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:
CLOSED FOR SUMMER.
RE-OPENING 01.02.24
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
Theory / Essay
Architecture / Interior
Graphic Design / Typography
Photography
Fashion
Eros
LGBTQ+
Fiction / Poetry
Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction / Horror
Transgressive / Visceral / Abject
Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle
Film / Video
Painting
Sculpture / Installation
Performance / Dance / Theater
Drawing
Sound / Music
Curatorial
Group Shows / Collections
Periodicals
Out-of-print / Rare
Posters / Ephemera / Discs
Signed Books
World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
Australian Photography
Japanese Photography
Conceptual Art
Minimal Art
Dada
'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
Concrete Poetry
Pop Art
Surrealism
Arte Povera
Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
Ceramics / Glass
Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
Anarchism
Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
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.
1999, English
Softcover, 21.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Purple Institute / Paris
$220.00 - Out of stock
The scarce fourth issue (of eight total, published between 1998-2001) of Olivier Zahm's short-lived, erotically charged photography journal "Purple Sexe". This issue profusely illustrated throughout, containing portfolios by Donald Christie, Mark Borthwick, Johnny Gembitsky, Terry Richardson, Katja Rahlwes, Marcelo Krasilcic, Martin Laporte, Jack Pierson, Thomas Schenk, Dike Blair, Richard Kern, and Viviane Sassen.
In 1992 Olivier Zahm and his partner Elein Fleiss printed the first issue of Purple Prose, a Parisian literary art zine that over the years has evolved into Purple Fashion Magazine. Soon after the birth of Purple Prose, Zahm created spin-off publications like Purple Sexe, Purple Fiction and what we now know and love, Purple Fashion. Zahm aimed at fusing together his two worlds, fashion and art, in creating Purple and Purple Fashion. Purple Sexe remains one of the scarcest of the early Purple series', published in the same format as Purple Prose and Purple Fiction in late 1990s. A magazine devoted to sexuality, only 8 issues of Purple Sexe were ever published between 1998 - 2001, edited by Olivier Zahm and commencing the same year as Purple, which was a fusion of Purple Prose, Fiction, Fashion, and Sexe.
Very Good copy.
1979, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 63 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rigmarole of the Hours / Clifton Hill
$140.00 - Out of stock
“His desires were limitless, he wanted to fly, to make himself invisible, he wanted to be able to do everything.”—Gerhard Rühm
Rare 1979 edition published by Rigmarole of the Hours, Clifton Hill, Melbourne.
Konrad Bayer (1932—1964) was an Austrian writer and poet. A member of the Wiener Gruppe, he combined apparently irreconcilable elements—violence, hermeticism, pessimism, ecstasy, banality—and influences (dadaism, surrealism, pataphysics, Wittgenstein, Stirner, Sade et al.)—into a bizarre linguistic solipsism which has held increasing fascination for German writers of the last few decades. His most important works are the novels Der Kopf des Vitus Bering (The Head of Vitus Bering) and Der sechste Sinn (The Sixth Sense), published posthumously in 1965 and 1966, respectively. Bayer committed suicide in October 1964 at the age of 32.
The Head of Vitus Bering is considered the most important work to originate from the Vienna Group during the time when it was active in the early 1960s. Gerhard Rühm and H. C. Artmann, two colleagues during this period, describe the book variously as Bayer’s “pinnacle” and “a magnificent book. Bayer’s true biography, composed with poetry and elegance.” But Bayer’s own description is more telling: “perhaps a trepanation”.
Constructed from a montage of events, images, facts and allusions that “unite and coordinate the past and future to one point,” Bayer turns the historical adventure of the ship’s captain Vitus Bering, who attempted to discover whether America was linked to Asia, into a metaphor for inner voyage and ultimate liberation “from opinions and thoughts”. Against the backdrop of a chilling reality “outside” in which the logic of a mechanical universe is beginning to run riot, and all subjective distance washed away, the reader is drawn into a vortex of unnerving paradoxes, a calculating machine of sublime horrors — “the birth pangs of initiation”.
Translated with afterword by Walter Billeter.
The small press Rigmarole of the Hours (c. 1974—1986) was born out of the experimental poetry scene in Melbourne, publishing poetry by Robert Kenny, Jennifer Maiden, Laurie Duggan, Kris Hemensley, Katherine Gallagher and Anna Couani, among others.
VG copy with edge tanning to pages.
1973, English
Softcover (staple bound), 96 pages, 20.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Contempa / Armadale
$65.00 - In stock -
Scarce copy of Contempa, a small literary press magazine edited by Robert Kenny and Phillip Edmonds in Armadale, Victoria, between 1972—1978. Associated with the experimental poetry scene based around Melbourne's La Mama Theatre and the "Generation of '68" poets, Kenny also established the imprint Ragman Productions, and founded a small press, Rigmorale of the Hours, later Rigmorale Books (1974—1986). A combined issue 7 & 8, this 1973 volume of Contempa features poetry, prose and short fiction (and a splash of artwork) by Robert Harris, Ken Taylor, Richard Hopkinson, Kris Hemensley, Robert Kenny, Terry Harrington, Erich Beach, John Jenkins, B.A. Breen, Andrew Robinson, Anne Parrot, David Miller, Phillip Edmonds, Arno Schmidt/Billeter, An Epistle, and more.
