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
Hardcover, 236 pages, 21 x 27 cm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$94.00 $60.00 - Out of stock
This publication focuses on two of Maria Eichhorn’s open-ended projects, which both have the representation and regulation of sexual imagery as their theme. Prohibited Imports (2003/08 and 2015) now includes books censored by Japanese customs – books made by artists Robert Mapplethorpe, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Jeff Koons, among others. Film Lexicon of Sexual Practices (1999/2005/2008/2014/2015) currently consists of twenty 16mm silent films (each approx. 3 minutes).
The essays by Nina Power, Nora M. Alter, Pamela M Lee, and Scott Watson engage the critical dimension of these compelling works.
Published after the exhibition at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (11 September – 13 December 2015).
Maria Eichhorn is a German artist based in Berlin. She is best known for site-specific works and installations that investigate political and economic systems, often revealing their intrinsic absurdity or the extent to which we normalize their complex codes and networks
1982, Japanese
Softcover, 202 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Shimpyosha / Japan
$70.00 - Out of stock
Rare, early 1982 special edition book-journal dedicated to the work of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, who became an icon of photographic publishing and one of Japan's most celebrated and prolific photographers. “Bessatsu Shinpyo, summer edition: Araki Nobuyoshi no sekai” - "The World of Nobuyoshi Araki.", a 202 page documentary record complementing “The Truth About Nobuyoshi Araki,” concluding with a chronology of Araki’s career compiled by Akira Suei.”--Kotaro Iizawa, Araki: Self, Life, Death. Texts in Japanese.
Nobuyoshi Araki is a prolific Japanese photographer who has produced thousands of photographs over the course of his career. He became famous for “Un Voyage Sentimental” (1971), a series of photos depicting both banal and deeply intimate scenes of his wife and lifelong muse, essayist Aoki Yoko (whom the artist credits for making him a photographer), during their honeymoon. To date the 75 year old has produced 450 photo books and counting. With a repertoire that knows no boundaries, Araki's diaristic style of photography has captured the world around him (his cat Chiro, the people and landscapes of Japan and his travels, flowers, family), though it is Araki’s intensely sexual imagery that has elicited particular controversy and fascination throughout his career. Similarly to Helmut Newton, Araki has often addressed subversive themes — such as bondage in the Japanese style Kinbaku — in his provocative depictions of female nudes. He typically works in black-and-white photography, and his hallmark style is deliberately casual. “Rather than shooting something that looks like a professional photograph, I want my work to feel intimate, like someone in the subject’s inner circle shot them,” he says. Pushing against the world of commercialised photography, he is celebrated for his history of self-publishing and distributing his work, beginning with his Xerox Photo Albums of 1970. Amongst many others, Araki has collaborated with American photographer Nan Goldin and Icelandic musician Björk.
1971, English
Hardcover (w. dustjacket), 82 pages, 29 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thomas Nelson / Melbourne
$190.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover edition of this Australian photo-book classic. In 1971, photographer Rennie Ellis and co-photographer and close friend, Wesley Stacey, published Kings Cross Sydney, which, as Ellis puts it "examines the surface glitter and underground guts of the Cross". An intimate look at the height of Kings Cross, before gentrification and controversial lock-out laws had their way with it. Illustrated throughout with black and white and colour photographs alongside quotes and stories from/about local residents (inc. the "Witch of Kings Cross", Rosaleen Norton), workers, businesses, controversies, and politics of Kings Cross. Colloquially known as The Cross, The Kings Cross district was Sydney's bohemian heartland from the early decades of the 20th century, known for its music halls and grand theatres and home to a large number of artists, writers, poets and journalists. From the 1960s onwards Kings Cross came to serve as the city's red-light district and entertainment mecca.
"Between the time when work was begun on this book and its appearance in the shops, Kings Cross has continued in its haphazard state of flux. The park at the El Alamein Fountain has been paved, the 'full
reveal' has become standard in the strip clubs, several night spots have gone out of existence and others
have opened in their places, Rose the Flower Seller has died, as have Tilly Devine, Chips Rafferty and
Kenneth Slessor, Sammy Lee has grown a moustache, and many more old buildings have crumbled under
the wreckers' hammers. Yet, the book remains a valid statement about the changing society it reflects because its images freeze moments in time that will forever remain symbols of the unusual character of the Cross. With their cameras Rennie Ellis and Wesley Stacey have penetrated the slick veneer of life at Kings Cross and revealed the beauty and the pathos, as well as the seaminess, which lurk beneath the tinsel glitter. The affinity which the authors feel for the place, the people, and their attitudes, has resulted in
an honest appraisal which may sadden, amuse, shock or repel, but never fair to intrigue those who read or look at the book."
