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
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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.
1992, Japanese
Hardcover (clothbound), 96 pages, 18 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Mole / Tokyo
$320.00 - Out of stock
Rare first edition of one of the greatest kinbaku photo books ever published, Bind by Akio Fuji. Published in 1992 by Mole Gallery, Tokyo, to accompany Fuji's exhibition of the same name, Bind is now a classic photo book of masterful aesthetic bondage photography, featuring the rope work of Chimo Nureki, gloriously reproduced in lush black and white plates bound in silver-foiled cloth hardcovers. Exquisite compositions capturing the two artists at the height of their powers, and an important book and exhibition for bringing the world of kinbaku to the recognition of the fine art world in Japan the 1990's.
Akio Fuji (b. 1959) is a pioneer of bondage photography in Japan, founding the legendary bondage enthusiast circle "Kinbiken" in Tokyo in 1985 with rope master Chimuo Nureki (who also produced the magazines Kitan Club and Uramado), developing into the cult kinbaku bulletin Kinbiken Communications, with core contributions by both Fuji and Nureki, Katsuya Kasui, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Yuri Sunohara, Asoji Muroi, Akira Minomura, and other members of the circle. The object of the group was to study the beauty of bondage, observing the techniques of master Nureki through a membership with one of the most distinctive facets of the club being that the bondage women participate as members themselves. Says Nureki, “One of the main reasons I started this circle was to provide a facility for masochistic women, who are often misunderstood and therefore despised.” Kinbiken Communications remain one of the most desirable kinbaku publications of this period, the photography from which is showcased here in Akio Fuji's debut collection, featured heavily in Masami Akita's compilation of the “History of Bondage Photography in Japan”.
Fine copy.
1972, Japanese
Softcover, 34 pages, 20 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Hanashi-no-Tokushu / Tokyo
$100.00 - In stock -
First edition of Japanese photographer Yoshihiro Tachiki's photo book "Erotica Larotica", published in 1972. This book is one of the early masterpieces of Tatsuki — a unique collaboration between the Austrian painter Dina Larot (b. Maria Elisabeth Lebzelten in 1942), a student of Kokoschka best-known for her paintings and drawings of "women" in Austria, and photographer Yoshihiro Tatsuki, best known for his photography of "women" in Japan. It consists of playful portraits and nudes of Lalo herself and her friends lavishly dressed and undressed photographed by Tachiki in Vienna, paired with SM-lesbian erotic drawings and paintings by Larot throughout, plus a few photographs from a Crazy Horse show in Paris in the mix.
Tatsuki was born into a family that operated an photographic portrait studio. While at Tokyo junior College of Photography, he exhibited photographs of his family at the Fuji Photo Salon. After graduation, he began working as a photographer at Ad Center under the art direction of graphic designer Seiichi Horiuchi. Tatsuki’s name entered the limelight when he was just 26 years old with the publication of "A Fallen Angel", an astonishing 56 pages feature of his photographs shots for Camera Mainichi. Since starting as a freelance photographer in 1969, he has worked on the front lines of the advertising, magazine, publishing, and motion picture industries. He has published a number of celebrated photo books on female subjects and is best-known for works such as GIRL, EVES, Private (Mariko Kaga), Aoi Toki, My America, and Portrait of Family.
Very Good copy in dust jacket. Light cover wear and pinch to spine, one page with crease to top corner.
1972, Japanese / English
Softcover (w. french folds and fold-out spreads), 160 pages, 22.8 x 29.8 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ad Angen / Japan
$120.00 - In stock -
First 1972 edition of this erotic anthology from three important and provocative Japanese photographers from the time they were creating their most inspired work. Tatsuki is famous for his books Eves, Private (Mariko Kaga) and Girl (from the famous Chuo Koronsha series). Kanoh is famous for his books Shunga and the banned Fuck. Ichimura is famous for Salome and Come Up. All of these seminal works in Japanese photography were published in 1970 or 1971, as was this book, a collection that includes moments from some of the aforementioned works. The title indicates the uniting theme of the book - couples (and groups) in erotic scenes. Experts of the nude, the invited photographers here express Ukiyo-e's spring paintings through their own photographic visions of sexuality. Saturated and hypnotic, these psychedelic and dreamlike collections are joyous and occasionally confronting, surrealistic and occasionally grotesque, all vividly reproduced throughout with many gate-fold spreads. A great book.
Very Good copy.