Very Good copy.
1970
Hardcover, 80 pages, 30 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Heinz Peter / Berlin
$100.00 - Out of stock
The wonderful, cult 1970 "Vive Le Sex" photobook from Czech photographer, Ica Vilander, who is noted for being one of the few women to shoot nudes in the 1960s.
Vilander was born in 1921 in Brux, Czechoslovakia and later moved to Berlin in 1944, where she studied graphics and experimental photography. Working for the legendary Willy Fleckhaus designed Twen magazine, Vilander garnered a lot of attention internationally with her nude portraits and dynamic, graphic approach to photography, yet by 1980 she disappeared into photo history obscurity as she almost completely retired from public life. Her originals are very rare, as most were destroyed, but her wonderful published collections have become some of the more prized and elusive nude photobooks of the 1960s/1970s.
"Vive Le Sex", in its large square format and hardcover, is a perfect example of Vilander's joyous approach to photographing the nude male and female; mixing elements of collage with photography, dynamic cropping, and a free-spirited use of styling and props that reflected the hippie lifestyle that surrounded her family and friends, who were all regular subjects of her photos, alongside actors, musicians, artists.
First, only edition.
1972, English
Softcover (staple-bound w. card covers), 72 pages, 38.5 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Uitgeverij Bert Bakker / The Hague
$280.00 - In stock -
The Virgin Sperm Dancer : An ecstatic journey of a boy transformed into a girl for one day only, and her erotic adventures in Amsterdam, magic centrum. This is the photographic story of Joop, a modern boy who wakes up one morning as Joopie, a succulent young lady who only has a day to enjoy the benefits of her new body before the metamorphosis is reversed. Joopie wastes no time and embarks on her erotic adventures, every step of which is documented in explicit detail. A rare, cult classic of the European sexual liberation movement of the early 1970's, conceived by the photographer Anna Beeke as an anti-pornographic statement and published as a special issue of Willem de Ridder's notorious and glorious "Suck" magazine.
"The makers of the Virgin Sperm Dancer cannot be held responsible for word burns and image jitters up to and including the first degree."
"The Virgin Sperm Dancer" features text by American expatriate and editor of Suck (as well as The Insect Trust Gazette, International Times, and The Fanatic) William Levy - known as the "Talmudic Wizard of Amsterdam", design by one of Holland's most innovative, risk taking designers, Beeke's husband Anthon Beeke, and wonderful black and white photographs Anna Beeke herself - credited as "Ginger Gordon". This joyous and provocative, uncensored and over-sized book is a tour of gender-bending counter-culture sex in and adjacent to Amsterdam's famed Vondelpark in 1972, complete with public sex and auto-eroticism, orgies and trans-sexual baked bread! "This charmingly liberated fairy story is gleefully hardcore - the point of the exercise, after all." — Martin Parr and Gerry Badger's "The Photobook: A History, volume III" (Phaidon Press, London, 2014). Also cited in Alessandro Bertelotti's "Books of Nudes" (Abrahams, New York, 2007).
Final instructions : "This is not a work of fiction or of one man. Keep your eye on it's bi-unity. I am smiling now. But if you don't think my story marvellous and you should happen to meet me, kindly pass as though we don't know each other."
"But for those readers with delicate lusts and whose curiosity reaches greater detail... When you finish this book roll the pages into thin tubes. Insert carefully into your rectal opening where this specially treated paper will dissolve and act as a chemical re-agent to push each and every word image into your blood-stream and finally into the deep memory of your brain... "
Very Good with light tanning and cover wear (some very small edge nicks and light creasing, pinching)
199?, Polish/English/German
Softcover (staple-bound), 24 pages, 22.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Carmina Académica / Poland
$150.00 - In stock -
Extremely rare, self-published, undated (presumably around 1992) publication "Spiral Form" by Leoncjusz Ciuciura, one of Poland's most visionary composers of contemporary music. The message of his compositions relates to infinity, and "Spiral Form", outlined in this theoretical "score", is the most perfect instillation of this concept. Written in 1964 but according to the author's idea the piece started in the beginning of the universe and will play literally forever. "The basic feature of the spiral form is the dynamic intergrating tendency of all elements to an inner unity, cohesion and substantial perfection. The spiral form is a total form "in statu nascendi" and transits from micro to macro form."
Tri-lingual Polish/English/German texts by the composer, accompanied by graphics and biography.