"Over a period of six months the authors made frequent forays into the Cross armed with their cameras
and tape recorder. It was only by becoming known to the locals that they were able to record some of
the remarkable scenes in this book. Nevertheless, there is much that they learned about the Cross
which can only be hinted The laws of libel and the threats of bashings ensure a diplomatic silence. As
one of the authors put it: 'When a guy pulls a pistol on you and says that he's going to shoot you, you know
that it's time to put away your camera and retire gracefully.'"
Very Good copy, in Good dust jacket, preserved under mylar wrap. Internally clean, well-preserved, with a great one-page letter home from a group of Americans(?) reflecting on their fond experience of the Cross.
2007, English
Hardcover, 595 pages, 28.5 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$800.00 - Out of stock
The fast out-of-print, highly collectible Parallel Encyclopedia. The result of a long term investigation, this first voluminous encyclopaedia contains solely images collected from other books, and reads as an exhilarating and extremely rich filmic sequence. Artist Batia Suter's interest lies not only in the iconographic value of images and the way that the human brain processes visual information, but also the causes by which images become charged with associative values.
This first volume of the Parallel Encyclopedia is now very rare. A second Parallel Encyclopedia was published in 2016, also by Roma Publications in Amsterdam and available at World Food Books.
Fine copy.
1993, English / German
Softcover, 96 pages, 21 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
City Gallery / Wellington
$50.00 - Out of stock
Catalogue produced to accompany the large solo institutional exhibition of German artist Rosemarie Trockel at Wellington's City Gallery, in New Zealand, 1993. Illustrated throughout in colour and black and white images, the catalogue reproduces all the sculptural, drawing, painting, video, wool, photography, collage works presented in the expansive exhibition, along with installation photography, a list of works, exhibition history, biography and accompanying texts by Jutta Koether, Gregory Burke, Robyn Gardner (all in English and German).
Very Good copy
1978, Japanese / English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 20.6 × 21.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Asahi Sonorama / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
First 1978 hardcover edition of this classic work of early seventies erotica by Japanese photographer Masaya Nakamura. Ema Nude in Africa is a photobook of nude images of Emma Sugimoto, a leading model in Japan at that time (also featured in "Emma" by Shunji Okura), captured in various locations throughout the African continent at the end of the 1960s. The book includes all the photographs from a large exhibit of the same name held at the Tokyo Department Store in Shibuya in 1971. This hardcover edition was published in 1978 by Asahi Sonorama, Tokyo. Text in Japanese with short note in English by photographer Sam Haskins and an afterword by Tatsuo Shirai.
Masaya Nakamura (中村 正也 Nakamura Masaya, 1926–2001) was a japanese photographer particularly known for nude photography. Nakamura began photographing actors and doing still photography for films. He went freelance in 1951 and in 1954 joined with Yūji Hayata in setting up Hayata's studio. He was also doing work for the magazine Chūō Kōron. And from thw 1950s onwards focussed his photography on the nude.
Very Good copy in Very dust jacket. One dent to cover, otherwise fine throughout.
2017, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 23 x 31 cm
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$60.00 - Out of stock
First issue of an annual magazine of photographic stories, edited and designed by Julie Peeters. Twelve contributors present new or previously unpublished work. BILL prioritizes visual reading without distraction, the images that appear in the magazine are printed without any accompanying text. Contributors to the first issue are: Jochen Lempert, Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Katja Mater, Elena Narbutaite, Rosalind Nashashibi & Vivian Suter, Arthur Ou, Scott Ponik, Adam Putnam, Johannes Schwartz, Algirdas Šeškus, Linda Van Deursen, and Stand Up Comedy.
2019, English
Softcover, 184 pages, 23 x 31 cm
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$50.00 - Out of stock
Out of Print.
