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:
BOOKSHOP CLOSED FOR BREAK UNTIL NOV 10.
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
ORDERS CAN STILL BE PLACED AND WILL BE PROCESSED AFTER NOV 10.
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.
2023, English
Softcover, 206 pages, 24 x 16 cm
Published by
Hexen Press / France
$67.00 - In stock -
Muses No More: Portraits of Occult Women is a meandering ghost train through the lives, work, politics and beliefs of both familiar and lesser known female occultists from the distant past to the 21st century. From the freedom fighting New Orleans Voudon Queen Marie Laveau to the witch-next-door personality of Sybil Leek, these biographical portraits bring light to women often sidelined in occult spaces and memory in favour of the (white, male) heavyweights such as Arthur E. Waite, Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner.
Readers will discover that there was much more to Pamela Colman Smith’s magical undertakings than her illustrations for the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck, and that Doreen Valiente, whilst valiantly fighting for the modernisation of Wicca, was an ardent follower of televised football.
Filled with fascinating historical trivia, there are deeper narratives at play in this compendium too - the struggle for women’s liberation, pleas for modernisation of religious movements, the reign of the patriarchy in many magical traditions, and the fight for civil rights.
Thoroughly well-researched and written with the flair of an impassioned queer, feminist occultist, Muses No More tells the centuries-spanning stories of women who threw off their aprons in favour of the search for greater esoteric knowledge.
The book concludes with tried and tested personal practices and rituals, respectfully designed in honour of these wondrous women, so that we might channel their power and knowledge and pursue the mysteries of the vast unknown.
2023, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 21.6 x 15.2 cm
Published by
The Song Cave / New York
$55.00 - In stock -
Mystical and everyday reveries from the visionary American modernist.
In the early years of the 20th century, Charles Burchfield painted mystic and visionary landscapes, and with some of his contemporaries, including Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe and Grant Wood, can be seen to have built the foundations of a particularly North American sensibility that critic Dave Hickey said "continues to evoke an unrepentant, gnostic vision of this vast, rolling, abandoned continent—America without Europe—America without Americans—a massive, alluring kingdom."
For nearly his entire life, Burchfield also kept a journal. Over 54 years, he filled nearly 10,000 pages. To call this journal epic would be an understatement. A masterpiece whose bulk has remained unread, it is a handwritten tome that combines elements of the American nature journal with a dash of 19th-century spiritual autobiography. It is a record of a man who spent much of his life looking at and considering the sky.
In this comparatively small selection pulled from the original 62 volumes, we find Burchfield writing about sitting in the grass with his wife to nap and watch the sunset. He writes about the elation he feels at seeing the first flowers in the spring. He writes about the rain, wind and sun. There's the resentment of having a job; the depression that sneaks in as he gets older; sometimes, too, he writes about the state of human progress; and occasionally, thoughts about God. It is the tender record of a life devoted to the essences of earthly beauty.
"Burchfield would be proud"—Robert Gober
Best known for his romantic, often fantastic depictions of nature, watercolorist Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) developed a unique style of watercolor painting that reflected distinctly American subjects and his profound respect for nature.
1974, English / French / Japanese
Softcover (silkscreened handmade paper w. inserts), 80 pages, 30 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Crafts Council of Australia / Sydney
$50.00 - In stock -
Wonderful 1974 publication — a pictorial anthology of Australian Crafts — published by the Crafts Council of Australia on the occasion of the first World Crafts Exhibition, Toronto, Canada, 1974. Edited by Joy Warren and designed by artist John Reid and Douglas Annand, Crafts of Australia is a lavishly tactile production, issued in unique silkscreened handmade paper covers (with inserted handmade paper map and letter to the reader) pressed by Kayes van Bodegraven, International College of Papermakers, Melbourne, and made from recycled envelopes from The Crafts Council of Australia offices, and containing paperbark from coastal Melaleuca trees, Cleveland Bay, Queensland. The Map paper containing clays from Scorsby, Knox Shire, Victoria. The book itself traces the historical background of indigenous crafts, modern attitudes and national identity in Australian craft, with texts by Marea Gazzard, Dr. H. C. Coombs, Mary White, Felicity Abraham, Ray Norman. Heavily illustrated in colour an b/w with the featured artists: Beryl Anderson, Douglas Annand, Vicky Barth, Frank Bauer, Robert Bell, Les Blakebrough, Janet Brown, Polly Blakney, Richard and Dilys Brecknock, Joan Campbell, Eric Car, Rinske Car, Margaret Dodd, Jutta Feddersen, Heather Dorrough, Susan Forsyth, Marea Gazzard, Elena Gee, Gary Greenwood, Joan Grounds, Ragnar Hansen, Mona Hessing, Harold Hughan, Jolanta Janavicius, Heather Joynes, Patricia Langford, Helge Larsen and Darani Lewers, Colin Levy, Ken Leveson, Janet Mansfield, Paula Martin, Ivan McMeekin, Pru Medlin, Hal Missingham, Mitinari, Milton Moon, Tim Moorhead, Joyce Noble, Ray Norman, Ewa Jarosynska Pachucka, Jan Strang Priest, Cedar Prest, Ron Rowe, Peter Rushforth, Tor Schwanck, Penny Smith, Pru Socha, Albert Steen, Hiroe Swen, Peter Travis, Kayes van Bodegraven, Wal van Heeckeren, Joy Warren, and many more.
