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:
THU—FRI 12—6 PM
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
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 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. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or 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.
1999, English
Softcover, 186 pages, 15.5 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cityful Press / Seattle
$200.00 - In stock -
First, only edition of "Think of The Self Speaking : Harry Smith — Selected Interviews", published in 1998 by Cityful Press and long out-of-print. In this incredible collection you will find the flavour and texture of experimental filmmaker, music anthologist, and enigmatic polymath Harry Smith’s conversation, his rambling, obscure, luminous, cantankerous genius. This collection of interviews spans Harry Smith's long and influential life in American arts and letters. They cover a quarter-century, touching on the full range of Smith's activity as a groundbreaking experimental filmmaker, obsessive collector, folk music anthologist, visionary painter, student of Native American lore, anthropologist, cosmographer, alchemist, hermetic scholar, occultist, autodidact, classic American eccentric, and all-around explorer of the possibilities of human consciousness and creativity. Jordan Belson writes, "THINK OF THE SELF SPEAKING is the next best thing to being with Harry himself-perhaps better, certainly safer. The interviews are remarkably similar to his collage films. A brilliant mind unhinged." Includes an introduction by Allen Ginsberg.
Very Good copy with only light shelf wear.
2022, English
Softcover, 120 pages, 19.5 x 13 cm
Published by
Repeater Books / London
$30.00 - In stock -
A blending of art and pop cultural criticism about people who injure themselves for our entertainment or enlightenment.
A few weeks before he died, Hunter S. Thompson left an answerphone message for Jackass’ Johnny Knoxville. “I might be coming to Baton Rouge,” he told the stuntman, “and if I do I will call you, because I will be looking to have some fun, which as you know usually means violence.”
Fun does not, of course, usually mean violence; those who choose to make a hobby, a career or an art practice out of injury are wired a little differently from most. In Which as You Know Means Violence, Philippa Snow — taking in the work of Buster Keaton, Marina Abramović, Jackass, Gina Pane, Bob Flanagan, Chris Burden, and various YouTube stunt performers — analyses the subject of pain, injury and sadomasochism in performance, from the more rarefied context of contemporary art to the considerably less rarefied context of a TV show where grown men hurl various objects at each other’s tenderest parts.
In a world where violence — the violence of climate change, say, or of capitalism — is part of our daily lives, Which as You Know Means Violence focuses on those who enact violence on themselves, for art or entertainment, and addresses the role that violence plays in twenty-first century art and culture.
Philippa Snow is a writer based in Norwich. Her reviews and essays have appeared in publications including Artforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, ArtReview, Frieze, The White Review, Vogue, The New Statesman, The TLS, and The New Republic. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize.
2008, English
Softcover, 489 pages, 15.3 x 22.8 cm
Published by
Zone Books / New York
$58.00 - In stock -
Tony Conrad is exemplary of the 1960s artist who remains inassimilable to canonic histories. Creator of the “structural” film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt’s radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has significantly impacted cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, “concept art,” postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Yet Beyond the Dream Syndicate does not claim Conrad as a major but under-recognized figure.
Rather, by drawing on Deleuzian notions of the “minor” and the Foucauldian problematization of authorship found in Conrad’s own artistic/musical project, Early Minimalism, it disperses him into an “author function.” Neither monograph nor social history, the book takes Conrad’s collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections amongst the arts of the time.
“A tour de force of both interpretative and historiographic acuity.”—Art Bulletin
2022, English / French
Hardcover (clothbound), 96 pages, 30 x 22 cm
Published by
Timeless Edition / Paris
$95.00 - In stock -
‘In Steel Grey Armour’ consistis of the complete reproduction of an infamous and mysterious collage book created by Genesis P-Orridge in 1979 and entrusted to his friend Yves Adrien,
a regular columnist of French music magazine ‘Rock’n’Folk’. It also explores the friendship between the 2 individuals with reproductions of some letters, photos and other artworks that Gen and Yves used to exchange. The book closes with a few words from the wise collector and current owner of the actual book, recounting his first encounter with the original Genesis collage book thanks to Jacques Noel, warden and smuggler-in-chief at Un Regard Moderne bookshop in Paris.
Artist, performer, musician and writer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson, 1950-2020), leader of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, was a major, pioneering, radical and subversive figure in British industrial and experimental music.
Yves Adrien (born 1951) is a French writer, best known for his articles in Rock & Folk magazine from the early 1970s onwards, for his subsequent theorization of post-punk, and for his first book Novövision.
2022, English
Hardcover (clothbound), 192 pages, 30 x 22 cm
Published by
Timeless Edition / Paris
$95.00 - In stock -
Personal correspondence between Genesis P-Orridge and Jean-Pierre Turmel over a fifteen-year period.