Bill 2 is the second issue of an annual magazine of photographic stories, edited and designed by Julie Peeters. Twelve contributors present new or previously unpublished work. The images in the magazine are printed without any accompanying text: Bill prioritizes visual reading without distraction. Contributors to the second issue are: Gintaras Didziapetris, Jason Dodge, Archiv Hans Hollein, Inge Ketelers, Tadashi Kurahashi by Tadanori Yokoo - Tadanori Yokoo by Tadashi Kurahashi, Jochen Lempert, Raimundas Malasauskas, Bart Julius Peters / T L P S, Reto Schmid, Megan Francis Sullivan, Linda van Deursen, Ann Woo, and Jiajia Zhang.
1988, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 76 pages, 26.5 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo
$360.00 - Out of stock
Signed copy (by Issey Miyake) of the wonderful first Japanese printing of this famous Irving Penn photography book, published by Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd., Tokyo in 1988. It is the hardcover version with original illustrated dust-jacket.
Published to coincide with the exhibition "Issey Miyake A UN," organized by Miyake Design Studio in association with the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in 1988, this heavily photographic book features stunning full-page photos by Irving Penn of Issey Miyake's 1987 line throughout the entire book. Foreword by Isamu Noguchi, and accompanying essay by Jay Cocks. Type design by Kiyoshi Kanai. Project coordinated by Midori Kitamura and June Kanai, who also modeled the clothes. Wonderful, iconic imagery of Issey Miyake's late 1980's works.
Dedication, signed and dated (1988) by Issey Miyake in bold black marker on title page!
Very Good copy - tight, clean, protected by original dust-jacket under plastic wrap, very light shelf wear / tanning to cover.
1990, English
Hardcover, 48 pages, 26.5 x 31 cm
1st edition of 3000 copies, signed / out of print title / used*,
Published by
Miyake Design Studio / Tokyo
$530.00 - Out of stock
Signed copy (by Issey Miyake) of the very scarce, collectable "Issey Miyake by Irving Penn" (1990), printed only once in a limited edition of 3,000 copies and published by the Miyake Design Studio in Tokyo, 1990.
Signed and dated (Dec. 1990) by Issey Miyake on the title page in grey lead, this beautiful volume is made up entirely of legendary photographer Irving Penn's elegant images of the great Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake's 1990 collection, in full-colour on gloss stock. One of the greatest collaborative partnerships in fashion image history.
‘through his eyes penn-san reinterprets the clothes, gives them new breath, and presents them to me from a new vantage point — one that I may not have been aware of, but had been subconsciously trying to capture. Without penn-san’s guidance, I probably could not have continued to find new themes with which to challenge myself, nor could I have arrived at new solutions.’ – Issey Miyake (from Irving Penn: A Career in Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997)
credits:
Clothing Design by lssey Miyake
Photographs by Irving Penn
Book Design by lkko Tanaka
Face by Tyen
Hair by John Sahag
Modeled by Yuki Fujii
Printed and bound by Nissha Printing Company, Kyoto, Japan
Published by Miyake Design Studio, Tokyo, Japan
Published in a limited edition of 3,000 copies
2008, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 22 x 32 cm
Published by
JRP Ringier / Zürich
$49.00 - Out of stock
The return of an out-of-print cult classic
The book is a reprint of the original 1980 publication of the Swiss artist and photographer. With only full-bleed black and white images organized in visual sequences, the first publication suddenly brought Pfeiffer's Polaroids to the public's attention and became a sort of underground icon, flirting with gay subculture and what later became a mainstream style of magazine photography.
"In his earliest work Pfeiffer can be seen in relation to Larry Clark, as a photographer who not only captures but implicates himself in the restless '70s, and yet Pfeiffer's irreverent sense of humor sets him apart [ … ] Walter Pfeiffer's work both anticipated and paralleled that of the '80s photographers and, in so doing, looked ahead to much of what followed. So it would be possible to see his pictures laid end to end as a secret thread to the present."—Bob Nickas (Artforum)
2019, English
Softcover, 24 pages, 13 x 19 cm
Ed. of 150,
Published by
Innen Books / Zürich
$14.00 - Out of stock
"a few pictures …" is a new publication by French fashion designer agnès b., published in 2019 by Innen Books, Zürich. Alongside selected images from agnès’ photographic archive is a text by Jonas Mekas.
