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.
2020, English / Italian
Softcover, 128 pages, 14.8 x 21 cm
Published by
Humboldt Books / Milan
$48.00 - In stock -
The expanded anastatic reprint of the Italian designer's sulphurous catalog of 1973.
Falce e martello: tre dei modi con cui un artista può contribuire alla lotta di classe (“Hammer and Sickle: three of the ways an artist can contribute to the class struggle”) by Enzo Mari was the little catalogue that accompanied his exhibition at the Galleria Milano in 1973. Today, the exhibition is re-proposed, with the same display and in the same historical Milanese gallery; the anastatic reprint of the catalogue is enriched with photographs and documents from the archives of the Gallery and from the Mari Archive, along with an essay by Bianca Trevisan which retraces the planning itinerary undertaken by the Milanese artist and designer, and an essay by Riccardo Venturi outlining the historical, artistic and political debate that the project was part of, and which was accompanied by a film that sparked a degree of controversy at the time. A snapshot of that tinderbox which was 1970s Italy, and a reflection on the hammer and sickle: the most iconic symbol of the whole of the twentieth century.
Enzo Mari (1932-2020) was an Italian designer, graphic designer, illustrator and artist. His works range from design to painting, from graphics to gallery displays. He was both a teacher and a political activist. Today he is considered one of the greatest theorists of design.
His works have been featured at the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennale, the Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin, the MIC in Faenza, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome and the MoMA in New York. He was awarded the Golden Compass in 1986, a form of acknowledgement he had already been given in 1967 and 1979, as well as the International Design Center Prize in 1987 in New York. In 2008, the GAM in Turin dedicated a retrospective solo show to his work. Among his more recent writings, we might note: Progetto e passione (2001), La valigia senza manico (2004) and 25 modi per piantare un chiodo (2011).
2021, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 20.5 x 14 cm
Published by
Wakefield Press / Cambridge
$33.00 - Out of stock
In twenty years, drug use will have spread to every level of society, perhaps even to the countryside, and by then it will be too late to stop its advance.—from the preface to The Die Is Cast
Published in 1943 (just a year before its author would be arrested by the Gestapo), The Die Is Cast was a departure for Robert Desnos: a shift from his earlier frenetic surrealist prose to a social realism that borrowed as much from his life experience as from his career as a journalist. Drawing from his experiences with drugs in the 1920s and his doomed relationship with the chanteuse Yvonne George (the inspiration for some of his most famous poems, who would herself ultimately succumb to opium addiction and tuberculosis), Desnos here portrays a band of opium, cocaine, and heroin users from all walks of life in Paris, a motley group who share nothing but their addiction and their slow and steady descent into ruination and despair. It is a startlingly contemporary portrayal of overdoses, arrests, suicides, and the flattened solitude of the addict—yet published in occupied Paris, years before “junkie literature” would begin to establish itself as a genre with the Beat generation. In a distinct break from the “artificial paradises” explored by his predecessors in French literature, Desnos inaugurated with this novel a new era of “artificial hells.” An anomaly both in his career and for having been published under the Occupation by an active member of the Resistance who would die in the camps only a couple years later, The Die Is Cast stands as a piece of work as timely now as it had been untimely when it first appeared.
Translated, with an introduction, by Jesse L. Anderson
Robert Desnos (1900–1945) was one of the leading lights of the surrealist movement and its most accomplished practitioner of automatic writing and dictation before his break with André Breton in 1929. His busy career in journalism and radio culminated in an active role in the French Resistance. Desnos was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944, and would pass through several concentration camps until finally dying of typhoid in Terezín in occupied Czechoslovakia in 1945, a few days after the camp he was in was liberated.
2021, English
Softcover, 592 pages, 12 x 17.8 cm
Published by
Blank Forms / New York
$50.00 - Out of stock
The collection of previously unpublished interviews and extended versions of Alan Licht's famous conversations with figures in the American art and music scene.
For the past thirty years, Alan Licht has been a performer, programmer, and chronicler of New York's art and music scenes. His dry wit, deep erudition, and unique perspective—informed by decades of experience as a touring and recording guitarist in the worlds of experimental music and underground rock—have distinguished him as the go-to writer for profiles of adventurous artists across genres. A precocious scholar and improvisor, by the time he graduated from Vassar College in 1990 Licht had already authored important articles on minimalist composers La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, and Charlemagne Palestine, and recorded with luminaries such as Rashied Ali and Thurston Moore. In 1999 he became a regular contributor to the British experimental music magazine The Wire while continuing to publish in a wide array of periodicals, ranging from the artworld glossies to underground fanzines.