Very good complete copy with some wear to the overhanging paper covers. Interior and inserts preserved.
1972, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 294 pages, 36 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. / New York
$160.00 - Out of stock
First 1972 hardcover edition of Beyond Craft : The Art Fabric, edited by Mildred Constantine and Jack Lenor Larsen and published by Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York. A very important volume and authoritive survey of the Art Fabric movement of the 1960s, featuring leading artists working in fiber art from Europe and the United States that have liberated their work from tradition and thus heightened their international recognition by critics and public. Edited by Mildred Constantine, a curator of design at MoMA in the 1950s—1960s, and American textile designer, collector and author, Jack Lenor Larsen, noted for popularising the incorporation of textile art and fabric patterns into modernist architecture and furnishings of the 1960s, this authoritative coffee table survey captured the movement at its most robust and innovative and forms an important time capsule of the period. Lavishly illustrated throughout with beautiful colour and b/w artwork reproductions, installations, details and portraits, this heavy volume features chapters on Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, Olga de Amaral, Susan Weitzman, Evelyn Anselevicius, Thelma Becherer, Tadek Beutlich, Lenore Tawney, Jagoda Buic, Zofia Butrymowicz, Marguerite Carau-Ischi, Barbara Falkowska, Claire Zeisler, Kay Sekimachi, Sherri Smith, Wojciech Sadley, Moik Schiele, Herman Scholten, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Richard Landis, Aurelia Muñoz, Debra Rapoport, Ed Rossbach , Ewa Jaroszynska, Wilhelmina Fruytier Ritzi, Peter Jacobi, Elsi Giauque, Françoise Grossen, Marguerite Carau-Ischi, Barbara Falkowska, Tadek Beutlich, Zofia Butrymowicz, Thelma Bechererand, many others. A gorgeous book printed and bound in Japan. A must for anyone interested in textile art.
Very Good copy with previous owner's name to title page, in Good dust jacket with minor chipping to extremities.
1975 / 76, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 150 pages, 25 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Mullaya / Canterbury
$120.00 - Out of stock
Rare first 1975 edition, 1976 printing of Alistair Knox's hardcover mud brick classic, Living in the environment, now a cherished bible in the library of any Australian bush-builder, and the first book by the pioneer of the Australian environmental building movement.
"Environmental building and environmental living are not a withdrawal from life, but a renewal of it. Neither is it a habit or fashion. It is a belief in action."—Alistair Knox (1912—1986)
"The history and progress of environmental building is synonymous with the history of modern mud brick building, but it is not confined to this alone. Earth-wall construction stimulates a point of view and a relationship with nature that no other material is able to do. The universality of earth-walling springs first from its availability, and secondly from the fact that it can be produced by human labour alone. It is the heart and soul of the Low Technology lifestyle that is so exercising the minds of conservationists today. The feeling of humanity of earth-walling is one of its greatest ingredients. It also has marvellous insulation qualities. But perhaps the greatest single quality of earth walls is found in the sense of serenity one feels within them. They are almost completely sound absorbent. They neither echo nor creak, but just remain as silent and immutable as the distant Australian landscape itself. In Living in the Environment Alistair Knox, who is considered to be the originator of the Australian environmental building movement, not only tells of his designing activities spanning half a lifetime, but also discusses with deep perception the conservation problems facing society today. In his far-ranging review of the Australian environmental building scene he discusses the influence of Francis Greenway and Walter Burley Griffin, relating their design concepts to their affinity with the Australian landscape."—book jacket
Alistair Samuel Knox (1912—1986) was an Australian designer, builder and landscape architect who used recycled materials and mudbrick in his constructions and is considered to be a pioneer of modern mudbrick building, having designed more than 1,000 houses throughout the Nillumbik region of Victoria as well as in other parts of Australia. Largely self-taught, Knox believed that houses should be built using available resources and by working in harmony with the environment. Knox's main influences were Justus Jorgensen at Montsalvat, Francis Greenaway, Walter Burley Griffin and Frank Lloyd Wright In landscape design Knox was particularly impressed by the work of Ellis Stones and Gordon Ford, whose espousal of 'bush gardens' he helped to promote. As a building practitioner Alistair Knox played a key role in encouraging and facilitating the self-builder movement. By demystifying the building process he helped empower people to build for themselves. Knox was a founding member and fellow (1983) of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. After more than 30 years of designing and building Alistair Knox was awarded an honorary degree as a Doctor of Architecture by the University of Melbourne in 1984.