A member of the Polish Authors’ Society, ZAiKS, from 1962, many of Ciuciura’s compositions combined elements of improvisation, linking music and pantomime, dance, theatre and other forms of art. A firm believer in the “self-improvement” of his compositions, Ciuciura argued that:
"Since 1964 until the present, each performance [of my work] is a world premiere and therefore the date of that performance should be changed and updated accordingly. Beginning with my Spirale per uno e piu’ I have launched my own concept of musical form, a spiral form, where the starting point could be visual graphics, sonorist elements, prepared sounds, as well as minimal music, Momentformen, collage, happening, conceptualism, etc. Thanks to the elements of expectation, virtual reality and eschatology, this new, spiral form of a musical composition opens the door to self-realization, self-discovery and self-improvement."
Leoncjusz Ciuciura (1930—2017) was a Polish composer, an ardent advocate for contemporary music and co-organizer of the Polish Chapter of Jeunesses Musicales International. He studied composition with Tadeusz Szeligowski at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (1954–60). He founded the music publishing firm Carmina Académica, with which he was active as an editor. In 1960 he received the Minister of Culture and Arts Award, in 1962 first prize in the International Competition for Composers in Prague, and in 1963 third prize in the Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition in Katowice. Virtually all of his works are essays in combinatorial permutation with optional instrumental or vocal additions, subtractions, multiplications, or divisions.
Good—VG copy with light wear, staple rusted.
1986, Japanese / French
Softcover (w. obi and plastic jacket), 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
PARCO / Tokyo
$100.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this Japanese book collection of works by French photographer Bernard Faucon, published by Parco in 1986 as part of the "Parco's Visual Works" series. This book includes work from all Faucon's major series to date (from "Summer Camp" onwards) reproduced in colour, with rarely seen behind the scenes portraits of Faucon, and text by Japanese author Kōbō Abe. Faucon's work became extremely popular in Japan in the 1980s.
"Bernard Faucon’s photographic 'mise-en-scene' of children's games and rituals (using mannequins and an occasional live model), like the salaciously naïve narrative that accompanies them, convincingly perverts the notion of reality. For the real in Faucon's art is both the subtly delirious content of unusually memorable images and the heightened awareness of the feelings they arouse in us"
Bernard Faucon (b. 1950 in Provence) is a French photographer and writer. Faucon spent his childhood in the clear blue sky and the lavender field, before attending the University of Paris Sorbonne, where he majored in philosophy. After graduating, he worked as a painter, then turned to photography. Faucon was one of the first photographers in the second half of the 20th century to systematically create and master the constructed image, gaining fame worldwide in the late 1970s when he started a new trend of mise en scène photo. His photographic work has a love of youth and dreamy beauty, using saturated colour, natural settings, rooms and often tableaux of mannequins. For more than 20 years, his staged photographs have been exhibited in international galleries such as Leo Castelli in New York, and Agathe Gaillard and Yvon Lambert in Paris.
Very Good—Fine copy.
1969, English
Softcover, 52 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Still Earth / Melbourne
$140.00 - In stock -
Exceptionally rare first 1969 poetry collection published by Still Earth Publications, Melbourne, an imprint founded by poet Russell Deeble and gallerist, artist, poet and publisher, Sweeney Reed, son of Albert Tucker and Joy Hester, adopted son of Heide founders John and Sunday Reed, whose Strines and Sweeney Reed Galleries championed concrete poetry, abstraction, and pop art in Australia.
This inaugural collection features a generous selection of daring poetry by Melbourne poets Russell Deeble and Shelton Lea, American poet Diane Di Prima, and British poets Christopher Logue and Tom Pickard.
"Disgusting" as one catalogue put it.
Good copy with wear to gold foiled covers, very good internally.
1990, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi strip), 269 pages, 13 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ota Shuppan / Tokyo
$300.00 - In stock -
Rare first Japanese edition of Nobuyoshi Araki's most controversial book, and cited by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger (in The Photobook Vol.1) as Araki's best and most famous work. Includes original publisher's obi-strip issued with the first 1990 printing. Tokyo Lucky Hole is Araki's intimate document of Japan's sex industry in full flower. Before Shinjuku's infamous red-light district was closed in 1985, the Japanese photographer made this obsessive documentation of its every aspect: the pleasure-seekers and providers, street scenes, performances, peep-shows, parlours, parks, dungeons. Tokyo Lucky Hole reveals the core of Araki's art: the desire to create a portrait of Tokyo without the niceties (and prudishness) of convention. Through mirrored walls, bed sheets, bondage and orgies, this is the last word on an age of bacchanalia, infused with moments of humor, precise poetry, and questioning interjections. Text by Nobuyoshi Araki. Design by Katsumi Komagata.