This book pays tribute to one of counter-culture's single most iconic figures of the past fifty odd years, someone who has over the course of he/r career influenced countless fellow artists and theorists. Comprised of an exclusive unpublished interview with the artist conducted by Nicolas Ballet in 2016, theoretical texts on he/r work, and archival documents from the personal collection of Jean-Pierre Turmel.
Comprised theoretical texts on he/r work, and archival documents from the personal collection of Jean-Pierre Turmel. The Last Slogan offers a completely new perspective on the work of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.The book collects multiple letters sent by Genesis to Jean-Pierre Turmel from the mid-1970s till early 1990s. These unique personal archives provide an unequaled insight into Genesis Breyer P-Orridge's life-long journey via a deeply intimate correspondence with a close friend and associate, an intellectual sparring-partner of sorts, in which the artist discusses he/r inner thoughts, strategies, doubts and plans without any of the usual control filters.
Artist, performer, musician and writer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (born Neil Andrew Megson, 1950-2020), leader of COUM Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, was a major, pioneering, radical and subversive figure in British industrial and experimental music.
Jean-Pierre Turmel (born 1947 in Rouen, France) is co-founder of the legendary Sordide Sentimental label, which since 1978 has pioneered industrial, new wave and gothic music, producing Throbbing Gristle, Joy Division, Tuxedomoon, The Durutti Column, Savage Republic, Monte Cazazza, Davie Allan & The Arrows, etc.
Contributions by Genesis P-Orridge, Jean-Pierre Turmel, Nicolas Ballet.
2024, English
Softcover, 132 pages, 16 x 12 cm
Published by
Resampled / UK
$45.00 - In stock -
Selected cassette tape and vinyl artwork from experimental electronic music of the 1980s. Touching on industrial, noise, new wave, minimal, drone, sound art, ambient and more. A visual archive of the xerox scanned imagery, disorderly type and hand illustration used to present the decade's boundary-pushing music and abstract compositions.
1993, English
Softcover, 346 pages 21.5 x 13.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Northwestern University Press / Evanston
$50.00 - In stock -
In her seminal study, first published in 1981, Marjorie Perloff argues that the map of Modernist poetry needs to be redrawn to include a central tradition which cannot properly be situated within the Romantic-Symbolist tradition dominating the early twentieth century. She traces this tradition from its early "French connection" in the poetry of Rimbaud and Apollinaire as well as in Cubist, Dada, and early Surrealist painting; through its various manifestations in the work of Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, and Ezra Pound; to such postmodern "landscapes without depth" as the French/English language constructions of Samuel Beckett, the elusive dreamscapes of John Ashbery, and the performance works of David Antin and John Cage.
Very Good copy of 1993 second edition.
1978, English
Softcover folder, fold-out loose leaf 1 x 1.5 metres + additional loose leaf piece, 22 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Outback Press / Fitzroy
$200.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of late Australian artist/compositional linguist/raconteur Chris Mann's epic first published work, Words and Classes — On Having Words, published by Melbourne's Outbackl Press in 1978 in this elaborate artist's book/binder housing an enormous fold-out (approx 1 x 1.5 M unfurled) thick newsprint sheet printed both sides with Mann's experimental texts — poetry, stream-of-consciousness prose, commentaries, dialogues, even a small play — one of the finest examples of Mann's complex and witty exploration of linguistic composition. Includes an additional text work printed and folded inside along with the main work, possibly not originally included.
Chris Mann (1949—2018) was an Australian-American composer, poet and performer specializing in the emerging field of compositional linguistics, coined by Kenneth Gaburo and described by Mann as "the mechanism whereby you understand what I'm thinking better than I do". Mann was the son of German Jewish refugees, Ruth and Peter Mann, who settled in Melbourne and founded the Discurio music store Score record label in the 1960s, producing some of Australia's first recordings of Australian folk music as well as jazz, classical and Aboriginal music. Mann studied Chinese and linguistics at the University of Melbourne, and his interest in language, systems, and philosophy is evident in his work. Mann founded the New Music Centre in 1972 and taught at the State College of Victoria in the mid-1970s. He then left teaching to work on research projects involving cultural ideas of information theory and has been recognized by UNESCO for his work in that field. Mann moved to New York in the 1980s and was an associate of American composers John Cage and Kenneth Gaburo. He has performed text in collaboration with artists such as Thomas Buckner, David Dunn, Annea Lockwood, Larry Polansky, and Robert Rauschenberg. Mann has recorded with the ensemble Machine For Making Sense with Amanda Stewart and others, Chris Mann and the Impediments (with two backup singers and Mann reading a text simultaneously while only being able to hear one another), and Chris Mann and The Use. His piece The Plato Songs, a collaboration with Holland Hopson and R. Luke DuBois, features realtime spectral analysis and parsing of the voice into multiple channels based on phonemes. Mann has also participated in the 60x60 project. Mann taught in the Media Studies Graduate program at The New School. He died in September 2018, survived by his wife and two children.