Very Good copy with VG dust jacket. Light sunning/jacket wear.
1971, English
Softcover, 448 pages, 36.5 cm x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Penguin Putnam / New York
$200.00 - Out of stock
Original 1971 edition of the Back-to-the-land bible and hippie homesteading encyclopedia, The Last Whole Earth Catalog. Considered "the internet before the internet", The Whole Earth Catalog was an important American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by author, editor and founder of the Long Now Foundation, Stewart Brand, between 1968—1972. The magazine, sporting the famous slogan "access to tools", promoted self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, "do it yourself" (DIY), and holism, through featured essays, articles, poetry, practical guides, plans, philosophies, artwork and most importantly, a huge catalog of product reviews (from books by Buckminster Fuller to synthesizers by Wendy Carlos) that formed an important directory and direct network of craftspeople, educators, artisans, nomads, growers, idealists and independent developers. "It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along."—Steve Jobs. Oh how the internet has turned on us.
"We are as gods and we might as well get used to it. So far remotely done power and glory - as via government, big business, formal education, church - has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing - the power of individuals to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment, and share the adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by The Next Earth Catalog."
The back cover photo is of the earth from space. The caption reads, “We can’t put it together. It is together.”
VG copy, with exception of closed tear between front cover and bottom of spine only. Otherwise uncreased spine, only unusually light wear and tear and usual tanning to newsprint pages.
1994 / 2012, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 21.6 x 14 cm
Published by
Feral House / Los Angeles
$35.00 - In stock -
As our society is stricken with repeated technological disasters, and the apocalyptic problems that go with them, the "neo-primitivist" essays of John Zerzan seem more relevant than ever.
"Future Primitive," (1994) the core innovative essay of Future Primitive Revisited, has been out of print for years. This new edition is updated with never-before-printed essays that speak to a youthful political movement and influential writers such as Derrick Jensen and Paul Theroux.
An active participant in the contemporary anarchist resurgence, John Zerzan has been an invited speaker at both radical and conventional events on several continents. His weekly Anarchy Radio broadcast streams live on KWVA radio.
"Anyone who travels with his eyes open understands the sense of much of what you have written, and the longer I live the greater my contempt for the opportunists who run governments and dictate our lives with technology."—Paul Theroux
"Zerzan's writing is sharp, uncompromising, and tenacious."—Derrick Jensen
"John Zerzan's importance does not only consist in his brilliant intelligence, his absolute clearness of analysis and his unequalled dialectical synthesis that clarifies even the most complicated questions, but also in the humanity that fills his thoughts of resistance. Future Primitive Revisited is one more precious gift for us all."—Enrico Manicardi, author of Liberi dalla Civiltá (Free from Civilization)
"Of course we should go primitive. This doesn't mean abandoning material needs, tools, or skills, but ending our obsession with such concerns. Declaring for community, our true origin: personal autonomy, trust, mutual support in pursuit of all the joys and troubles of life. Society was a trap—massive, demanding, impersonal and debilitating from day one. So hurry back to the community, friends, and welcome all the consequences of such an orientation. The reasons for fear and despair will only multiply if we remain in this brutal and dangerous state of civilization."—Blok 45 publishing, Belgrade
1969, English
Softcover, 144 pages, 20 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
New Directions / New York
$25.00 - Out of stock
First 1969 edition of Earth House Hold by Gary Snyder. Both Pound and Williams have shown how a good poet can revitalize prose style. Earth House Hold (a play on the root meanings of “ecology”) drawn from Gary Snyder’s essays and journals, may prove a landmark for the new generation. “As a poet," Snyder tells us, “I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the late Paleolithic; the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and Ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.” He develops, as replacement for shattered social structures, a concept of tribal tradition which could lead to “growth and enlightenment in self-disciplined freedom. Whatever is or ever was in any other culture can be reconstructed from the unconscious through meditation . . . the coming revolution will close the circle––and link us in many ways with the most creative aspects of our archaic past.”