Nobuyoshi Araki was born in Tokyo in 1940. Given a camera by his father at the ripe age of twelve, Araki has been taking pictures ever since. He studied photography and film at Chiba University and went into commercial photography soon after graduating. In 1970 he created his famous Xeroxed Photo Albums, which he produced in limited editions and sent to friends, art critics, and people selected randomly from the telephone book. Over the years, his bold, unabashed photographs of his private life have been the object of a great deal of controversy and censorship (especially in his native Japan), a fact that has not fazed the artist nor diminished his influence. To date, Araki has published over 400 books of his work.
Very Good copy with VG obi-strip.
1980, Japanese
Softcover (w. metallic dust jacket), 324 pages, 25.6 x 15.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Byakuya Shobo / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
First 1980 edition of Nobuyoshi Araki's Pseudo-Reportage, over 300 pages of Araki's photographic reportage spanning 1977—1979, and one of more uncommon and best Araki books. Wrapped in silver and pink metallic dust jacket, Pseudo-Reportage is akin to his famed Tokyo Luckyhole, a visual record tracing Araki's movements through the Tokyo nightlife (mostly) of the late 1970's and a tour to the haunts of New York City in 1979 on the occasion of a group exhibition at the International Center of Photography — JAPAN: A SELF PORTRAIT, in which Daido Moriyama, Eikoh Hosoe, Tomatsu, Fukase also participated. Lots of sex clubs, bars, restaurants, and lots of women — the Japanese Empress, female kickboxers, girl glam rockers, hostesses, girls, girls, girls. Explicit, profound, charming, Araki.
"With an epigraph, Photos are jokes on society. The high ([Japan's] Empress) and the low (female kickboxers) are combined; Araki's great wit in full display."—Kōtarō Iizawa
Good—VG copy in Good—VG dust jacket, with only very light general wear/age. Foxing to unseen under-side of dust jacket.
1998, English / Japanese
2 vols. 106 pages/16 pages, 28 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Synergy Inc. / Tokyo
$140.00 - In stock -
First edition of this photographic survey of Daido Moriyama, published on the occasion of the 1998 retrospective exhibition at Tokyo's Parco Gallery. Long out-of-print, this evocative collection of photographic works by Moriyama spanning his entire career, 106 pages of almost entirely b/w photographs, with the exception of one colour plate, with an accompanying 16 page booklet essay in Japanese and English by art critic Sawaragi Noi, all housed in silver cardboard slipcase with embossed metal design, art directed and designed by Hideki Nakajima.
Very good copy with light wear.
2019, Japanese / English
Softcover, 80 pages, 18.3 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Akio Nagasawa Publishing / Tokyo
$200.00 - Out of stock
Beautiful limited edition of Mayfly, signed and numbered by Moriyama. Originally published in 1972 under the title Kagero, Mayfly is Daido Moriyama’s sole commission to produce a series of erotica. Mayfly is a series of Moriyama's "Kinbaku" photos that came about as a result of a collaboration with Dan Oniroku (1931-2011), author of S/M fiction whose books were often adapted into "pink" films produced by Nikkatsu studios, Japan’s oldest film studio. Kagero can be viewed as an extension of Provoke #2: Eros, an early landmark publication in Moriyama’s storied career.
"Traveling down memory lane and going back 50 years in time, I arrived at a small and nameless village at the cape of a certain peninsula. What I found there were five naked women, all equally tied up with ropes, and with dazed looks on their faces. So I got out my camera and spontaneously began to take photographs. It was a strange day; a day like an ephemeral vision."— Afterword by Daido Moriyama
While at a glance the work recalls the bondage photography of Nobuyoshi Araki, here runs perhaps a more sinister vein. This is not without reason, as Moriyama intended his pictures to represent the sadism of masculinity—clearly seen in scenes where male assistants tie their models in traditional Japanese bondage rope—and the inferiority complexes that often accompany such demands of domination. Here, Moriyama draws parallels between madness, libido, and ultimately, death. With these considerations in mind, the images have much in common with Hans Bellmer’s sculpture and drawings, and also sounds a resounding resonance with Marcel Duchamp’s final work, Étant Donnés. The parallel between nature and death remains constant, and it is without coincidence that the mayfly has often been used historically as a symbol of the ephemeral nature of life due to the insect’s extremely short lifespan. In this connection with both the pastoral and decay, Kagero bears some similarity to Sally Mann’s What Remains, an unsentimental observation of violence, death, and nature’s reclamation of the former. — publisher's blurb
Limited edition of 850 copies, this stunning edition comes wrapped in a card slipcase, within it a printed clamshell slipcase that opens to reveal 2 full pictures of 80 cm, housing the book, signed and numbered by Moriyama. Stunning.
1980, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. acetate jacket and obi-strip), 190 pages, 30 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Byakuya Shobo / Tokyo
$950.00 - In stock -
First edition. A seminal Japanese photo book and instant classic upon release, Flash up is one of the most remarkable photographic excursions into the seedy underbelly of 1970s Tokyo. Kurata (b. 1945—2020), one Japan’s formidable contemporary photographers who’s work is often referenced in the same circles as his "Provoke" teachers Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki, won the fifth Kimura Ihei Award in 1980 for this, his first book, his acclaimed collection of photographs of creatures of the night — gangsters showing off their full-length tattoos, youth styling themselves after the Hells Angels, self-professed ultra-nationalists from the notorious Black Dragon Society, transvestites drawing in crowds of men, cabaret girls...