First Edition of 150 copies.
agnès b. (born Agnès Andrée Marguerite Troublé, 1941 in Versailles) is a French fashion designer. She is known for her self-named brand, which includes fashion and film interests.
2016, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 288 pages, 15.2 x 24.1 cm
Published by
University of Chicago Press / Chicago
$89.00 - Out of stock
Douglas Crimp is the rare art critic whose work profoundly influenced a generation of artists. He is best known for his work with the "Pictures Generation" the very name of which Crimp coined to define the work of artists like Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman who appropriated images from mass culture to carry out a subversive critique. But while his influence is widely recognized, we know little about Crimp's own formative experiences before "Pictures."Before Pictures tells the story of Crimp's life as a young gay man and art critic in New York City during the late 1960s through the turbulent 1970s. Crimp participated in all of what made the city so stimulating in that vibrant decade. The details of his professional and personal life are interwoven with this the particularly rich history of New York City at that time, producing a vivid portrait of both the critic and his adopted city. The book begins with his escape from his hometown in Idaho, and we quickly find Crimp writing criticism for ArtNews while working at the Guggenheim where, as a young curatorial assistant, he was one of the few to see Daniel Buren's Peinture-Sculpture before it was removed amid cries of institutional censorship. We also travel to the Chelsea Hotel (where Crimp helped the down-on-his-luck couturier Charles James organize his papers) through to his days as a cinephile and balletomane to the founding of the art journal October, where he remained a central figure for many years. As he was developing his reputation as a critic, he was also partaking of the New York night life, from drugs and late nights alongside the Warhol crowd at the Max's Kansas City to discos, roller-skating, and casual sex with famous (and not-so-famous) men. As AIDS began to ravage the closely linked art and gay communities, Crimp eventually turned his attention to activism dedicated to rethinking AIDS. Part biography and part cultural history, Before Pictures is a courageous account of an exceptional period in both Crimp's life and the life of New York City. At the same time, it offers a deeply personal and engaging point of entry into important issues in contemporary art.
Includes the work of Cindy Sherman, Jack Goldstein, Daniel Buren, Charles James, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Peter Hujar, Eva Hesse, Bernardo Bertolucci, Walker Evans, Joseph Cornell, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Tworkov, Robert Ryman, Jane Freilicher, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Stanley Kubrick, Cristobal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly, Guilio Romano, Andrea Mantegna, Merce Cunningham, Joan Jonas, Yvonne Rainer, John Baldessari, Dan Graham, Vito Acconci, Alvin Baltrop, Divine, Gordon Matta-Clark, Edgar Degas, Louise Lawler, and so many others.
2019, English
Staple bound, 32 pages, 17 cm x 24 cm
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$28.00 - Out of stock
Erik van der Weijde presents a series of photographs of Bollenveld, a futuristic housing project by Dutch architect Dries Kreijkamp, situated in a residential area of 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. The 50 ‘bolwoningen’ (“ball-” or “bulb-houses”) were built in 1984 using prefabricated spheres of glass-fibre reinforced concrete. Each has a diameter of 5.5 metres and total living area of 55 square metres. They are the last examples of houses that were funded by the Dutch subsidy for experimental building, which was created in 1968.
1995, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 120 pages, 25 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Harry N. Abrams / New York
$65.00 - Out of stock
American painter Georgia O'Keeffe spent the last 40 years of her life in quiet isolation in New Mexico in the village of Abiquiu. In 1979 She permitted Colorado photographer Myron Wood to photograph at her properties in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. Over the following 2 1/2 years he made hundreds of photographs of the artist, the people close to her and of the house, gardens and surrounding landscape. Here are reproduced 79 of those photographs which evoke the spirit of the place as O'keeffe inhabited it.
First edition of this lovely, intimate hardcover photo book. Accompanying text by Christine Taylor Patten.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket, preserved in mylar wrap.
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American artist. She was best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been recognized as the "Mother of American modernism".