Good—Very Good copy with tanning, previous owners name to title page.
1982, English
Softcover, 108 pages, 20.2 x 13.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
New Directions / New York
$70.00 - Out of stock
Rare first New Directions 1982 edition of Rasa, or Knowledge of the Self, by early 20th-century French spiritual para-surrealist writer, critic, poet, and early, outspoken practitioner of pataphysics, René Daumal (1908-1944). Translated with an introduction by Louise Landes Levi.
Rasa, or Knowledge of the Self; is the remarkable, and now very scarce, first gathering in English translation of essays and review articles on Hindu aesthetics and translations from the Sanskrit by the French writer Rene Daumal. A member of the Simplist group associated from 1928 to 1932 with the journal Le Grand feu ("The Great Game"), he began cultivating his East Indian studies as an extension of his active pursuit of the avant-garde. In 1932, he made the acquaintance of Uday Shankar, becoming secretary to the latter's Hindu dance troupe and accompanying it that year on its premier American tour. In his efforts to make Shankar's music and dance comprehensible to Western audiences, Daumal developed into a passionate spokesman for Indian culture, and his subsequent writings on the subject are far removed from the usual dry philological speculations of academic Orientalists. "To Approach the Hindu Poetic Art" differentiates between the Indian and European views of aesthetic experience, with special emphasis on the concept of rasa—that is, "taste" or "savor"—which Daumal sees at the heart of all Hindu art. Two essays—"On Indian Music" and "Concerning Uday Shankar"—were written at the time of Shankar's Western tour, while the selection of Daumal's "Oriental Book Reviews" deals with topics, such as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which were only to spark general interest in the West decades later. The remaining sections of the collection are translations from the Sanskrit that attempt to resonate against language's deepest core.
Good copy with insect nibbles to cover edges.
1963 / 1974, English
Softcover, 565 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Princeton University Press / New York
$45.00 - In stock -
Early 1974 Princeton printing of this landmark book exploring the Great Mother as a primordial image of the human psyche.
In this profound and enduring work the renowned analytical psychologist Erich Neumann draws on ritual, mythology, art, and records of dreams and fantasies to examine how this archetype has been outwardly expressed in many cultures and periods since prehistory. He shows how the feminine has been represented as goddess, monster, gate, pillar, tree, moon, sun, vessel, and every animal from snakes to birds. Neumann discerns a universal experience of the maternal as both nurturing and fearsome, an experience rooted in the dialectical relation of growing consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the unconscious and the unknown, symbolized by the Great Mother.
"Neumann's creative intuition has enabled him to read in these records of the past a content and meaning that throws a beam of light on the psychological history of [hu]mankind."—Journal of Analytical Psychology
Very Good copy with erasable light pencil marginalia.
2023, English
Softcover, 566 pages, 25 x 19 cm
Published by
Edition Patrick Frey / Zürich
$119.00 - Out of stock
The youth uprising, now simply called “The Sixties,” was fed by one of the greatest booms in publishing history. The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) began as a loose confederation of five papers in 1966, and within a few years swelled to over 500 across the world, reaching millions of readers. They “spread like weed,” said the UPS director, weed-dealer, and eventual founder of High Times, Tom Forcade. The metaphor was apt: the UPS spurred the legalization movement, and weed became its totem.
Weed was so pervasive it became a helpful means for government agencies to crack down on the UPS. Weed came to emblematize activist groups, and added a touch of flair to the mastheads of UPS titles. Weed permeated UPS pages, with gaps in text crammed with weed-inspired “spot illustratios”.
Heads Together collects these drawings, shining a light on lesser-known names in the stoner-art canon, and many who weren’t names at all, as no signature was attached. It also compiles guides for growing weed from the period that were treated like contraband by the CIA. Activist-oriented, psychedelic rolling papers are showcased too.
As pot now fast-tracks toward legalization in the U.S. and beyond, its once incendiary status is brought into odd relief. Pot’s profiteers of the corporate market today do not reflect those who fought for legalization, or the Black and Latino populations strategically criminalized for pot well before hippies were targeted, and long after.