"The photographs of Seiji Kurata are striking for their violence. The viewer must be prepared to be hit by his flashgun along with the subjects. ‘Violence’, in this case, is not necessarily invoked by the scenes of blood-shed; rather, it is Kurata’s sharp-shooting ability to stop the flow of time, capture the moment, draw of details we would otherwise never see, then proffer them up before our eyes. Sometimes our response is to avert our eyes for fear of seeing too much. This is not to say that the images are not exaggerated; for after all, people tend only to see what they want to see. If there are those who find Kurata’s photographs ‘ugly’, it can only be said that he has succeeded in paradoxically pointing the finger at them: You who want to avoid ugliness, he says, this is reality and I have cut it out for you. [...] we must admit that the ugliness apparent in these photographs is our ugliness. Our failure to do so simply invites Kurata to deal us an extra-violent blow with his images."—Akira Hasegawa, from the afterword.
Included in Martin Parr & Gerry Badger, The Photobook, Vol. II.
Text in English and Japanese.
Very Good copy, wear and usual shrinkage to publisher's thick acetate dust jacket, VG original metallic obi-strip, Very Good book, light bump to one corner.
1992, English
Softcover (staple-bound) 16 pages, 22 x 17 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Noosa Regional Gallery / Queensland
$15.00 - Out of stock
Scarce Aleks Danko catalogue published on the occasion of his solo exhibition, Pomona 1957, at Noosa Regional Gallery, Queensland, 21 July—23 August, 1992. Illustrated throughout with a story by Jacqueline Thomas, introduction by gallery director Ann Verbeek, designed by Danko and Ian Robertson. Published in an edition of 400 copies.
Aleks Danko (b. 1950) is an Australian performance artist and sculptor. The son of Ukrainian migrants, he was born in Adelaide, and educated at the South Australian School of Art and the Hawthorn Institute of Education. He started exhibiting in Adelaide in 1970. Aleks Danko’s career spans more than 5 decades and encompasses diverse media, from sculpture and installation to text and language-based works. Drawing actively on Australia’s political and cultural history, his work is infused with satirical humour and a subtle critique of contemporary social values.
Very Good copy. Tanning to fluro cover edges.
1993, Japanese / English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 144 pages, 23 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo
$260.00 - In stock -
Never to be missed, the first 1993 over-sized hardcover edition of Araki's unbeatable Erotos photo book, our favourite of his books. In this work, controversial and legendary Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki makes a radical departure from his usual portraits and cityscapes. A exquisitely printed collection of arrestingly primal close-ups of parts of the body as well as various objects—pipes, fruit, wet sidewalks, flowers, snails—Erotos delves deep into the erotic subconscious. Reproduced in gorgeous glossy duotone full-page bleed, bound in heavy gloss red, foiled hardcovers. A stunning book! Highly recommended.
Nobuyoshi Araki is a prolific Japanese photographer who has produced thousands of photographs over the course of his career. He became famous for “Un Voyage Sentimental” (1971), a series of photos depicting both banal and deeply intimate scenes of his wife and lifelong muse, essayist Aoki Yoko (whom the artist credits for making him a photographer), during their honeymoon. To date the 75 year old has produced 450 photo books and counting. With a repertoire that knows no boundaries, Araki's diaristic style of photography has captured the world around him (his cat Chiro, the people and landscapes of Japan and his travels, flowers, family), though it is Araki’s intensely sexual imagery that has elicited particular controversy and fascination throughout his career. Similarly to Helmut Newton, Araki has often addressed subversive themes — such as bondage in the Japanese style Kinbaku — in his provocative depictions of female nudes. He typically works in black-and-white photography, and his hallmark style is deliberately casual. “Rather than shooting something that looks like a professional photograph, I want my work to feel intimate, like someone in the subject’s inner circle shot them,” he says. Pushing against the world of commercialised photography, he is celebrated for his history of self-publishing and distributing his work, beginning with his Xerox Photo Albums of 1970. Amongst many others, Araki has collaborated with American photographer Nan Goldin and Icelandic musician Björk.
Very Good copy in Very Good dust jacket with small amount of wear and tear.