Very Good copy with some rubbing to folder and tanning to all stocks. Fold-out work As New with age tanning, folded as issued. Edge wear and spine crease to folder.
2016, English
Softcover, 376 pages, 22 x 28.5 cm
Ed. of 1500,
Published by
Cultural Traffic / London
Dashwood Books / New York
$80.00 - Out of stock
Foreword by Toby Mott
Designed by Jamie Andrew Reid
Edition of 1,500
Showboat: Punk / Sex / Bodies delves into the intersection of sex and punk, exploring how each influences and is influenced by the other. As a radical subculture, punk enjoyed the freedom to address sex openly, unencumbered by mainstream censorship. This uninhibited expression of sexuality imbued punk with its rawness and immediacy.
Spanning from 1972 to the present day, Showboat offers a chronological exploration of the dynamic relationship between punk and sex. Drawing from The Mott Collection, the exhibition features original posters, flyers, record covers, photographs, and ephemera. Additionally, contributions from notable figures such as Julie Burchill, Paul Cook, Vivien Goldman, Eve Libertine, Bruce LaBruce, Amos Poe, Richard Prince, and Will Self provide further insight into this captivating intersection.
1961, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 468 pages, 22 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Princeton University Press / New York
$85.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1961 hardcover edition of John Hollander's The Untuning of The Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry, 1500-1700, a classic study exploring the concept of music and its role in English poetry during the Renaissance and early modern periods.
"The use of performed and speculative music as a subject for, and as imagery in, English poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries is the interest of this book. Mr. Hollander's concern is not so much with musical practices as with beliefs about music's power, its place in the world-view of the times. The title of the book is taken from John Dryden's Song for St. Cecilia's Day, where it is used as an extravagant ejaculation in praise of the power of music.
Mr. Hollander traces the change that developed in the beliefs about music's power during the Renaissance, and demonstrates the relation between this change in speculative attitude and parallel developments in the conventions of English poetry during the same period. Almost all the English poetry of any musical relevance during the period is considered. Such major 17th century poems as Crashaw's Musick's Duell and Milton's At a Solemn Musick, as well as such hitherto almost totally unregarded poems as Marvell's Musick's Empire, are illuminated by observing the use of musical ideas."
JOHN HOLLANDER is editorial associate for poetry of Partisan Review and a member of the Yale University Department of English.
"Musicologists and musicians can learn a great deal from it about the literary treatment of their art. Scholars in the field of literature who are not musicologists should find much enlightenment here."—NATHAN BRODER, editor Musical Quarterly.
Very Good copy in VG unclipped dust jacket with some light damage/marking, foxing to book block edges. Previous owner's name to front flyleaf.
2022, English
Softcover, 328 pages, 15.2 x 22.9 cm
Published by
Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles
$40.00 - In stock -
A privileged look into the life and artistic practice of the experimental filmmaker, music anthologist, and enigmatic polymath Harry Smith.
Best known during his lifetime as an experimental filmmaker and Folkways Records music anthologist, Harry Smith (1923-1991) was a spiritual outsider and one of the most original, influential artists of the mid-century American avant-garde. An avid, inspired collector of old blues and hillbilly recordings during his youth, he became a fan of such bebop jazz as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and began making avant-garde film animations featuring patterns painted directly onto the negatives as visual accompaniments to jazz performances. Smith crossed paths with nearly everyone central to the cultural avant-garde; he lived for art and gnosis with little thought for practical consequences. In 1991, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards in New York.
Five years after Smith's death, the poet Paola Igliori began conducting intimate interviews with the filmmakers, musicians, poets, and artists who knew him best. The result, American Magus Harry Smith, offers a privileged look not only into Smith's life and artistic practice, but also into his era and the informal economy of influence that operated during that time. It provides invaluable insight into the mind of one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic polymaths. This expanded edition includes photos of Smith and many other color images.
1980, English
Softcover (w. insert), 142 pages, 21 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
LIP / Melbourne
$50.00 - In stock -
The incredible book-sized 1980 edition of Melbourne's great LIP journal. Published out of Carlton between 1976-1984, LIP encapsulated Australian feminist artistic practice of the period, publishing articles and interviews by women on women in film, sound, theatre, painting, photography, poetry, criticism, activism, journalism, publishing, sculpture, design, education, and much more.