The art in this book speaks to a time when pot was smoked with optimism, as something potentially good for society and people, capable of activating profound transformation in the face of corrupt and powerful forces.
With Oral Histories by: Ishmael Reed, John Sinclair, Marjorie Heins, Mariann Wizard-Vasquez, Abe Peck
2022, English
Hardcover, 200 pages, 29.5 x 27.5 cm
$95.00 - In stock -
FAMILY: THE SOURCE FAMILY SCRAPBOOK provides an immersive view into the public and private world of the Southern California occult commune The Brotherhood of the Source. This lavishly illustrated book reproduces 200 original scrapbook pages assembled by family historian Isis Aquarian from 1972-1977, documenting the group's dramatic rise and fall, from their time living together in the Hollywood Hills operating their wildly popular Source vegetarian restaurant on the Sunset Strip to their exodus to Hawaii and San Francisco as the group began to unravel. Copious unpublished photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, manifestos, album art and flyers, augmented by descriptive captions by Isis Aquarian, reveal the Source Family's astonishing trajectory, from controversial leader Father Yod's spiritual awakening to the group's wild musical and social experimentations, to the provocations that led to the group's paradise lost. These pages provide a revelatory, firsthand view into the widely misunderstood phenomenon of new religious movements and cults of the 1960s and 70s.
1971, Japanese
Softcover, 120 pages, 29.5 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Kajima Institute / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
Scarce May 1971 issue of Japanese monthly journal of urban housing, Toshi-Jutaku, edited by Masahiro Yoshida. This issue with a cover feature on Haus-Rucker-Co, the Viennese group founded in 1967 by Laurids Ortner, Günther Zamp Kelp and Klaus Pinter, later joined by Manfred Ortner. Their work explored the performative potential of architecture through installations and happenings using pneumatic structures or prosthetic devices that altered perceptions of space. Such concerns fit with the utopian architectural experiments of the 1960s by groups such as Superstudio, Archizoom, Ant Farm and Coop Himmelblau. Alongside these groups, Haus-Rucker-Co were exploring on the one hand, the potential of architecture as a form of critique, and on the other the possibility of creating designs for technically mediated experimental environments and utopian cities. Includes a fold-out chronology of their projects. The other incredible feature being "Decoration, Urban Decoration & Do-It-Yourself", tracing histories of self-organisation and expression in the form of urban decoration, from William Morris, Art Nouveau and sub-cities to Drop City, road-side attractions, pop interiors and building facades, murals, the city as a dress-up doll, playgrounds, and a wonderful photographic diagram pull-out feature on Tokyo's Ameyoko Shopping Street. Also included articles on Osaka's Senri New Town living environment project, Palawan Hill people's tree houses, architect Atsushi Ueda, toilet design and much more. Published and printed in Japan, Toshi-Jutaku was an important, heavily researched resource of international architecture and urban planning, each issue rich with in-depth articles, technical studies, plans, elevations, profiles, interviews, and much more, spanning the most innovative historical and contemporary developments in the field. Japanese text, only occasional English.
Good copy, light age, wear.
2021, English
Softcover, 114 pages, 25 x 15 cm
Published by
Drill Hall Gallery / Canberra
$35.00 - Out of stock
Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition I weave what I have seen: The War Rugs of Afghanistan, at Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, June 25—November 14, 2021, curated by Nigel Lendon and Tim Bonyhady. I weave what I have seen: The War Rugs of Afghanistan is a testimony to the creativity and resilience of Afghan weavers who have faced the devastating effects of war for more than forty years. From the very start of the conflict, Afghan weavers began developing a striking new form of war art involving a complex imagery of armaments, maps, monuments, texts and portraits which soon began to find an international audience. Emerging out of a research project undertaken at the Australian National University by Tim Bonyhady and Nigel Lendon, this exhibition investigates the history, iconography, production and distribution of these extraordinary rugs.
Publication designed by Small Tasks. Tim Bonyhady and Nigel Lendon, with a foreword by Sabur Fahiz.