2006, English / Japanese
Softcover, 40 Pages 21 x 29.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Here and There / Japan
Nieves / Zurich
$45.00 - Out of stock
Yukinori Maeda, Takashi Homma, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Anne Daems, Susan Cianciolo, Els Beusen, Elein Fleiss, Yoshimi, Yayako Uchida, Takako Minekawa, Yurie Nagashima, Bless, Kazunari Hattori
Here and There comes back, after two years of absence from the independent magazine scene, with Unexpected Travelling Issue, a sixth issue which counts already familiar but also new illustrious collaborations.
In Nakako’s own words, the vision behind the Unexpected Travelling Issue was: "One day, someone told me her ideal garden is what looks like no one is taking care of, and have so many different pretty flowers in springtime. The other day my friend told me she has an ideal image of bringing up kids even though in reality she has to deal with daily life living in crowded Tokyo. I am into those stories, and new issue must be something related to this 'ideal' world. in each people's minds. Maybe you can talk about ideal books making"
With the sixth issue, Here and There consolidates its long-standing partnership with Nieves, which from now on will be publishing and distributing the magazine internationally.
As Elein Fleiss once said, Here and There is the magazine of one person. The fact that Nakako's name is credited as the author on the cover is not an egocentric statement but reveals the spirit in which she makes it. Some people make films, others write books or make artworks, and Nakako makes a magazine. It is her personal work and in that sense she makes it in her own way, unlike most magazines on the planet. It also means she is free from capitalistic rules, from imposed trends, from the industry of fashion. Instead, she is free to follow her desire and to link the magazine with her personal life.
Nakako Hayashi was born in 1966. She became a freelance editor from 2001, after working for Hanatsubaki, the culture magazine published by Shiseido. She has been writing fashion and art articles for Ryu-ko-tsu-shin and other magazines. Her books include Baby Generation and Paris Collection Individuals (both by Little More)
Art Director Kazunari Hattori.
2007, English / Japanese
Softcover, 64 Pages, 21 x 29.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Nieves / Zurich
Here and There / Japan
$45.00 - Out of stock
Susan Cianciolo, Pascale Gatzen, Mark Borthwick, Kenneth Andrew Mroczek, Ruthie Doyle, Julian Gatto, Yukinori Maeda, Takashi Homma, Anne Daems, Mike Mills, Kim Gordon, Elein Fleiss, Kenshu Shintsubo, Jeff Burch, Kasane Nagawa and Benjamin Sommerhalder
Here and There Vol.7 is dedicated to the cities of Paris and Tokyo, looking at them through the eyes of its wide contributors’ family spread around the world. We are taken into a whirlwind of overlapping stories and emotions, through the words and images of Takashi Homma, Elein Fleiss, Susan Cianciolo, Julian Gatto, Kim Gordon, Mike Mills, Benjamin Sommerhalder and most importantly Nakako Hayashi, the mind behind it all.
This issue is also filled with a few extra special interviews to Pascale Gatzen, Susan Cianciolo, Yukinori Maeda and texts by Jeff Burch, all adding up to 64 truly inspirational pages.
Art Director Kazunari Hattori.
1971, French
Hardcover (clothbound w. dustjacket), 88 pages, 25 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Editions Filipacchi / Paris
$90.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this great monographic book on the work of Surrealist visionary Hans Bellmer, published in 1971 by Editions Filipacchi, Paris. Heavily illustrated throughout with wonderful reproductions of Bellmer's incredible drawings, photography, sculptures, paintings, alongside texts in French, biography and bibliography.
German artist Hans Bellmer (13 March 1902 – 23 February 1975), was best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. "Bellmer was born in the city of Kattowitz, then part of the German Empire (now Katowice, Poland). Up until 1926, he'd been working as a draftsman for his own advertising company. He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party by declaring that he would make no work that would support the new German state. Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany. Bellmer was influenced in his choice of art form by reading the published letters of Oskar Kokoschka (Der Fetisch, 1925)."
Very Good copy in Good but worn dust jacket with tanning and a few small tears/wear. Very Good copy otherwise, with only edge tanning, preserved under Mylar wrap.
1977, Dutch
Hardcover (w. printed cloth-binding), 160 pages, 31 x 25 cm
Signed 1st Edition, Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Holkema & Warendorf / Bussum
$700.00 - In stock -
Rare first edition, signed by Ed Van Der Elsken!