1981, Spanish
Softcover, 104 pages, 17 x 12 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Editorial Garsi / Madrid
$70.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of UNA MUSICA PARA LOS 80 by Spanish experimental composer, poet and art critic Javier Maderuelo (b. 1950), published in 1981 in Madrid by Editorial Garsi. This essential compact chronicle was written by Maderuelo to introduce the phenomenon of so-called contemporary music in Spain (electroacoustic, musique concrète, experimental, ambient, sound art, et al.) and analyse the varied positions of its leading protagonists, such as the Zaj group, Suso Sáiz, Eduardo Polonio, Llorenç Balsach, Amadeu Marin, Llorenç Barber, Carles Santos, José Iges, Antoni Caimari, Pedro Estevan, Josep Lluís Berenguer Moreno, Javier Maderuelo (himself a member of studio Alea between 1973-1977 and the musical movement Elenfante), amongst others. With critical overviews, profiles, discographies, bibliographies, chronologies of exhibitions and concerts, this is indeed a vital document on Spanish avant-garde sound c. 1970—1981.
Javier Maderuelo (Madrid, 1950) became interested in experimental poetry and art in 1972 under the influence of Fernando Millán, José Luis Castillejo and Felipe Boso, as well as artists like Elena Asins, Juan Hidalgo and Javier Aguirre, with whom he collaborated. He began producing typewritten poems and collages with texts extracted from newspapers, which converge in the unpublished book Arte Cisoria (1981). Felipe Boso introduced him to the world of phonetic poetry and with Pedro Estevan and María Villa he cofounded the Glotis Group (1979), dedicated to disseminating both the work of avant-garde poets, as well as neo-avant-garde works, some of them expressly written for Glotis. As a composer, he worked at the electronic music studio Alea (1973-1977) and was part of the musical movement Elenfante. He was a member of the Seminar of Analysis and Automatic Generation of Musical Forms, run by Florentino Briones, collaborating on the SIMO concerts. At the end of the eighties he abandoned poetic and musical creation to devote himself to an academic career.
Very Good copy with cover wrap cleanly disconnected from book block (old glue), tanned spine, otherwise VG throughout.
1985—1997, Japanese
6 softcover books (w. dust jackets), 200 pages ea., 18.5 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
World Comics / Japan
$300.00 - In stock -
Rare lot of six early hentai manga books by underground Japanese erotic illustrator "El Bondage" (Miki Makimura), published by World Comics in Japan. An incredible collection of this little known in the West doujinshi master of the 1980s and forerunner to Kondom and his Bondage Fairies, featuring a huge collection of his best stories and galleries of truely demented, obsessively ink-rendered, sadomasochistic cartoon fantasies in his wild graphic technique. Worlds of endless woodgrain, rope and rubber, nobody is safe from El Bondage's madness and wicked sense of humour. There are even galleries of everyone's favourite manga and anime icons of the 1980's gagged and bound as you've never seen them before! A romp of total indecency and perverse imagination. Published by the same imprint as Bondage Fairies, each book is packed with maniac drawings, around 200 pages long, with original colour dust jackets. Lot includes: Bondage Zone (1985); Bondage Wars (1986); Yuri's Last Moments (1986); Another Bondage (1986); King of Laughter (1986); Silent Bondage (1997).
All VG—Near Fine copies, light tanning.
1987, Japanese / English
Softcover, 94 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$100.00 - Out of stock
Stunning special edition of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, dedicated entirely to the work of fetish artist and publisher John Willie. This over-sized September 1987, no. 32, volume is profusely illustrated throughout with Willie's comic strips, photography, sketches, and his letters and writings, including fold-out photographic spreads. Perfectly compiled in the way SALE2 did so well, with elegant scrapbook style, dense with imagery, blown-up, full-bleed reproductions from many publications, alongside beautifully reproduced sequences and documents and first-time translations into Japanese. Littered with great Japanese adverts from the 1980s underground fetish scene too.
John Alexander Scott Coutts (1902 – 1962), better known by the pseudonym John Willie, was the artist, fetish photographer, editor, and publisher of the cult fetish magazine Bizarre. Born to a British family in Singapore, Coutts moved to Brisbane, Australia, in 1926, where he was introduced to the print media of a community of "shoe lovers" and fellow fetishists when he joined the High Heel Club. In Australia met his second wife, Holly Anna Faram, who shared an interest in bondage and high heels and became his muse and model. Through the club's mailing list, Willie was able to begin producing and selling his own illustrations and photography whilst working odd jobs, eventually establishing a company to produce exotic footwear, called "Achilles". In 1945, Willie moved to North America, while Holly chose to remain in Australia. First settling in Canada, it was here that he established his legendary Bizarre magazine, which ran from 1946 to 1959, introducing Willie to America's fetish underground. Willie is best known for his bondage comic strips, specifically "Sweet Gwendoline", which he drew in a distinct, now iconic style that influenced later artists such as Gene Bilbrew and Eric Stanton. Though distributed underground, Bizarre magazine and Willie's erotic art had a far-reaching impact on later fetish-themed publications and artists and experienced a resurgence in popularity, along with fetish model Bettie Page, beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, resonating to the current day.
Published regularly as a sort-of fanzine/journal/catalogue/pocket-book by Fiction, Inc., a specialty shop and publisher of fetish and erotica in Tokyo in the 1980-90s. Each issue covers different themes and features, heavy on fetishism.