1973, Japanese
Softcover, 106 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$140.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, No. 18, Summer 1973. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita,, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special features on Cecil Taylor with loads or rare photographs, Cecil Taylor live at Carnegie Hall, a complete illustrated Cecil Taylor discography, article and catalogue on new solo piano recordings (heavy ECM, etc.), West Coast Now!, Izumi Suzuki, Billy Holiday, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
1973, Japanese
Softcover, 114 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$140.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, No. 20, Autumn 1973, with Don Cherry cover. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special features on Sonny Rollins at the Village Vangaurd (photography by Seiichi Sugita), the Newport Jazz Festival New York — Archie Shepp, Milford Graves, Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Ella Fitzgerald, Keith Jarrett, etc. (photography by Seiichi Sugita), Montreux Jazz Festival Summer 1973 (photography by Aoki), a message to Japanese music friends from Chick Corea (about Scientology!), articles on narcotics, improvisation, natural foods, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
1975, Japanese
Softcover, 120 pages, 26 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Jazz People Sha / Tokyo
$160.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Tokyo's Jazz magazine, January 1975. At the forefront of the Jazz scene, edited by Japanese photojournalist and famous jazz critic Seiichi Sugita, Jazz is packed with rare gravure photography, interviews, scene reports, reviews, articles by leading artists, authors and critics, record labels and jazz coffee shop advertisements, this issue including special features on Miles Davis with loads of rare photographs (inc. Miles Davis at the Newport Festival 1969 shot by Seiichi Sugita), article on Miles, complete Mile Davis discography, Japanese jazz pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi in New York (photography by Seiichi Sugita), European Jazz report, Eric Dolphy, Celestial Music, extensive illustrated live and record reviews, and much more...
Very Good copy.
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.
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 -
The wonderful 1993 first over-sized edition of Araki's incredible Erotos photo book, one of his finest. In this work, controversial and legendary Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki makes a radical departure from his usual portraits and cityscapes. A 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.
1993—2000, Japanese
Softcover, 300—400 pages ea., 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$300.00 - In stock -
Huge lot of 11 issues of Sabu, "Magazine For Men Who Love Men", the trailblazing gay erotic magazine from Japan, founded in 1974. All issues from the 1990s, with one issue from 2000 thrown in, 1993—2000, all featuring the gorgeous wrap-around (front and back) cover artwork by legendary gay erotic illustrator Ben Kimura (1947—2003). Packed with illustrations by Gengoroh Tagame, Gekko Hayashi, Go Mishima, Ben Kimura, and many other artists, at roughly 350—400 pages in each issue, Sabu is more of a book (a "mook" as it were). Filled to the brim with gay erotic art galleries, glossy hardcore erotic photography, loads of fetish and bondage materials, wild "bara" manga, classifieds/letters/sexmate messageboards, articles, ads for Japanese gay bars, clubs, saunas, dungeons, gyms, mail-order toys, publications, media, news and reports on international scenes, and much more.
Each issue Very Good—Good, with light wear and tear. Specific shipping costs may apply.
1985, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 28 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ryuko Tsushin / Japan
$160.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 edition of "London after the Dream" by Japanese photographer Herbie Yamaguchi (b. 1950, Tokyo). A wonderful, lesser-known Japanese photo book of Yamaguchi's images of London in a time of great turmoil, under the control of Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady'. Yamaguchi, who came from the experimental performance arts scene in Tokyo, immersed himself in the punk rock scene in London. Being penniless and without a studio, Yamaguchi shot the people around him, from his flatmate Boy George to Joe Strummer to The Slits, the hair-dressers to the squat kids, intimately capturing an radical musical moment in the city against the backdrop of class tension. London after the Dream collects the best of these photographs, chaptered through Yamaguchi's images of the city's youth, his young adult peers (including a spread featuring Johnny Rotten vis-à-vis Lady Diana), and Britain's older generation. The changing of the guard.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
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 - Out of 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.
1995, Japanese
Softcover, 116 pages, 27.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Take Shobo / Tokyo
$90.00 - In stock -
"Mr. Araki and the Six Women"
Scarce copy of this lesser known Araki title — Nobuyoshi Araki's "Obscene Photo Magazine" La-Chat Vol. 2 from 1995, packed cover-to-cover with glossy nude photography in colour and b/w. A gorgeous photo journal of 6 women with Araki's hand-written diary entries throughout.
Very Good copy with light wear.
1994, Japanese
Softcover, 44 pages, 23 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Photo-Planete / Japan
$150.00 - In stock -
First edition of Nobuyoshi Araki's Obscenities, published in 1994. Here Araki, a master of Japanese fetish photography, has continued to challenge sexual taboos with radical techniques. Instead of presenting his acutely revealing images of sexuality, for which he had come to face charges, Araki has chosen an expressive thumbing of the nose to Japanese censorship techniques by scratching away the "obscenities" of the negatives—and not only the obvious ones. Just as with the explicit erotic images collected here, photographs of banal everyday objects, flowers and cityscapes also become charged with delirious sexual potency at the hands of the censor. The images become oddly more arousing, as they are revealed and embellished further through the marks of Araki's hand, as well as the desire of his eye. The result is a very special book, and Araki's statement on the idea of “obscenity”.