1997, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 20 pages, 21 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Bloomsbury Workshop / London
$30.00 - Out of stock
Rare exhibition catalogue for The Legacy of Omega, The Bloomsbury Workshop, London, April—May, 1997, one of the most comprehensive Omega Workshops exhibitions ever to be staged, comprising a range of artefacts from the Omega such as plates, dishes, bowls, jars, original sketches, fabric, books, woodcuts, tapestry rugs.... likely the last important commercial exhibition of Omega material. Includes texts by Bloomsbury scholars James Beechey and Abigail Willis. Full catalogue of exhibited works, some illustrated in full-colour, and this copy including the loose original price list inserted. Published by The Bloomsbury Workshop, London.
The boundaries between visual and decorative art were broken down in The Omega Workshops, whose Bloomsbury artists brought abstract shapes and bold colours from modern art into designs for the home. In 1913 artist and writer Roger Fry opened Omega Workshops Ltd. at 33 Fitzroy Square in Bloomsbury, central London. Omega Workshops provided Fry and his friends, including fellow Bloomsbury artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, with the chance to make a living designing and decorating furniture, textiles and other household goods, alongside their careers as artists. The premises in Fitzroy Square included studios where products were designed and made, and public showrooms where customers could browse and buy Omega's designs. Fry insisted that all Omega work was produced anonymously. He felt that objects and furniture should be bought and valued for their beauty rather than because of the reputation of the artist. Designs were unsigned and marked only with the symbol Ω, which is the Greek letter Omega. Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and in the late 19th century it was used to mean the ‘last word’ on a subject.
Very Good copy with single National Gallery of Victoria library stamp to first introduction page. Price-list inserted.
2022, English
Softcover, 172 pages, 12.5 x 20 cm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$58.00 - Out of stock
The notion of the handmade has shifted from the margins to center stage. Craft’s value is increasingly recognized across creative, economic, social, cultural, and political contexts. Because of its widespread appropriation, and the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries, the meaning of handicrafts is changing. While craft’s claims of authenticity and anti-consumerism are in question, its role is poised for optimization within the contemporary climate. Amid new economies of making, craft is moving from “modern craft” to “post-craft.” Through essays, conversations, and projects by designers, artists, and scholars, the third volume in the EP series examines not only the practice of post-craft but also its mediation and interpretation.
With contributions by 6A Architects, Glenn Adamson, Assemble, Jeremy Deller, Peter Dormer, Tanya Harrod, Martina Margetts, Clare Twomey, John Roberts, Catharine Rossi, Richard Sennett, Flore De Taisne.
1980, English
Softcover, 56 pages, 21.5 x 13.9 cm
Published by
Leete's Island Books / U.S.
$20.00 - Out of stock
An essay on aesthetics by the Japanese novelist, this book explores architecture, jade, food, and even toilets, combining an acute sense of the use of space in buildings. The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure.
Translated from original Japanese to English by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker.
Foreword by Charles Moore.
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (1886—1965) was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature, writing numerous acclaimed books, including "The Makioka Sisters "and "Naomi: A Novel." The tone and subject matter of his work ranges from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle portrayals of the dynamics of family life within the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently, his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of the West and Japanese tradition are juxtaposed. He was one of six authors on the final shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, the year before his death.
1973, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 22 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thomas Y. Crowell Company / New York
$280.00 - Out of stock
Bruno Munari's one and only A Flower with Love, in the collectable 1973 first hardcover "square" edition, published in English by Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York. A Flower with Love is beloved Italian artist and designer Bruno Munari's personal ikebana design book. The best ikebana book in the West. Munari's humour and creative playfulness is overflowing in this beautifully illustrated volume, with photographic spreads accompanying Munari's texts and drawings, presenting his whimsical and inventive creations in the Japanese art of flower arrangement, such as arranging dandelions and herbs in wine glasses, the use of a potato as a floral pin frog. Flipping the measured restraint of traditional ikebana on its head and eliminating the elitism we might associate with expensive flower arrangements. There is no force in A Flower With Love. It’s a really gentle, colourful presentation of joy. "...what really matters is the love with which a little daisy, a lavender sprig or some moss are chosen, that one there in particular and not that other one." For the child and adult alike, like most of Munari's wonderful books, A Flower with Love gives us a renewed awareness of the beauty of the world around us.
Bruno Munari (October 24, 1907, Milan – September 30, 1998, Milan) was an Italian artist, designer, and inventor who contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphic design) in modernism, futurism, and concrete art, and in non visual arts (literature, poetry) with his research on games, didactic method, movement, tactile learning, kinesthetic learning, and creativity.
Very Good Copy, Good—VG dust jacket, with single chip to back-top of dj and small closed tears, preserved under mylar. Only mild wear/ageing.