Very Good copy, with some light wear to cover, inc. one crease to cover corner.
2000, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 400 pages, 24 x 32 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Argo / Prague
$190.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the most comprehensive English-language monograph ever published on Czech Surrealist Toyen (Marie Cerninova; 1902-1980). Published on the occasion of the major survey exhibition in the Prague City Gallery, this exhaustive 400 page hardcover volume is profusely illustrated with around 480 of Toyen's works, many undocumented elsewhere, alongside contemporary specialist studies on her work, with major contributions by Czech art historian and curator Karel Srp, Radovan Ivsic, Karolina Vocadlo, and Marie Cerminova. Highly recommended.
Marie Čermínová (1902 – 1980), known as Toyen, was a Czech painter, drafter and illustrator and a member of the Surrealist movement. Born in Smíchov, Bohemia, she left home at the age of 16 and worked at a soap factory in Zizkov while putting himself through school. She worked closely with fellow Surrealist poet and artist Jindřich Štyrský, both joining and exhibiting with the Devětsil group in 1923. In the 1920s they travelled to Paris and founded an artistic alternative to Abstraction and Surrealism, which they dubbed Artificialism, returning to Prague in 1928. Toyen's sketches, book illustrations, and paintings were frequently erotic, illustrating the Marquis de Sade's "Justine" under Štyrský's publishing imprint, Edice 69, as well as contributing many erotic sketches to Štyrský's Eroticka Revue (1930–33), published on strict subscription terms with a circulation of 150 copies. Toyen and Štyrský gradually grew more interested in Surrealism. After their associates Vítězslav Nezval and Jindřich Honzl met André Breton in Paris, they founded the Czech Surrealist Group along with other artists, writers, film makers and the composer Jaroslav Ježek. Toyen was one of the few female Surrealists, along with Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington and a handful of others. While Cahun examined the fluidity of gender roles, Toyen dispensed with gender altogether. Toyen often dressed in men's clothing and preferred masculine pronouns, choosing a non-conformist position when it came to gender and sexuality, themes heavily mined in Surrealist art. Forced underground during the Nazi occupation and Second World War, he sheltered his second artistic partner, Jindřich Heisler, a poet of Jewish descent who had joined the Czech Surrealist Group in 1938. The two relocated to Paris in 1947, before the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. In Paris, they worked with André Breton, Benjamin Péret, and other members of the surrealist movement.
Very Good copy in Good-Very Good dust jacket (small tear to bottom-left corner).
1974, French
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 72 pages, 31 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Editions Filipacchi / Paris
$100.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover edition of the first major Toyen monograph, published by Editions Filipacchi Paris, in 1974. Profusely illustrated throughout with Toyen's surrealist paintings, drawings, collages and publications in colour and b/w, this volume collects a beautiful cross-section of works by the great Czech transgender surrealist, alongside a text in French, a biography of the artist, and photographic portrait by Man Ray.
Marie Čermínová (1902 – 1980), known as Toyen, was a Czech painter, drafter and illustrator and a member of the Surrealist movement. Born in Smíchov, Bohemia, she left home at the age of 16 and worked at a soap factory in Zizkov while putting himself through school. She worked closely with fellow Surrealist poet and artist Jindřich Štyrský, both joining and exhibiting with the Devětsil group in 1923. In the 1920s they travelled to Paris and founded an artistic alternative to Abstraction and Surrealism, which they dubbed Artificialism, returning to Prague in 1928. Toyen's sketches, book illustrations, and paintings were frequently erotic, illustrating the Marquis de Sade's "Justine" under Štyrský's publishing imprint, Edice 69, as well as contributing many erotic sketches to Štyrský's Eroticka Revue (1930–33), published on strict subscription terms with a circulation of 150 copies. Toyen and Štyrský gradually grew more interested in Surrealism. After their associates Vítězslav Nezval and Jindřich Honzl met André Breton in Paris, they founded the Czech Surrealist Group along with other artists, writers, film makers and the composer Jaroslav Ježek. Toyen was one of the few female Surrealists, along with Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington and a handful of others. While Cahun examined the fluidity of gender roles, Toyen dispensed with gender altogether. Toyen often dressed in men's clothing and preferred masculine pronouns, choosing a non-conformist position when it came to gender and sexuality, themes heavily mined in Surrealist art. Forced underground during the Nazi occupation and Second World War, he sheltered his second artistic partner, Jindřich Heisler, a poet of Jewish descent who had joined the Czech Surrealist Group in 1938. The two relocated to Paris in 1947, before the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. In Paris, they worked with André Breton, Benjamin Péret, and other members of the surrealist movement.
Very Good copy with Good dust jacket preserved under plastic wrap.