"Photography reveals. To reveal is obscene. Photography conceals. To conceal is obscene. Taking photographs is obscene. To be photographed is obscene. Showing photographs is obscene. To look at photographs is obscene. Not showing photographs is obscene. To not be able to look at photographs is obscene. Obscene things do not exist. Obscene acts exist. Obscene photographs are acts. Obscene photographs are relations. Photographs are obscenities. Obscenities are beautiful."—Araki Nobuyoshi (book introduction)
Very Good copy.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 276 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Camera Mainichi and The Mainichi Graphic / Japan
$120.00 - In stock -
First printing of NEW NUDE 2, published in Japan in 1985 as part of a unique and short-lived book series published by the mighty Camera Mainchi house, showcasing leading photographers and artists on the subject of the nude. Opening with illustrated essays by photo critic Kōtarō Iizawa and others, this lovely volume, printed in Japan, presents works generously and sympathetically presented in colour and black-and-white across various paper-stocks. Includes the work of Masahisa Fukase, Hans Bellmer, Yoshiichi Hara, Masaaki Nakagawa, Nobuyoshi Araki, Lee Friedlander, Alice Odilon, E. J. Bellocq, Heinrich Zille, Donald Woodman, Florence Chevallier, Laurence Sackman, Joel Peter Witkin, Marie Bume, James Wedge, Franco Fontana, Lucas Samaras, Miron Zownir, Herlinde Koelbl, and others.
Good-Very Good copy. General wear.
1986, Japanese
Softcover, 276 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Camera Mainichi and The Mainichi Graphic / Japan
$120.00 - In stock -
First printing of NEW NUDE 3, published in Japan in 1985 as part of a unique and short-lived book series published by the mighty Camera Mainchi house, showcasing leading photographers and artists on the subject of the nude. Opening with illustrated essays by photo critic Kōtarō Iizawa and others, this lovely volume, printed in Japan, presents works generously and sympathetically presented in colour and black-and-white across various paper-stocks. Includes the work of Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Masahisa Fukase, Keiichi Tahara, Noriaki Yokosuka, Irina Ionesco, Hennri Maccheroni, Keizo Kitajima, Takashi Ishii, Richard Cerf, Ayako Parks, Taku Aramasa Seiji Kurata, Jean-Jacques Dicker, Flip and Debra Schulke, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marie-Claire Montanari, Lee Friedlander, Jaques Schumacher, Joyce Tenneson, Herlinde Koelbl, and many others.
Very Good copy. Light wear, crease to one front cover bottom corner.
1985, Japanese
Softcover, 260 pages, 19 x 13 cm
Published by
Data House / Tokyo
$200.00 - In stock -
Possibly the most fun you can cram into 260-odd pages! A now very collectible volume edited by none other than Japanese master of erotic superrealism, Hajime Sorayama, Pink Department Store is a wild book digest of visual sex — straight out of 1985! A compendium of remarkable erotic imagery packed into this one-stop look-book of kink compiled by Sorayama, all reproduced in full-colour on beautiful warm raw paper stock, designed by Hisao Iguchi. From the Tokyo sex clubs, phone-booths and toilet stalls, Shibari photography to pink film posters, x-rated manga to wildlife fornication, leather daddys to dominatrixes, Pink Department Store is a safari through graphic perversion and joyous visual innuendo. Alongside archival material and international works the book generously features an abundance of works by over 100 contemporary Japanese illustrators and photographers, including Aimei Ozaki, Harumi Yamaguchi, Takashi Nemoto, Yosuke Onishi, Suehiro Maruo, Hajime Sorayama, Mizumaru Anzai, Yokoyama Akira, Keiichi Ota, Akira Ishigaki, Kaoru Ueda, Teruhiko Yumura, Yoshiharu Ebisu, Arata Taga, to name but a few. There is also a directory list to contact them all!
Very Good—NF copy in VG original dust jacket and rarely preserved publisher's obi-strip.