Common Tones gathers a selection of never-before-published interviews, many conducted during the writing of Licht's groundbreaking profiles, alongside extended versions of his celebrated conversations with artists, previously un-transcribed public exchanges, and new dialogues held on the occasion of this collection. Even Lou Reed, a notoriously difficult interviewee also included here, was suitably impressed.
Alan Licht (born 1968) is a writer, musician, and curator based in New York City. He is equally known for his guitar work in the underground rock bands Run On and Lovechild and in the experimental groups the Blue Humans and Text of Light. He has released numerous solo guitar albums and duo and trio records of improvised music, collaborating with avant-garde musicians such as Jim O'Rourke, Loren Mazzacan Connors, Rudolf Grey, Lee Ranaldo and Aki Onda.
Introduction by Jay Sanders. Interviews by Alan Licht with Vito Acconci, ANOHNI, Cory Arcangel, Matthew Barney, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad, Karl Precoda (Dream Syndicate), Richard Foreman, Henry Flynt, Milford Graves, Adris Hoyos, Ken Jacobs, Jutta Koether, Christian Marclay, Phill Niblock, Alessandra Novaga, Stephanie Oursler, Kelly Reichardt, The Sea and Cake, Suicide, Michael Snow, Greg Tate, Tom Verlaine, Rudy Wurlitzer, Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo).
2021, English
Hardcover, 360 pages, 19.5 x 25.2 cm
Published by
Faber & Faber / London
$52.00 - Out of stock
A definitive insight into the ever-influential world of Mark E. Smith and the Fall, featuring never-before published essays and ephemera from fans, collectors and the artist and band themselves.
This is not a book about a rock band. This is not even a book about Mark E Smith. This is a book about The Fall group - or more precisely, their world. Over a prolific forty-year career, the Fall created a world that was influential, idiosyncratic and fiercely original - and defied simple categorisation. Their frontman and lyricist Mark E. Smith spun opaque tales that resisted conventional understanding; the Fall's worldview was an education in its own right. Who wouldn't want to be armed with a working knowledge of M. R. James, shipping-dock procedures, contemporary dance, Manchester City and Can? The group inspired and shaped the lives of those who listened to and tried to make sense of their work.
Bringing together previously unseen artwork, rare ephemera and handwritten material, alongside essays by a slate of fans, EXCAVATE! is a vivid, definitive record - an illumination of the dark corners of the Fall's wonderful and frightening world.
This is a book about Mark E. Smith and The Fall - or more precisely, their ever-influential world. The Fall were so many things, so many worlds; if you got it (and not everyone did), they represented everything.
'To 50,000 Fall Fans: please buy this inspired & inspiring, profound & provocative, beautiful & bonkers Book of Revelations, choc-stock-full of loving Acts by true Apostles, simultaneously both the scrapbook you wished you'd kept and a portal to futures & pasts, known & unknown, & a Fantastic Celebration of this Nation's Saving Grace.' — DAVID PEACE
Contributions by : Elain Harwood, Ian Penman, Paul Wilson, Owen Hatherley, Mark Fisher, Mark Sinker, Michael Bracewell, Jon Wilde, Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey, Sian Pattenden, Dan Fox, Adelle Stripe, Scott King, Richard McKenna...
1979, English
Softcover, 188 pages, 28 x 22 cm
1st US Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
St. Martin's Press / New York
$70.00 - Out of stock
Softcover edition of the first (only) printing of cult photobook "High School U.S.A.", Jim Richardson's intimate 1979 portrait of American adolescence at Rossville High in Rossville, Kansas.
For three years in the late 1970's, Richardson photographed and documented the life of these high school teenagers, coming back every year to vicariously live through all of the life-altering events that high school presents to these young adults. Richardson's photographs of students, teachers, and coaches at Rossville High School in Rossville, Kansas, combined with the students' own words, capture the high school experience from football season to graduation and through identity struggles and romantic involvements that files perfectly alongside Joseph Szabo's great "Almost Grown".
Good Copy throughout with decent cover wear (see picture).