"Eye Love You. Mensenboek, vrouwen-, mannenboek, libido-, sex-, liefdes-, vriendschapsboek. Boek van geluk, verdriet, lijden, dood, strijd, moed, vitaliteit. door: Ed van der Elsken"
"Eye Love You. People book, women's-, men's book, libido, sex- , of love-, friendship book. Book of happiness, sadness, suffering, death, struggle, courage, vitality. yours: Ed van der Elsken"
True first edition copy (with cloth-spine) of this, his first full-colour photo book, "Eye Love You" was published by Van Holkema & Warendorf, Bussum, in 1977 and features page after page of van der Elsken's colourful, intimate and often confrontational photography and texts from all over the world. Like a travelogue of his encounters across Africa, India, Paris, Amsterdam, etc. in protest, famine, ritual, commune, celebration, mourning, and all in-between, it encompasses exactly what van der Elsken's inscription inside states, "Book of happiness, sadness, suffering, death, struggle, courage, vitality".
A truly special photo book from the 1970's.
This copy is signed by Ed Van Der Elsken himself, with a press-clipping pasted into the front endpapers.
Design by Wim Crouwel, Total Design.
Eduard "Ed" van der Elsken (10 March 1925 – 28 December 1990) was a renowned Dutch photographer and filmmaker. His imagery provides quotidian, intimate and autobiographic perspectives on the European zeitgeist, spanning the period of the Second World War into the 1970's in the realms of love, sex, art, music (particularly jazz), and alternative culture.
The life of photographer, filmmaker, artist and world traveler Ed van der Elsken was connected intimately with his work. He did not hide behind the camera, but used it to get in touch with the people he preferred to photograph: eccentric characters in the large metropolises, often belonging to the lower strata of society.
Good-Very Good copy (signed by Ed Van Der Elsken on title page in red marker on white sticker, small amount of cover wear and spotting to first pages and fading to cloth on spine, otherwise tight/clean copy throughout) – All care is taken to provide accurate condition details of used books, photos available on request.
1978, English
Softcover, 24 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Harmony Books / New York
$300.00 - Out of stock
Very scarce copy of the only printing of American photographer Joseph Szabo's 1978 cult photo-book "Almost Grown". A masterpiece of intimate photographs capturing a time of innocence and blossoming sexuality, of tenderness and raucousness. Almost Grown celebrates in photographs and poetry the joys and uncertainties of that paradoxical time when we are no longer children and yet are not quite adults. "... an unusual collaboration between teacher and teenager, a funny and romantic look at teenagers looking at themselves. Theirs is a world rarely witnessed by parents. Here is what kids do together - at the beach or the drive-in, during and after school - what they themselves describe as "doing nothing" because it is neither work nor play. In ninety photographs and twenty-five poems written by teenagers in Alan Ziegler's writing workshops, Almost Grown dramatizes and clarifies adolescence, making it familiar, sensual, and charged with the shock of recognition." - Joseph Szabo
Foreword by Cornell Capa. Poetry collected by Alan Ziegler. Designed by Bea Feitler
Joseph Szabo is a teacher, photographer and author. He taught photography and art at Malverne High School on Long Island for 27 years and for over 20 years at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan. His 1978 book, “Almost Grown,” featured many of his students and was acclaimed as one of the “Best Books of the Year” by the American Library Association. In the book’s forward, legendary photojournalist and Founder of the International Center of Photography Cornell Capa, wrote that “…in Szabo’s hands, the camera is magically there, the light is always available, the moment is perceived, seen, and caught.”
Throughout the 80s and 90s, “Almost Grown” attained cult classic status in the fashion world, prompting Vogue editor Grace Coddington to notice that “all the young fashion photographers were looking at Joe’s photographs as their bible.”
First edition. Very Good copy, with light edge wear and previous owner's name to first blank.
1987, English
Softcover, 315 pages, 24 x 28 cm
Out of print title / used / good
Published by
The MIT Press / Massachusetts
$65.00 - Out of stock
Long out of print English edition of this phenomenal book, published in 1987 by The MIT Press.