In this issue:
Editorial; MEDIA : Heralding Women : A Visual Essay by Lesley Dumbrell, Freda Freiberg and Elizabeth Gower; The Women At Work Kit - a discussion with Judy Munro, Sylvie Shaw and Ponch Hawkes, by Jeannette Fenelon; Shoulder to Shoulder and Up Hill; The Way by Julie Copeland; The Coming Out Show : Five Years On by Julie Rigg; Nancy Dexter : In Her Own Accent by Elizabeth Owen; Fiona McDougall press photographer; Child's Image, Women's Hands by Barbara Hall; ART : Memories of Grace Crowley by Janine Burke, Ian North, Frank and Margel Hinder; "Mothers' Memories, Others' Memories" by Vivienne Binns; The Dinner Party - Introduction by Isabel Davies; Judy Chicago And The Dinner Party by Ailsa O'Connor; 'The Coming Out Show' discusses 'The Dinner Party'. Transcribed and edited by Isabel Davies; The Adelaide Women's Art Movement by Jane Kent and Anne Marsh; Adelaide Women's Performance Month, November 1979; River Murray Project by Bonita Ely; Joy Hester by Janine Burke; Janet Dawson - Painter, interviewed by Lesley Dumbrell; Monday To Monday by Maxienne Foote; Ethel Carrick (Mrs. E. Phillips Fox) by Margaret Rich; The Male Nude, Margaret Walters interviewed by Julie Copeland; Stella Sallman photographs; Don't Believe I'm An Amazon - Ulrike Rosenbach talking with Elizabeth Gower, Margaret Rose and Janine Burke, transcribed by Margaret Rose; Tertiary Visual Arts Education Study and Report by Alison Fraser; Holos - Whole, Graphos - Picture, The Work Of Margaret Benyon by Catherine Peake; Ceramic Sculpture - Maggie May; Artist-Decorated Trams - Statements by Erica McGilchrist and Mirka Mora on the tram design project, Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board; THEATRE/PERFORMANCE : At Home - A series of Five Solo Performances by Lyndal Jones (1977-80) documentation by Lyndal Jones and Suzanne Spunner; Beyond Glitter - The Role Of The Female Performer as seen by Robyn Archer in "A Star is Tom" by Suzanne Spunner; Wimmin's Circus by Katie Noad; Jeannie Lewis interviewed by Christine Johnston; Failing In Love by Ruth Maddison; By A Bamboo Blind : Jenny Kemp, writer and director of Sheila Alone interviewed by Suzanne Spunner; Brisbane Womens Theatre Group by Barbara Allen; FILM : The Women's Film In The Post-Haskell Era by Freda Freiberg; Making A Career Of Feminism by Suzanne Spurner; How Will We Learn To Remember Tomorrow? 'A Catalogue of Independent Women's Films' reviewed by Barbara Hall; The Problems Of Pluralism : Women's Films And Feminist Films by Kate Legge; Interview With Norma Disher; Margot Nash & Margot Oliver; Roma 'Just An Ordinary Life' by Jan Macdonald
Insert : Crosswords by Elizabeth Gower
Front Cover : Erica Mc Gilchrist
Back Cover : Mirka Mora
Co-ordinator : Elizabeth Gower
LIP Collective members: Annette Blonski, Janine Burke, Isabel Davies, Suzanne Davies, Lesley Dumbrell, Jeannette Fenelon, Freda Freiberg, Elizabeth Gower, Barbara Hall, Christine Johnston, Elizabeth Owen, Cathy Peake, Suzanne Spunner.
VG copy.
1984, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. metallic obi + poster), 96 pages, 27.2 x 21.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Doremi Music / Japan
$180.00 - In stock -
The super rare Visual of Heavy Metal (The Heavy Metal Music Encyclopedia), published in Japan in one small edition in 1984! No text fluff, this book is cover-to-cover blazing full-colour reproductions of Heavy Metal album art, published at the height of metal's international break-out. NWOBHM, Speed Metal, Hard Rock, Glam Metal, Thrash... UK, USA, Sweden, France, Australia, Canada... Iron Maiden, Ethel The Frog, Mercyful Fate, Anvil, Exciter, Girl School, Black Sabbath, Samson, The Rods, Venom, Mother's Finest, Killer Dwarfs, Alkatrazz, Praying Mantis, Riot, Cloven Hoof, Gotham City, Raven, Witchfynde, Ostrogoth, Satan Jokers, Satan, Demon Eyes, Chateaux, Blaspheme, Fist, Sortilège, Pink Fairies, Anthrax, Queensrÿche, Heavy Pettin, Alaska, Helstar, Ratt, AC/DC, Jack Starr, Gamma, H-Bomb, Virgin Steele, Black Alice, Spider Force, Dio, Maccoy, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Band Of Joy, Scorpions, Wild Dogs, Kiss, Def Leppard, Alvin Lee, Heaven, Sledgehammer, Electric Sun, Colosseum II, Harman Rarebell, Tank, Pantera, Tokyo Blade, The Michael Schenker Strife Group, Budgie, Wolf, Nazareth, Status Quo, Judas Priest, Icon, Torch, British Lions, Rush, Pandemonium, Crucifixion, Thin Lizzy, Victim, Accept, Trouble Manillaroad, Witch Killer, Crawler, Faithful, Breath, Gary Moore, Trance, Silver Mountain, Slayer, Hawkwind, Helix, The Handsome Beats, Motorhead, Tank, Warrior, Manowar, Picture, Ufo, Rainbow, Alcatrazz, High Power, Warning, Battle Axe, Victim, W.A.S.P., Tsunami, Metallica, Cirith Ungol, Molly Hatchet, Biscaya, Meat Loaf, Bernie Tormé, Talas, Sinner, Chariot, Alien, Thor, Mad Max, Sad Iron, Grave Digger, Mass, Rick Derringer, Santer, Warning, Witchfinder, Be Bop Deluxe, Force, Blue Oyster Cult, Dark Wizard, Twisted Sister, Faithful Breath, Dark Heart, Thunder Fire, Cutty Sark, Night Wing, Cross Fire, Demon, Ostrogoth, Spartan Warrior, Voivod, Joshua, Omen, Elf, Uriah Heep, John Cale, Ian Gillan Band, Cozy Powell, Status Quo, Ted Nugent, Krokus, White Snake, Twisted Sister, Triumph, Wild Dogs, Steeler, Culprit Exciter Randy Hansen, Chris Spedding, Mama's Boys, Acid, Legs Diamond, Le Mans, Killer, Holocaust, Coney Hatch, Dark Star, Waysted, Brian May, Vic Vergat, Robin Trower, Quiet Riot, Ozzy Ozbourne, Gary Moore, Axewitch, Pretty Maids, Grim Reaper, Blade Runner, Black Angels, Captain Beyond, and so many more! Compiled by Masateru Makino. No text, only catalogue data for each LP, full index, appendix, colophon. An excellent reference and visual onslaught.