1971, English
Hardcover (w. dustjacket), 82 pages, 29 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thomas Nelson / Melbourne
$190.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover edition of this Australian photo-book classic. In 1971, photographer Rennie Ellis and co-photographer and close friend, Wesley Stacey, published Kings Cross Sydney, which, as Ellis puts it "examines the surface glitter and underground guts of the Cross". An intimate look at the height of Kings Cross, before gentrification and controversial lock-out laws had their way with it. Illustrated throughout with black and white and colour photographs alongside quotes and stories from/about local residents (inc. the "Witch of Kings Cross", Rosaleen Norton), workers, businesses, controversies, and politics of Kings Cross. Colloquially known as The Cross, The Kings Cross district was Sydney's bohemian heartland from the early decades of the 20th century, known for its music halls and grand theatres and home to a large number of artists, writers, poets and journalists. From the 1960s onwards Kings Cross came to serve as the city's red-light district and entertainment mecca.
"Between the time when work was begun on this book and its appearance in the shops, Kings Cross has continued in its haphazard state of flux. The park at the El Alamein Fountain has been paved, the 'full
reveal' has become standard in the strip clubs, several night spots have gone out of existence and others
have opened in their places, Rose the Flower Seller has died, as have Tilly Devine, Chips Rafferty and
Kenneth Slessor, Sammy Lee has grown a moustache, and many more old buildings have crumbled under
the wreckers' hammers. Yet, the book remains a valid statement about the changing society it reflects because its images freeze moments in time that will forever remain symbols of the unusual character of the Cross. With their cameras Rennie Ellis and Wesley Stacey have penetrated the slick veneer of life at Kings Cross and revealed the beauty and the pathos, as well as the seaminess, which lurk beneath the tinsel glitter. The affinity which the authors feel for the place, the people, and their attitudes, has resulted in
an honest appraisal which may sadden, amuse, shock or repel, but never fair to intrigue those who read or look at the book."
"Over a period of six months the authors made frequent forays into the Cross armed with their cameras
and tape recorder. It was only by becoming known to the locals that they were able to record some of
the remarkable scenes in this book. Nevertheless, there is much that they learned about the Cross
which can only be hinted The laws of libel and the threats of bashings ensure a diplomatic silence. As
one of the authors put it: 'When a guy pulls a pistol on you and says that he's going to shoot you, you know
that it's time to put away your camera and retire gracefully.'"
Very Good copy, in Good dust jacket, preserved under mylar wrap. Internally clean, well-preserved, with a great one-page letter home from a group of Americans(?) reflecting on their fond experience of the Cross.
2013, English / French
Hardcover (cloth-bound), 256 pages, 21 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Black Jack Editions / France
$69.00 - Out of stock
First anthology of Rosemarie Trockel's collages, which are a key for a difracted and non-academic view on the whole work of this German artist known internationaly.
Rosemarie Trockel's collages form an important and central component of the retrospective exhibitions “Flagrant Delight”, held in 2012-2013 at Wiels (Brussels), Culturgest (Lisbon) and Museion (Bolzano), and “Verflüssigung der Mutter” (Deliquescence of the Mother), at the Kunsthalle Zurich in 2010. These collages are the subject of this publication, which takes a more detailed and in-depth look at them through a comprehensive body of illustrations of the 100 or so collages Trockel has produced to date, together with commissioned essays that address specifically this (still relatively unexplored) aspect of her extensive and multifaceted work.
Texts by Brigid Doherty, Gregory Williams, Elvan Zabunyan.
1995, English
Softcover, 392 pages, 23.5 x 16 cm
Published by
Duke University Press / North Carolina
$64.00 - Out of stock
Animals and Women is a collection of pioneering essays that explores the theoretical connections between feminism and animal defense. Offering a feminist perspective on the status of animals, this unique volume argues persuasively that both the social construction and oppressions of women are inextricably connected to the ways in which we comprehend and abuse other species. Furthermore, it demonstrates that such a focus does not distract from the struggle for women’s rights, but rather contributes to it.
This wide-ranging multidisciplinary anthology presents original material from scholars in a variety of fields, as well as a rare, early article by Virginia Woolf. Exploring the leading edge of the species/gender boundary, it addresses such issues as the relationship between abortion rights and animal rights, the connection between woman-battering and animal abuse, and the speciesist basis for much sexist language. Also considered are the ways in which animals have been regarded by science, literature, and the environmentalist movement. A striking meditation on women and wolves is presented, as is an examination of sexual harassment and the taxonomy of hunters and hunting. Finally, this compelling collection suggests that the subordination and degradation of women is a prototype for other forms of abuse, and that to deny this connection is to participate in the continued mistreatment of animals and women.