2002, French
Softcover, 264 pages, 23.5 cm x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Artha / Saint Etienne
$200.00 - In stock -
First edition of Une Femme Surrealiste — one of the finest reference volumes ever published on the great Czech transgender surrealist Toyen (1902—1980). Edited by noted Toyen authority and exhibition curator Karel Srp, this lavishly illustrated catalogue was published on the occasion of the major retrospective exhibition held June 20 —Sep 30, 2002 at the Musee d'Art Moderne, Saint Etienne, France. Photo illustrated chronology and extensive catalogue of artworks in colour and b/w (149 works — paintings, drawings, lithographs, collages.....) Texts in French.
Marie Čermínová (1902 – 1980), known as Toyen, was a Czech painter, drafter and illustrator and a member of the Surrealist movement. Born in Smíchov, Bohemia, she left home at the age of 16 and worked at a soap factory in Zizkov while putting himself through school. She worked closely with fellow Surrealist poet and artist Jindřich Štyrský, both joining and exhibiting with the Devětsil group in 1923. In the 1920s they travelled to Paris and founded an artistic alternative to Abstraction and Surrealism, which they dubbed Artificialism, returning to Prague in 1928. Toyen's sketches, book illustrations, and paintings were frequently erotic, illustrating the Marquis de Sade's "Justine" under Štyrský's publishing imprint, Edice 69, as well as contributing many erotic sketches to Štyrský's Eroticka Revue (1930–33), published on strict subscription terms with a circulation of 150 copies. Toyen and Štyrský gradually grew more interested in Surrealism. After their associates Vítězslav Nezval and Jindřich Honzl met André Breton in Paris, they founded the Czech Surrealist Group along with other artists, writers, film makers and the composer Jaroslav Ježek. Toyen was one of the few female Surrealists, along with Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington and a handful of others. While Cahun examined the fluidity of gender roles, Toyen dispensed with gender altogether. Toyen often dressed in men's clothing and preferred masculine pronouns, choosing a non-conformist position when it came to gender and sexuality, themes heavily mined in Surrealist art. Forced underground during the Nazi occupation and Second World War, he sheltered his second artistic partner, Jindřich Heisler, a poet of Jewish descent who had joined the Czech Surrealist Group in 1938. The two relocated to Paris in 1947, before the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. In Paris, they worked with André Breton, Benjamin Péret, and other members of the surrealist movement.
Good copy with knock to bottom spine corner, light age wear.
1969, Japanese
Softcover, 218 pages, 21 x 14.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Misaki Shobo / Tokyo
$45.00 - Out of stock
Erotica September 1969, Japan's erotic magazine for bibliophiles, published in the 1960s—1970s by Misaki Bookstore. Each issue densely packed with illustrations, articles, news, and feature stories around the universe of Eros from around the world during a time of great sexual revolution. Covering all manner of sexual customs and subject matter from the arts and literature, film and manga, philosophy and radical politics, Erotica was Japan's leading erotic academic journal, featuring, amongst it's heavy historical and contemporary papers, the cutting-edge of Japanese and international erotic artists, from Hans Bellmer to Toshio Saeki.
Erotica September 1969 is themed "The Situation of Eros".
Good copy, wear/age.
1970, Japanese
Softcover, 250 pages, 21 x 14.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Misaki Shobo / Tokyo
$30.00 - Out of stock
Erotica December 1970, Japan's erotic magazine for bibliophiles, published in the 1960s—1970s by Misaki Bookstore. Each issue densely packed with illustrations, articles, news, and feature stories around the universe of Eros from around the world during a time of great sexual revolution. Covering all manner of sexual customs and subject matter from the arts and literature, film and manga, philosophy and radical politics, Erotica was Japan's leading erotic academic journal, featuring, amongst it's heavy historical and contemporary papers, the cutting-edge of Japanese and international erotic artists, from Hans Bellmer to Toshio Saeki.
Erotica December 1970 is themed "The Eros of Theatre: The Aesthetics of Voluptuousness".
Good copy, light wear/age.
1994, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi strip),
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Shincho Sha / Tokyo
$120.00 - In stock -
First 1994 edition of Hair by Kishin Shinoyama, his glossy full-colour photo collection of elegant nudes where the focal point is women's pubic hair, the forbidden fruit of Japanese censorship laws.
Kishin Shinoyama was born in Tokyo in 1940. He began shooting award-winning advertising photography while still a student at Nihon University. After several years with the advertising agency Light Publicity, Shinoyama began working as an independent photographer in 1968. In the decades since, he has taken portraits of some of the most recognized people of our time, including Yukio Mishima, Momoe Yamaguchi, Rie Miyazawa, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In his Gekisha and Shinorama series, Shinoyama has used the latest technologies to create new modes of expression. His recent digital multimedia project digi KISHIN brings a new perspective to both photography and cinema He has dedicated his practice to exploring intimacy and the human body, as well as documenting his home place of Tokyo. His sensual photographs often depict the body within the architecture of the city or conversely, the inherent sculptural qualities of the naked human form.
Near Fine copy with good obi strip.