Very Good copy with gold obi (obi has damage) and promotional book shop poster inserted.
2001, English / German
Hardcover (w. textured vinyl covering), 144 pages, 27.5 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Gestalten / Berlin
$180.00 - Out of stock
First 2001 edition of Gestalten's milestone photo book collection of Martin Eberle's Temporary Spaces series created in the 1990s—a time when clubs and quasi-clubs were helping to define the image of a reunited Berlin.
Berlin's club scene is an international benchmark for improvised coolness and defined by its software: people, fashion, music, performance and drama.
Spanning over a period of 10 years, Martin Eberle's stunning photographs are the first to document of these locations as they really are. By radically reducing them to their hardware, the empty space, juxtaposing run-down facades and lovingly crafted interiors (from improvised to hysterically glamorous) with architectural brutality, he perfectly captures their legendary, ramshackle hipness.
Filling and contrasting this vague unreal, static void are personal anecdotes by well-known promoters and club patrons who have already "collapsed in pretty much every corner".
Encased in tactile white reptile print, Temporary Spaces simultaneously serves as the nostalgic documentation of a spectacular era, a personal photo album and an uneasy declaration of love for the transience and enthusiasm reverberating in the clean accuracy of these pictures.
Text in English and German by Heinrich Dubel.
Very Good copy.
1999, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fringecore / Belgium
$70.00 - In stock -
First edition of Cinema Contra Cinema is a collection of essays and interviews by cult author Jack Sargeant on the vertiginous extremes of underground cinema. Published in 1999 in Belgium, the book includes underground filmmakers, Bruce La Bruce, Beth B, David Cronenberg, M. Henry Jones, Jeff Keen, Harry Smith, Marne Lucas, Raymond Pettibon, Eric Brummer, Boyd Rice, David Alan Clarke, Craig Baldwin, Vivien Dick, Jeff Krulik, Huck Botko, Beat Takashi, as well as newcomers such as Tyler Hubby, Modi and Peter Strickland. Plus essays on David Cronenberg's Crash, Bruce La Bruce's Hustler White, Mark Heynar's award-winning Affliction and Blunt Cut's De Leiber Rausch. Fully illustrated with many rare and previously unseen photographs.
"The subject matter is excremental, the approach obsessional and the result a kind of pervo-deviant tribute to the spirit of Georges Bataille...serious research activity."—Steve Beard, iD
"The complex critical apparatus of Foucault's Language, Counter-Memory, Practice with the sensibilities of a Todd Browning movie."—Ken Hollings, The Wire
"The post-punk Parker Tyler."—Michael Simmons, LA Weekly
VG copy with light wear to cpver/extremities.