1988, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 23 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ebury Press / London
$120.00 - Out of stock
The now collectable illustrated book that traces the history of the T-shirt, from humble undergarment to high fashion artefact. Published in 1988, this one-of-a-kind valuable reference book encompasses the most iconic and the most marginal of t-shirt history from the 1950s to the late 1980s, over 300 stunning colour photographs immortalize the classic designs from every era of this universal item of clothing through fashion, music, politics, protest, novelty, sex, colour, comfort and controversy, from The Grateful Dead to The Miami Dolphins, from the Royal Family to Vivienne Westwood, Ibiza to Artists Against Apartheid. John Gordon and Mandy Ollis are design consultants to the book, record and fashion industries. Alice Hillier is a freelance writer on popular culture and has contributed to "Blitz", "The Face", and "The Observer Magazine".
Very Good copy.
2020, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi-strip), 144 pages, 15 x 21 cm
Published by
Tokyo Kirara / Tokyo
$65.00 - Out of stock
"Do not shoot!" - I heard Miles' real voice trembling for the first time.
A special collection of photographs by photographer Shigeru Uchiyama that capture every moment of Emperor Miles, such as precious recorded photographs from Miles Davis' Japan tours from 1981 to 1988, unreleased photographs, and private shots of his later years.
Shigeru Uchiyama's photographic sensibility is central to Tokyo's jazz scene, his works appearing on numerous jazz record jackets (Sun Ra Arkestra, Jaco Pastorius, Weather Report, Keith Jarrett, The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, etc), in the pages of jazz magazines, and as the exclusive photographer of Jazz clubs in Tokyo, including Bruce Array Japan, Blue Note Tokyo, Keystone Corner Tokyo, Sweet Basil 139. He recorded all of the jazz festivals and large touring concerts and published the cult photo book "Miles Smiles" which documeted Uchiyama's photography of Miles Davis over 10 years. "No Picture!" follows this book into the Miles Davis of the 1980s.
2021, English
Softcover, 80 pages, 21 x 21 cm
Published by
Primary Information / New York
$38.00 - In stock -
Black Art Notes is a collection of essays edited by artist and organizer Tom Lloyd. Originally published in 1971, the book was conceived as a critical response to the Contemporary Black Artists in America exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art but grew into a “concrete affirmation of Black Art philosophy as interpreted by eight Black artists,” as Lloyd notes in the publication’s introduction.
Published on the 50th anniversary of the original printing, Black Art Notes features writings by Lloyd, Amiri Baraka, Bing Davis, Melvin Dixon, Jeff Donaldson, Ray Elkins, Babatunde Folayemi, and Francis and Val Gray Ward. “If there is one lesson the post–civil rights period has taught us, it is that those most likely to shape the destiny of Black Americans in the next decade are activists and artists, who may possess additional skills as organizers,” write Ward in “The Black Artist—His Role in the Struggle.”
The artists featured in the publication position the Black Arts Movement outside of white, western frameworks, and articulate the movement as one created by and existing for Black people. Their essays condemn the attempts of museums and other white cultural institutions to tokenize, whitewash, and neutralize Black art, and call for immediate political and institutional reform and the self-determination of Black cultural producers. While the publication was created to respond to a particular historicized moment, the systemic problems that it addresses remain pervasive, making the artists’ potent critiques both timely and urgent.
Tom Lloyd (1929–1996) was a kinetic artist and organizer whose electronically programmed light works were chosen for the inaugural exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 1968. In 1971, Lloyd founded the Store Front Museum in New York, a cultural center that hosted exhibitions, concerts, classes, and lectures for the predominantly Black community of Jamaica, Queens, for over a decade. The center acted in tandem with his call for the marriage of social action and aesthetics in Black Art Notes, published the same year.
2021, English
Softcover, 184 pages, 23 x 31 cm
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$60.00 - Out of stock
BILL 3 is the third issue of an annual magazine of photographic stories, edited and designed by Julie Peeters. BILL 3, a special archival issue, features unpublished Martin Margiela lookbook photographs, a horse, street style from the 90’s, vases of Japan, a silver story, a flash forward and back, tennis, an icecube tray, more Margiela, Hysteric Glamour and a bunch of frivilous images.