1988, English / Japanese
Softcover, oversized, loose-leaf pages, 42 x 29.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Comme des Garçons / Tokyo
$440.00 - Out of stock
First 1988 edition, first printing of the inaugural issue of the cult, privately distributed Comme des Garçons publication. The incredible first issue of Comme des Garçons' 'Six' magazine (1988) features the work of Hungarian photographer André Kertész, Comme des Garçons by photographer Peter Lindbergh, photography by Sachiko Kuru, features on artist Jean Cocteau, architect Eileen Gray, artist Michel Sauer, and an interview with fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, plus additional photography by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Arthur Elgort, Tony Mendoza, Sachiko Kuru, Shinji Mori, Serge Lido and Gisele Freund. Beautiful first-edition printing of this over-sized magazine vision of Rei Kawakubo, including die-cut features throughout and de-bossed cover title.
Between 1988 and 1991, Comme des Garçons explored the theme of the sixth sense via eight special biannual oversized, unstapled magazines titled 'Six'. These magazines were launched to coincide with Comme des Garçons fashion collections and were privately printed and distributed by Comme. The magazine visually represented the brand in a way that no other fashion company had before. Rei Kawakubo invited Tsuguya Inoue to art direct and Atsuko Kozasu to edit the issues, whilst contributions came from a diverse array of leading designers and artists. Issues of Comme des Garçons 'Six' have become very sought after collectors items.
Very Good / Near Fine copy.
1978, Japanese
Softcover, 204 pages, 21 x 29.6 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Hanashi-no-Tokushu / Tokyo
$650.00 - In stock -
Exceptionally rare (signed!) 1978 first edition photobook by Michiko Matsumoto, one of post war Japan's leading photographers. As a young female photographer growing up in a period of turmoil, Matsumoto conveys the wonders of women to the viewer from the perspective of a woman. Women Come Alive is her rarest and greatest example of this. This wonderful book collects "seven years with women...", Matsumoto's front-line photographic records of the women's liberation movement in Japan in the 1970s and her "Sisters Across Borders" (New York, Paris, Los Angeles, London...), as well as portraits of female artists, activists and friends Yoko Ono, Maki Asakawa, Eiko Ishioka, Michiko Gorman, Mamako Yoneyama, Teruko Yoshitake, Tokiko Kato, Harumi Yamaguchi, Chinatsu Nakayama and others. A true time-capsule, this book visits the workshops, bookshops, marches, women's centres, lesbian bars, exhibitions, editorial offices, dances and studios of a pivotal time of great change. An incredible book of feminist protest and celebration. Virtually an impossible book to find, even without a signature from the artist! Highly recommended!!
Very Good copy in very good dust jacket. Signed in black ink and dated 1978.6.7 on title page.
2014, Japanese
Softcover (in card slipcase w. obi), 260 pages, 25.4 x 18.2 cm
Signed.,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Town to House / Japan
$280.00 - In stock -
Signed first edition of "Shinjuku 1968" by acclaimed Japanese photographer and representative of the Provoke movement, Hitomi Watanabe, published in 2014 and now out of print.
"The core of the collection is formed by photographs from the year 1969, the year in which the Shinjuku West Exit square became a passage and a meeting penned by the media as “Folk Guerilla” was obliterated by the riot police, a greater part of the collected photos were taken in 1968. At that time, the first place editors would take me to was a bar called Unicon, near Shinjuku Gyoen. After that, we would go barhopping to places like DUG (which is still going strong even today),Trevi, DIG, Mokuba, Pit In, Bizarre, places where modern jazz was playing. The time of the Red Tents of Juro Kara near Hanazono shrine, of the avant-garde films of ATG, the performance art happenings on the streets, before they became pedestrian zones… It was a time when hippies stoned off their mind would cross your path, and “underground” was the word you’d hear in the streets of Shinjuku. When it was not Shibuya or Shimokitazawa, not Kichijoji but Shinjuku where culture was taking place. Days like these continued, until one night, a huge riot took place in the Shinjuku area. The 10.21 International Anti-War Day. While being jostled with the crowd, the once abstract Vietnam War and its consequences became a tangible reality which I experienced with my own body.
In the Shinjuku of 1968, you can see an entire era reflected." — Excerpt from the afterword
"These may be photographs of the past, but they show the present." — Nobuyoshi Araki
Shinjuku 1968 consists entirely of Watanabe's photographs of the Tokyo neighbourhood Shinjuku at the end of the 1960s, which can be said to be the beginning of her photographic career. It was here that she first encountered the Japanese counter culture and became involved in the student movement and anti-war protests. Her candid photographs of the everyday lives of the protesters, the state violence, and the aftermath of rioting from her insider’s vantage on this tumultuous moment afforded her work an undeniable, enduring power. Here, in "Shinjuku 1968", Watanabe presents her documents of the protests and rallies beside her images of the underground scene, the theatre, clubs, the Shinjuku streets, shopfronts, and the everyday folk that inhabited the neighbourhood at that time, with some of the images republished for the first time since her iconic "Shinjuku Contemporary 1968" and "Kaihoku '68 / Liberated Area '68" photo books of the 1960s.