1992, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 210 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Shishobo / Tokyo
Tsukasa Shobo / Tokyo
$65.00 - Out of stock
May 1992 issue of Bizarre Magazine, Japan's first glossy magazine devoted fully to all things "bizarre culture" and the new fetish subculture that exploded in the 1990's, published by manga (and SM Fan) publisher Tsukasa Shobo from 1990—2000s. "Fetish, bondage, psycho eros, and body arts". Profusely illustrated throughout with glossy colour and b/w photoshoots styled with fetish fashion materials and costume — models and Japanese AV idols in rubber, pvc, leather, boots, high heels, corsets, etc. covering all manner of fetishes and cos-themes from cyberpunk to medical, body art, cross-dressing, lesbianism, fem-dom, scene reports from around the world, dominatrix profiles and interviews, lots of manga, articles, stories, advice columns, DIY tutorials, and packed with wild ads for sex clubs, dungeons, bars, bookstores, video catalogues, toys, fashions, reviews of cult books and film, european imports, classifieds, all heavy with illustrations and hundreds, if not thousands of photographs. Each issue was overseen by a rotating group of editors, this issue including material by Kinichi Tanaka, Junji Ito, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Nao Saejima, Seiu Ito, Domu Kitahara, Issei (Kobe Cannibal) Sagawa, Yukinori Fukushima, Ryuko Yano, Mika Mori, Hiroko Mugibayashi, and many more... Much like SM Sniper, Bizarre Magazine favoured the exploration of new innovations of fetish and underground sex culture, emphasising the work of the models, stylists, make-up artists, and fashion designers, as much as the writers or photographers, encompassing the entire "new wave" of SM counterculture embedded in underground music, film, fashion and visual art at the dawn of the 90's.
Cover statement: "BIZARRE is not S&M. For the above reason, we produced this magazine. This magazine is the first magazine of BIZARRE in Japan. BIZARRE is based on FETISHISM. Bondage, too, is a kind of fetishism in the field of BIZARRE. Costume and material are the most important. For instance, they are leather, rubber, P.V.C. and satin corset, high heels, boots and so on."
18+ ONLY
Very Good copy.
1987, English
Softcover, 233 pages, 22 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
RE/SEARCH / San Francisco
$75.00 - In stock -
"Dazzling deceptions and provocative put-ons from some of the most outrageous artists and personalities living today. Spontaneous, improvised craziness from the Underground in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and points in between. This book opens up a whole new territory of fun and pleasure."
The cult classic and most iconic of the RE/Search publications, PRANKS! A prank is a trick, a mischievous act, and a ludicrous act. Although not regarded as poetic or artistic acts, pranks constitute an art form and genre. Here, a wild chorus of pranksters such as Mark Pauline, Timothy Leary, Monte Cazazza, Boyd Rice, Abbie Hoffman, Jello Biafra, Joe Coleman, Richard Meltzer, Karen Finley, John Waters and Henry Rollins challenge the sovereign authority of words, images and behavioral convention. Some tales are bizarre, as when Boyd Rice presented the First Lady with a skinned sheep's head on a platter. This iconoclastic compendium will dazzle and delight all lovers of humour, satire and irony. A great quotations section is also included.
Contributions from: Mark Pauline, Boyd Rice, Henry Rollins, Joey Skaggs, Ed Hardy, Michael Bidlo, Jello Biafra, Abbie Hoffman, Bruce Conner, Monte Cazazza, Timothy Leary, Paul Krassner, John Day, Karen Finley, Richard Meltzer, Alan Abel, Jeffrey Vallance, John Waters, Earth First!, Paul Mavrides, Mark Mccloud, Kerri Kwinter, Robert Delford Brown, John Cale, Danny Kelly, Frank Discussion, David Levi Strauss, Bruno Richard, Mal Sharpe, Bob Zoell, Joe Coleman, Michael Osterhout, Jerry Casale, John Trubee, Carlo Mccormick, Erik Hobijn, Barry Alfonso, Harry Kipper, and more…
Very Good copy, signed by V. Vale. 1987 edition but re-print ?
1979, English
Softcover, 174 pages, 20.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Dolceamore Publishing / Carlton
$50.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of Australian performance artist Lin Van Hek's first 1979 collection of writings and short stories, The Slain Lamb Stories, published independently by Dolceamore Publishing in Carlton. Ten stories accompanied by photographs by photographer Jacqueline Mitelman and film-maker Monique Schwarz.
"Her precise bold style does not compromise. Her collaboration between reality and fantasy possess the bracing clarity of the woman who both involved and informed, stands alone."—Reina Nervi Underground, Writers Guild Germany
Lin Van Hek (aka Lyn van Hecke, Linn Van Hek, born Lyn Whitehead) is an Australian writer, singer, painter, designer and performance artist. Born in Melbourne, Van Hek lived in India (working in hospitals) and Belgium, studied painting in France, writing and performing there until the early 1970s when she returned to Australia. She was a vice-president of the Society of Women Writers and co-founder of the literary-music group Difficult Women, that began with a series of feminist literary salons van Hek held in the 1980s. Van Hek has acted in films, including the 1987 thriller "With Time to Kill", and with Joe Dolce, wrote and sang the song 'Intimacy' in the 1984 film The Terminator. Van Hek was also the lead singer with the 1980s electro-dance band Skin the Wig. The Lilian character in Helen Garner's Monkey Grip is said to be based on Van Hek. Lin is also a respected fashion designer, with her own label, Lin Van Hek Design, working in collaboration with women entrepreneurs in the mountain villages of North Vietnam since 1994.