The stories are sourced from the book collections of RareBooksParis and Julie Peeters. Printed in 2020, bound in 2021
2017, French
Softcover, 224 pages, 18.5 x 27.3 cm
Published by
CAC / Brétigny
<o> future <o> / Paris
$90.00 - Out of stock
This wonderful French catalogue offers a unique insight into the life and work of the French artist, sculptor and ceramist Valentine Schlegel. This richly illustrated, hugely popular volume (now sold out in two editions) forms the most comprehensive monograph on Schlegel ever published, featuring a large iconography, archives, and texts (in French) by sculptor and Schlegel specialist Hélène Bertin. Published on the occasion of the exhibition “Cette femme pourrait dormir dans l'eau – Valentine Schlegel par Hélène Bertin” at CAC Brétigny, from September 30 to December 09, 2017.
Valentine Schlegel (born 1925 in Sète, South of France) was trained at the Beaux-Art in Montpellier before settling in Paris, where she dedicated herself to ceramics. Schlegel conceived her works as sculptures inspired by nature. Her ceramics, primitive but sophisticated at the same time, made Valentine Schlegel one of the most important ceramists of 1950s.
Hélène Bertin (born 1989 in Petruis, lives and works in Paris and Cucuron) develops a practice which connects the activities of artist, curator and historian.
Edited by Hélène Bertin and Charles Mazé & Coline Sunier.
Text by Hélène Bertin.
Graphic design: Charles Mazé & Coline Sunier.
2021, English
Softcover, 94 pages, 15 x 23 cm
Published by
Debris / Naarm - Melbourne
$25.00 $5.00 - In stock -
DEBRIS is a bi-annual, independent literary magazine based in Narrm (Melbourne).
ISSUE 01 ‘Grief’ features twelve texts, a photo essay and a comic strip exploring instances of imagined, delayed and anticipated grief. We unravel grief, looking within and peering beyond bereavement and loss. We look at grief that has been experienced personally, that is held collectively, that is carried in the body, and sedimented in place.
Contributors : Elena Tjandra, Julia Flaster, Mahmood Fazal, Barkaa Shokoofeh Azar, Lujayn Hourani, Chris Taylor, Sofie Westcombe, Alice Pung, Mira Asriningtyas, Lur Alghurabi, Nick Kilner, Jon-Michael Frank, Jennifer Philip, Tim Edensor, Ngoc Trân
2021, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 14 x 21.6 cm
Published by
Divided Publishing / London
$34.00 - In stock -
Close to spiritual anarchism, Georgia Sagri’s writing happens in the heat of negotiation. Her political communiqués, essays, poems, lectures and one-on-one care reports span a decade of artistic and activist practice. Starting in the months leading up to the occupation of Zuccotti Park in 2011, which became the movement for people’s self-governance known as Occupy, this book carries the energy and commitment of open struggle, direct address, self-organisation and public assembly. It is a critique of representation and its implicit oblivion. Having grown up in Athens, Sagri’s intuition upon moving to New York was that being in public without consuming is the biggest threat to those in control. And hearing the voices of others beyond what is a given generates this threat to capitalism. The writing is a mode of recovery, it is pre-content shared to encourage open processes not institutions.
2018, English
Softcover (wire comb binding), 128 pages, 21.5 x 27 cm
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
Kunstverein Braunschweig / Germany
Portikus / Frankfurt
$44.00 - In stock -
Edited by Christina Lehnert, Philippe Pirotte
Texts by Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Silvia Federici, Bettina Funcke, Daniel Horn, Ruba Katrib, John Kelsey, Christina Lehnert, Diego Singh, Stephen Squibb
The catalogue GEORGIA SAGRI GEORGIA SAGRI and I is published on the occasion of the eponymous solo exhibitions “GEORGIA SAGRI GEORGIA SAGRI” at Kunstverein Braunschweig, December 2017–February 2018, and “GEORGIA SAGRI and I” at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, April–June 2018. As her first comprehensive publication, this catalogue surveys the multi-facetted oeuvre of the Greek artist Georgia Sagri. As the title of this book suggests, the staged objects Sagri produces are doubled modules, where each I or self can be “cross-eyed.” This effect, often produced theatrically, reorders the collective gaze to be subverted through a “catastrophe of emotions.” Across performance, video work, and sculpture, Sagri navigates the murky relationships between the artist’s body and her body of work, subjectivity and persona, original and reproduction with equal parts humor and severity.