Very Good copy, almost As New, with original slipcase and publisher's obi-strip (featuring Nobuyoshi Araki testimonial). Signed and dated by Hitomi Watanabe in 2015 to the colophon page in black pen.
1977, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 28 pages, 36.5 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Nisshindo Optical Shop / Nagoya
$140.00 - In stock -
Extremely rare calendar issue from acclaimed Japanese photographer and representative of the Provoke movement, Hitomi Watanabe. Issued privately by a small eyeglasses shop in Nagoya, Nisshindo Optical Shop, this 1977 "LOOK" Calendar presents the rarely seen personal 1970s work of Watanabe. Watanabe began her career photographing in the Tokyo neighbourhood of Shinjuku, home to Japan’s 1960s counter culture. She came to prominence during the Zenkyoto student movement in the late 1960s, occupied the University of Tokyo campus in 1968-69 and participated in the 10.21 International Anti-War Day protests and 1970 Anpo protests against the renewal of the Japan-US Mutual Security Treaty. Her candid photographs of the everyday lives of the protesters, the state violence, and the aftermath of rioting from her insider’s vantage on this tumultuous moment afforded her work an undeniable, enduring power. Her famed "Kaihoku '68 / Liberated Area '68" a testament to this. When the Japan-US Mutual security treaty was renewed in 1970, Watanabe, heartbroken that they had not been able to prevent it, began her long travels through Asia, particularly India and Nepal, from which these beautiful, atmospheric colour photographs are taken. Reproduced in large format across the 12 months of 1977.
Very Good copy with some light wear and light cover tanning. Has been previously hung.
1971, Japanese
Hardcover (w. slip-case) 192 pages, 24 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Shinsensha / Tokyo
$450.00 - In stock -
Gorgeous first (boxed) hardcover edition of Tadao Mitome's "protest-book masterpiece" published in 1971, documenting the Sanrizuka resistance to the building of Tokyo's Narita Airport. Photographs follow the thousands of protestors into battle against riot police and record their construction of fortresses and underground tunnels.
“A superb document about the medieval fighting that took place over a period of some five years around Narita airport. Fuelled by the spirit of protest in the late 60s this constituted the first of many often violent anti-airport protests in the region.”
“Sanrizuka documents the intense civil unrest between residents of Sanrizuka, an agricultural area located on the east side of Narita airport, and government authorities, in the run up to the construction and later expansion of the airport. Under a 1966 plan, the airport would have been completed in 1971, but due to the ongoing resettlement disputes, not all of the land for the airport was available by then. Finally, in 1971, the Japanese government began forcibly expropriating land. 291 protesters were arrested and more than 1,000 police, villagers and student militants were injured in a series of riots.“
Editing and art direction by the legendary activist designer Kiyoshi Awazu (1929–2009) with stunning deep gravure printing. Included in “The Japanese Photobook, 1912–1990” by Kaneko Ryuichi and Manfred Heiting and "The Photobook: A History, Volume III" by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, p. 57.
Very Good copy with some age/wear/light scratching to box.
1989, Japanese
Softcover, 208 pages, 13 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fiction Inc. / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
Issue No.36 of the great SALE2 periodical from Tokyo Japan, founded in 1984 by Makoto Orui, who later became art director for Purple magazine in France and Rockin’on magazine in Japan. SALE2 was active for about 14 years during the 1980s—1990s, 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. With Orui's distinct design SALE2 developed an exclusive curated editorial set on ‘erotisism and its spiritual philosophy’, with each issue exploring different themes and features, heavy on fetishism and erotic art.
Issue No.36, the "Female Foot Fetishism Special Issue" with the wonderful wraparound Pierre Molinier cover is packed with imagery and essays around the theme of "Foot and Fetish Heel" throughout history, literature, film and fetish publishing, etc. profusely illustrated with drawings, photography, bondage illustrations, film stills, catalogue clippings, and artworks, including works by Bill Ward, Pierre Molinier, Nobuyoshi Araki, and so many more. It also features the Fiction, Inc. section that samples a cross-section of content from catalogue publications including the work of John Willie, Bill Ward, Carlo, Eric Stanton, Irving Claw, Betty Page, and periodicals such as Rubber Magazine, Amateur Bondage, Bizarre Comix, Bizarre Classix, Bizarre Fotos, Stiletto, and much more... Very heavily illustrated throughout with erotic photography and artwork, all texts in Japanese.
Very Good copy.
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
$1000.00 - 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.