These five hundred photographs are a unique and exuberant record of Bauhaus activities and experiments during the 1920s and early 1930s. Significantly, most of the photographs were taken by artists-painters like Fritz Kuhr and Werner Siedhoff, designers Heinz Loew and Herbert Bayer, Bauhaus masters Hannes Meyer and Joosst Schmidt - who were not self-conscious photographers but who wanted to work with a new technological product. The results constitute the largest and most comprehensive photographic archive currently available on the Bauhaus, supplementing visual material already published in Hans Wingler's monumental Bauhaus and presenting the school's more human side. Some of these photographs have never been published, while others have not been published since the period in which they were made.
Part I consists of over 100 "artistic" images, a listing of Bauhaus photography exhibits, an example of a Dessau Bauhaus lesson plan, including photography, and essays on various aspects of photography by Peterhans, Moholy, Vordemberge-Gildewart, Ernst Kallai, Fritz Kuhr, Willi Baumeister, Adolf Behne, Max Burchartz, Will Grohmann, and Ludwig Kassack. There is also a section on the use of photography with typography. Part II is a Bauhaus album - nearly 400 illustrations of applied photography documenting the Bauhaus buildings, classroom projects, or day-today activities of students and faculty.
Egidio Marzona has assembled the world's foremost collection of works on paper documenting the revolutionary efforts of the Bauhaus. Marzona is also a well-known publisher of books on Russian Constructivism, Futurism, De Stijl, Dadaism, and a host of other movements and figures of the 20th-century avant-garde.
1966, English
Softcover, 148 pages, 21.5 x 22.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
LACMA / Los Angeles
$55.00 - Out of stock
The great catalogue for a major exhibition held in Los Angeles in 1966 on the work of Man Ray. Published by LACMA for the occasion, this 148 page English catalogue is very generous in its content, with reproductions of much of Man Ray's work across painting, sculpture and photography, amongst much more, it also features an introduction byJules Langsner, Man Ray's writings on his own work and observations, texts about Man Ray by his friends (Paul Éluard, Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Rrose Sélavy, Tristan Tzara, Hans Richter), plus other texts, catalogue of the exhibition, Chronology, Major Exhibitions, and Selected Bibliography.
Good-Very Good copy.
1988, English
Softcover (french-folds), 34 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Terrazzo / Milan
$100.00 - Out of stock
TERRAZZO was a very special biannual publication on architecture and design, edited and published between 1988–1995 by Barbara Radice, a prominent Italian author, design critic and member of the Memphis Milano design group. In conjunction with Ettore Sottsass, Christoph Radl, Anna Wagner and Santi Caleca, Radice created a unique and thoughtful periodical that focused on contemporary works of design and architecture, within Italy and abroad, touching on a vast array of disciplines in each issue, including photography, literature, poetry, history, science, philosophy, art and anthropology.
TERRAZZO 1
Fall 1988
MICHELE DE LUCCHI
new drawings
MASSIMO IOSA GHINI
things must pass
JOHNNY PIGOZZI
architecture from the sky
THE SECOND MODERNITY
by Andrea Branzi
TRAVEL NOTES
by Ettore Sottsass
on architecture
photographs by Ettore Sottsass
OUTSIDE THE AVANT-GARDE
by Herbert Muschamp
MARMORA ROMANA
by Romiero Gnoli
PLANS (No. 1)
Sumer, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Indian
2019, English / Swedish
Softcover, 172 pages, 23.5 x 17 cm
Published by
Moderna Museet / Stockholm
Koenig Books / London
$68.00 - Out of stock
New lavishly illustrated monographic catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Rosemarie Trockel: The Same Different at Moderna Museet, Stockholm (29 September 2018 – 10 March 2019).
Rosemarie Trockel’s breakthrough came in the 1980s, and ever since she has been critically examining art, the structures of society, and gender roles with analytical acuity and humour and with a sensuality that is all her own. Anyone who looks for a recognisable style in her work is looking in vain. She evades anything that might lock her down and confine her. The catalogue allows the reader to follow the artist’s career from her feminist examinations of the 1990s to later works in which she addresses issues of animal ethics, artistic processes, and what art can be. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Rosemarie Trockel: The Same Different at Moderna Museet, Stockholm (29 September 2018 – 10 March 2019).
English and Swedish text.
Co-published by Koenig Books and Moderna Museet.