Hardcover (w. slipcase and glassine dust jacket), 102 pages, 23.5 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Stromboli / Paris
$350.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this beautifully produced volume by famed Italian fashion photographer Poalo Roversi (b. 1947). This, Roversi's first book, collects 46 delicate almost monochromatic full body nudes of international fashion models. Taken by Roversi in his Paris studio over a period of ten years, beginning in the early 1980s, and using a large-format Polaroid film, the series is a gorgeous example of Roversi's minimal and tender, "more subtraction than addition" photographic style.
At the invitation of Peter Knapp, the legendary Art Director of Elle magazine, Roversi visited Paris in November 1973 and has never left. In Paris, Roversi started working as a reporter for the Huppert Agency but little by little, through his friends, he began to approach fashion photography. The photographers who really interested him then were reporters. At that moment he didn't know much about fashion or fashion photography. His work became celebrated through the pages of Elle, Vogue, and Marie Claire, and work with designers such Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Comme des Garcons and Valentino.
Fine copy in VG original glassine dust jacket in VG publisher's original card slipcase
2004, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 23 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
A Magazine / Antwerp
$340.00 - Out of stock
The rare first issue of "A Magazine Curated By", a publishing project for which fashion designers are invited to act as guest editors, filling each issue with a personal selection of their own material, expressing their aesthetic and cultural values. This issue guest edited by Maison Martin Margiela and issued in 2004. Now an important and highly sought after reference on the golden years of Margiela.
This issue present "the extended creative life and the expression of the house of Maison Martin Margiela" wherein the magazine acts as a reunion of staff members, collaborators, collectors, models, photographers, artists and film makers to show what they are working on at the moment or a piece of work which still remains very dear to them. The colour white, in all its shades and temperatures, acts as a unifying thread between the participants. Profusely illustrated throughout with interviews from the likes of Inge Grognard, Patric Scallon, Bless and others, a MMM Absolut coctail recipe, and the infamous do-it-yourself sock sweater tutorial.
”A MAGAZINE is the new name of the Belgian fashion magazine whose title previously played with the letters of the alphabet. Insiders, we know, cherish the issues curated by fashion designers Dirk Van Saene (N°A), Bernhard Willhelm (N°B), Hussein Chalayan (N°C) and Olivier Theyskens (N°D). This issue will undoubtedly become a collector’s item as well since our guest curator is Maison Martin Margiela.”
Good-Very Good copy. Light cover wear only.
2013, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. obi-strip), 230 pages, 21 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Street Editorial Office / Tokyo
$160.00 - Out of stock
Maison Martin Margiela was founded in Paris by Martin Margiela and Jenny Meirens in 1988. The first Martin Margiela collection of ready-to-wear for women was presented in October 1988 for Spring/Summer 1989. Since then Maison Martin Margiela has presented two collections a year and has taken part in many exhibitions on its work around the world. STREET magazine was founded in Tokyo by Shoichi Aoki and Noriko Kojima in 1985. It has been published monthly ever since. Each issue features photographs of people, chosen for what they are wearing, by Shoichi Aoki, taken in the streets of the world's fashion capitals. In 1995 STREET approached Maison Martin Margiela inviting it to publish a special edition of STREET dedicated to its work. Maison Martin Margiela was solely responsible for the choice of images and layout and used mostly unpublished photographs from its archives to explore and illuminate its past collections and presentations. The Maison Martin Margiela STREET special, Volume 1 first appeared on news stands in japan in October 1995 and covered every Martin Margiela collection from Spring/Summer 1989 up to Autumn/Winter 1995-1996. The success of volume 1 sparked the continuation of the story with the publication of volume 2 in February 1999. Volume 2 covers all Martin Margiela collections for women up to Spring/Summer 1999 as well as the first presentation of 10, a wardrobe for men and 6, basic garments for women for Summer 1999 and Maison Martin Margiela's participation in three exhibitions held in Brussels, Florence and Rotterdam. Both volumes now long out-of-print and collectible, this 2013 book edition combines volumes 1 & 2, beautifully reprinting the entirety of their contents.
The first and still the best behind-the-scenes visual document of the world of Maison Martin Margiela, including the first 20 collections, events, exhibitions, studios, ephemera, garment details, and much more - very page magnificent. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and black and white with photographs by Martin Margiela, Paolo Roversi, Anders Edstrom, Mark Borthwick, Raf Coolen, Tatsuya Kitayama, Ronald Stoops, Barbara Katz, Roman Singer, Marina Faust, and many others.
Pristine copy, As New w. obi-strip.
2020, English / Italian
Softcover (w. booklet), 300 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Published by
Danilo Montanari Editore / Ravenna
$80.00 - In stock -
The volume examines the most interesting and innovative photographic books that appeared in Italy in the decade in which "modern" photography developed in our country. A boundary publishing industry, which oscillates between autonomous visual research (starting from the rediscovered experimentalism in the futurist field) and a 'functional' use of photographic illustration, in the two parallel and often crossed fields of advertising and propaganda.
The large Italian companies (Olivetti, Fiat, Snia Viscosa, Montecatini, etc.) recognized in those years the importance of linking their image to innovative graphic projects, in which photography plays a much more effective role than drawing; at the same time the fascist regime, having concluded its first phase of expansion and consolidation, discovers the power of photography and avant-garde techniques, especially photomontage, in the context of those promotional and self-celebrating practices which it increasingly needs to drive and maintain consent.
The book collects and illustrates about one hundred works, which emerge from an almost forgotten (if not removed), but conspicuous and often high-level editorial production, many of which due to the work of leading artists of the period, including Antonio Boggeri, Erberto Carboni, Franco Grignani, Bruno Munari, Giuseppe Pagano, Luigi Veronesi: tracing, we can say, the brief and intense history of graphic and photographic modernism in Italy.
Giorgio Grillo lives and works in Florence. He has dealt with Italian literature of the twentieth century, including the critical edition of Dino Campana's Canti Orfici. For some time he has been collecting photographs and photographic books, with particular attention to the photography of the origins and the historical avant-gardes of the last century.