Very Good copy
2005, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 208 pages, 20.6 x 18.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Blues Interaction Inc. / Japan
$150.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this incredible out of print Japanese hardcover book collection of record cover artwork from every corner of the imagination. Not just another collection of the historical or award winning, this book, subtitled "A New Design Guide For Graphic Designers", comprises roughly 240 colour reproductions of record sleeves selected by 17 contemporary artists/musicians/designers, mostly from Japan, as their favourite. Those selecting include Åbäke, EYE (Yamantaka Eye), Nagi Noda, Keiji Itō, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Skate Thing, and many more. Spanning everything from private press psych to hip house, this dizzying collection includes sleeves for Frankie Knuckles, Carcass, Renegade Soundwave, The Haters, Roedelius, DJ Screw, Tululah Moon, Family Fodder, The Tubes, György Ligeti, Psychic TV, Pan-Sonic, Liliput, Deskee, Rich Kids on LSD, Snakefinger... A collection you'd never find anywhere else. Includes full index, data, and captions in Japanese under each selection. A must for the lover of one of the purest forms of artistic expression, the record cover.
VG copy w. VG dust jacket, light wear.
1986, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 24 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
International Synergy Institute / Los Angeles
$150.00 - Out of stock
"A thrice yearly exploration of ambiguous borders and dynamic (intellectual/artistic) frontiers."
Exceptionally rare, inaugural issue #0 of the trail-blazing subscription-only journal published by the International Synergy Institute, a intermedia think-tank active in Hollywood between 1986—1987. IS was founded by American actress and philanthropist Andra Akers (Charlie's Angels, Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard...), edited by experimental composer, researcher and Harry Partch Ensemble member David Dunn, with a cast of contributors for this first issue including media theorist Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema...), parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, VFX pioneer Mimi Gramatky (LOST, Miami Vice, Star Trek, Tron, Damnation Alley...), mathematician Ralph Abrahams, composer Kenneth Gaburo, and poet Chris Mann, and more.
"INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY consists of a global network of vanguard artists, scientists, and meta-physicians who are united by a deep sense of commitment to crossing the boundaries of their individual disciplines. Integral to this awareness is a reconciliation between advanced technological resources and a sense of the planet's sanctity. INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY is dedicated to the premise that such an understanding can form the basis of a creative matrix for responsible action in the information age."
"At this hinge of history, it seems appropriate that we should publish a journal where the passion of the individual scientist/artist can meet in sovereign association with global concerns — spinning the wheel of knowledge so that each of us can create our own theoretical magic." [...] "I am deeply moved by the creative commonwealth in this community, filled with explorers of topology, morphology, chaos dynamics, cognition, mind video, the revisioning of nature and art, telecommunications, sonics, cybernetics, cultural history, fractal politics, and what it now means to be deeply human. The provocative interaction of these ideas cannot help but to create a new and uniquely meaningful story. Come with us."—Andra Akers
Very Good copy, light wear/age.
1986, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 52 pages, 28 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
International Synergy Institute / Los Angeles
$150.00 - In stock -
"A thrice yearly exploration of ambiguous borders and dynamic (intellectual/artistic) frontiers."
Exceptionally rare, issue #1 (after the inaugural #0) of the trail-blazing subscription-only journal published by the International Synergy Institute, a intermedia think-tank active in Hollywood between 1986—1987. IS was founded by American actress and philanthropist Andra Akers (Charlie's Angels, Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard...), edited by experimental composer, researcher and Harry Partch Ensemble member David Dunn, with a cast of contributors for this issue including early media artist visionaries Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (Mobile Image, the Electronic Café...), media theorist Gene Youngblood (Expanded Cinema...), Science Fiction theorist, philosopher and writer for Marvel comics Allyn B. Brodsky, aeronautical engineer and astronaut Russell Schweickart, cultural historian William Irwin Thompson, systems theorist Will McWhinney, actress Debra Clinger (The Love Boat, The Krofft Supershow, Midnight Madness, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour...), VFX pioneer Mimi Gramatky (LOST, Miami Vice, Star Trek, Tron, Damnation Alley...), and more.
"INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY consists of a global network of vanguard artists, scientists, and meta-physicians who are united by a deep sense of commitment to crossing the boundaries of their individual disciplines. Integral to this awareness is a reconciliation between advanced technological resources and a sense of the planet's sanctity. INTERNATIONAL SYNERGY is dedicated to the premise that such an understanding can form the basis of a creative matrix for responsible action in the information age."
"At this hinge of history, it seems appropriate that we should publish a journal where the passion of the individual scientist/artist can meet in sovereign association with global concerns — spinning the wheel of knowledge so that each of us can create our own theoretical magic." [...] "I am deeply moved by the creative commonwealth in this community, filled with explorers of topology, morphology, chaos dynamics, cognition, mind video, the revisioning of nature and art, telecommunications, sonics, cybernetics, cultural history, fractal politics, and what it now means to be deeply human. The provocative interaction of these ideas cannot help but to create a new and uniquely meaningful story. Come with us."—Andra Akers
Very Good copy, light wear/age.