Collected in this catalogue is both current documentation of Sagri’s work and rich archival material since 1999; together they are juxtaposed against essays by Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Daniel Horn, Ruba Katrib, Christina Lehnert, Diego Singh and Stephen Squibb, an interview conducted with Silvia Federici, and a conversation between the artist, Bettina Funcke, and John Kelsey.
A founding organizer of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Georgia Sagri’s social activism (alongside her artistic activities) dates back to 1997, when she was a member of the Void Network in Athens. Sagri has organized the perambulatory curatorial project Saloon and the audio-only magazine Forté since 2009. In 2013 she initiated the semi-public and semi-personal space Ύλη[matter]HYLE in Athens, with the mission to develop a new model for the contemporary work-life structure. She has exhibited and participated in documenta 14 (2017), Manifesta 11 (2016), Istanbul Biennial (2015), La biennale de Lyon (2013), Whitney Biennial (2012), Thessaloniki Biennale (2011), and the Athens Biennale (2007).
Copublished with Kunstverein Braunschweig and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main
Design by Yvonne Quirmbach
1984 / 2002, English
Softcover, 104 pages, 27.5 x 21 cm
Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$45.00 $25.00 - Out of stock
The groundbreaking 1984 book, Subway Art, photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant documenting the work of graffiti writers who illegally painted subway cars in New York City. Exploding with incredible vivid colour reproductions, Henry Chalfant's stunning train images capture some of the most innovative and iconic pieces from the period, with top-to-bottom whole car shots, panels, pull-out spreads, tags, interiors, details, and action shots, and Martha Cooper's narrative pictures tell the story — an introduction for the uninitiated to the NYC crews and writers, vocab, styles, et al, with loads of portraits and quotes from the writers. Includes the work of Iz The Wiz, Quik, Dondi, Zephyr, Noc, Futura 2000, Lady Pink, T-Kid, Lee, Crash, Blade, Daze, Lady Heart, Seen, Kase 2, Smily, Phase 2, Mitch, Skeme, Duro, Shy 147, and many others. This long out-of-print 2002 reprint retains the original design in facsimile, unlike the newer, reduced, re-designed/edited editions.
Very Good - Fine copy.
1984, English
Softcover, 120 pages, 26 x 18 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
International General / New York
$100.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of the second (expanded and enlarged) 1984 English-language edition of "How to Read Donald Duck", first published in 1975.
“A literary grandmaster.” ―Time
"A Hand-book of De-Colonisation" — John Berger
First published in 1971, How to Read Donald Duck shocked readers by revealing how capitalist ideology operates in our most beloved cartoons. Having survived bonfires, impounding and being dumped into the ocean by the Chilean army, this controversial book is once again back on our shelves.
Written and published during the blossoming of Salvador Allende's revolutionary socialism, the book examines how Disney comics not only reflect capitalist ideology, but are active agents working in this ideology's favour. Focusing on the hapless mice and ducks of Disney, curiously parentless, marginalised and always short of cash, Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart expose how these characters established hegemonic ideas about capital, race, gender and the relationship between developed countries and the Third World. Disney recognized the challenge and, when the book was translated and imported into the United States in 1975, managed to have all 4,000 copies impounded. Ultimately, 1,500 copies of the book were allowed into the country, the rest of the shipment was blocked, and until now no American publisher has re-released the book, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.
A devastating indictment of a media giant, a document of twentieth-century political upheaval, and a reminder of the dark undercurrent of pop culture, How to Read Donald Duck is once again available, together with a new introduction by Ariel Dorfman.
Translated by art historian David Kunzle.
Very Good copy. Some pinching (not splitting) to spine edge, previous owner's signature to first page, otherwise beautifully preserved, crisp copy.
1978, English
Newspaper, 16 pages, 43 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Ziriuz Publications / Frankston
$45.00 - Out of stock
Scarce copy of the first 1978 issue of Ziriuz, "Australia's New Age Alternatives Monthly" newspaper. Published monthly in Frankston, Ziriuz was packed with articles on subjects from the stars and the soil — eco-activism, witchcraft, astrology, organic gardening, accompanied by illustrations and amazing period adverts from 1970's back-to-the-earth Victoria. This issue featuring a cover story and interview with Mary Bailey, leader of the Arcane School, an occult organization founded by Theosophist Alice A. Bailey and her husband, Foster Bailey, plus bio-dynamic planting, skin health, Sagittarius, sun herbs, colour healing, nutrition, astrology, "foon and spork" jewellery, and much more!
Good copy with general age wear and tanning (looks worse in our images than the real thing).
1978, English
Newspaper, 20 pages, 43 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Ziriuz Publications / Frankston
$45.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of the second issue of Ziriuz, "Australia's New Age Alternatives Monthly" newspaper. Published monthly in Frankston, Ziriuz was packed with articles on subjects from the stars and the soil — eco-activism, witchcraft, astrology, organic gardening, accompanied by illustrations and amazing period adverts from 1970's back-to-the-earth Victoria. This issue featuring interview with yogi Brahma Kumaris Janki, skin health, Aquarius, Yoga, cooking with grains, organic gardening, moon herbs, Austrian moor muds, eye exercises, the ills of sodium chloride (salt), vegetarian future food, "The Smog Game', healing, stories, astronomy, and much more!
Good copy with general age wear and tanning (looks worse in our images than the real thing).
1979, English
Newspaper, 20 pages, 43 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Ziriuz Publications / Frankston
$45.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of March 1979 issue of Ziriuz, "Australia's New Age Alternatives Monthly" newspaper. Published monthly in Frankston, Ziriuz was packed with articles on subjects from the stars and the soil — eco-activism, witchcraft, astrology, organic gardening, accompanied by illustrations and amazing period adverts from 1970's back-to-the-earth Victoria. This issue featuring communicating with dolphins, the Dolphin Embassy, aura reading, mummification, colour breathing, 3CR community radio, magic, astrology, natural debugging, vegetarian cooking, the herbs of Mars, breast care, Pisces, herbal tinctures, fasting, and much more!
Good copy with general age wear and tanning (looks worse in our images than the real thing).
1979, English
Newspaper, 20 pages, 43 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Ziriuz Publications / Frankston
$45.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of June 1979 issue of Ziriuz, "Australia's New Age Alternatives Monthly" newspaper. Published monthly in Frankston, Ziriuz was packed with articles on subjects from the stars and the soil — eco-activism, witchcraft, astrology, organic gardening, accompanied by illustrations and amazing period adverts from 1970's back-to-the-earth Victoria. This issue with a cover feature and interview with the great Jim Cairns, left politician, anti-war activist, Deputy Prime Minister in the Whitlam Labor government, author, and founder of the Down to Earth festival, plus Veganism ("living with compassion"), homemade soaps, conserving Earth's soil, "The Milk Myth", Astgma, Jupiter herbs, alchemy, astrology, colour therapy, tarot, and much more!
Good copy with general age wear and tanning (looks worse in our images than the real thing).
1979, English
Newspaper, 24 pages, 43 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Ziriuz Publications / Frankston
$45.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of September 1979 issue of Ziriuz, "Australia's New Age Alternatives Monthly" newspaper. Published monthly in Frankston, Ziriuz was packed with articles on subjects from the stars and the soil — eco-activism, witchcraft, astrology, organic gardening, accompanied by illustrations and amazing period adverts from 1970's back-to-the-earth Victoria. This issue featuring a cover story and interview with semi-recluse sculptor William Rickett on his sanctuary and battle against deforestation, the occultists' Tetragrammaton, music therapy, the hairy-nosed wombat, Virgo, Pan and Diana, hand reading, solar power, homeopathy, cooking, numerology, and much more!
Good copy with general age wear and tanning (looks worse in our images than the real thing).
1979, English
Newspaper, 24 pages, 43 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Ziriuz Publications / Frankston
$45.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of October 1979 issue of Ziriuz, "Australia's New Age Alternatives Monthly" newspaper. Published monthly in Frankston, Ziriuz was packed with articles on subjects from the stars and the soil — eco-activism, witchcraft, astrology, organic gardening, accompanied by illustrations and amazing period adverts from 1970's back-to-the-earth Victoria. This issue featuring the battle to save Terania Creek Basin forest from logging, Equinox and Australian magic rituals, witchcraft, computerised society, CIA mind control, organic gardening, Aboriginal dreaming, the Tarot and the ocean, vegetarian cooking, Saturn herbs, home births, healing, poems, and much more!
Good copy with general age wear and tanning (looks worse in our images than the real thing).