1989—1990, English
5 publications, softcover (staple-bound + rubber-stamped), approx 20 pages ea., 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cerebral Shorts / Elwood
Irregular Brain Post / Elwood
$180.00 - Out of stock
Rare lot of 5 issues of Convolusions: Of the Irregular Brain Post — dating between July 1989—January 1990. Rare Visual Poetry / Mail Art zine issued by post in the late 1980s—early 1990s by Australian visual poets Cerebral Shorts and Pete Spence, each issue packed with border-busting international postal network contributions of photocopy artworks (collages, photographs, etc.) and texual collage/poetry, prose works, with notes, "missing peoples", radical texts, and classifieds/call-outs for other international mail-art publications. Contributors amongst these issues include: Shozo Shimamoto (Japan), Satan Panonski (Jugoslavia), Julie Clarke-Powell (Australia), Guy Bleus (Belgium), Ry Nikonova (USSR), STOP AIDS (USA), Ivica Čuljak (Yugoslavia), Géza Perneczky (West Germany), Monty Cantsin (Canada), David Powell (Australia), Ruggero Maggi (Italy), Shaun Robert (England), Jonas Nekrašius (USSR), Pete Spence (Australia), Emilio Morandi (Italy), Sándor Fodor (Romania), Miroslav Janoušek (Czech), Javant Biarujia (Australia), to name a few... Back cover of each issue features multi-coloured original rubber stamp/print gocco art. An important piece of the very under-documented Melbourne visual poetry / mail art “scene”.
Based in Kyneton, Victoria, Pete Spence (b. 1946) has been internationally active in Mail Art, Visual Poetry, Experimental Film, and Lyric Verse throughout the 1980s—2000s, founding Post Neo Publications in 1984 to publish works by Luc Fierens, Hannah Weiner, Berni Janssen, Alex Selenitsch, and others. His own first book, FIVE Poems, was published in 1986 by Nosukomo. For over four decades he has been quietly pursuing his own direction in this multiplicity of art forms but in particular in his witty, idiosyncratic, entertaining poetry.
Good—VG copy, rusting to one staple.
1982, English
Softcover, 110 pages, 23.65 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Grove Press / New York
$90.00 - Out of stock
First Grove edition, first printing of Adulterers Anonymous by Lydia Lunch and Exene Cervenka.
"Visceral, raw, passionate, and sexually charged, these writings represent a unique collaboration by two of America's top figures in the underground rock music field. Combining a surreal informality, a deliberate vulgarity, camp humor, and the impassioned outbursts of society's dispossessed, their voices cut through to the core of discontent: an unsettling, ever-shifting world of illusion and disillusion.
Called at one time the ""No-Wave' Queen" by The New York Times, Lydia Lunch has had a seminal influence on "no-wave" and other forms of avant-garde music in her roles as originator of the group Teenage Jesus and as lead singer and lyricist for the group Eight-Eyed Spy, among many others. Exene Cervenka is the lead singer and lyricist for the rock group X, whose album, Wild Gift, was released to nearly unanimous critical acclaim, and named pop album of the year by The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times."
Average—Good copy with reading creases to stiff cardboard cover, foxing and tanning to book block and pages edges.
2002, English / Japanese
Softcover (+ audio CD), 160 pages, 21x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Improvised Music From Japan / Tokyo
$65.00 - Out of stock
The highly-acclaimed inaugural issue of Improvised Music From Japan, published in 2002 by Yoshiyuki Suzuki to document some of the "onkyo"-style improvised music being produced in Japan, and to accompany his label of the same name. Long out-of-print and rarely found with both magazine and CD present, the bilingual English-Japanese magazine features rare interviews, concert reports, reviews, and articles, including cover feature interview with Ami Yoshida, Sachiko M (Ground Zero), Phew, Off Site, Kaffe Matthews, Andrea Neumann, Otomo Yoshihide, Toshimaru Nakamura, View Masters, Seiichi Yamamoto, Brett Larner, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Skist, tamaru, Yumiko Tanaka, Tetsu Saitoh, Nobuyoshi Ino, Yoshio Machida, Yasuhiro Yoshigak, Daisuke Fuwa, Shibusashirazu Orchestra, Erstwhile Festival, Aki Onda, minamo, Utah Kawasaki, Radu Malfatti, Taku Sugimoto, and much more. Heavily illustrated throughout.
Accompanying CD with music by Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Yoshio Machida, Radu Malfatti and Taku Sugimoto, m-7 (Fred Frith, Anne Hege, Brett Larner, Andy Nathan, Jonathan Segel, John Shiurba and Matthew Sperry), Haco, and others...
Average—Good copy with some moisture rippling to cover top spine edge lightly effecting the first few ages, wear to covers. CD is still-sealed in plastic pouch/never played, therefore As New.