World Food Books

Eric Kroll
Beauty Parade

1997, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 198 pages, 33 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Taschen / Cologne

$70.00 - In stock -

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First 1997 over-sized hardcover edition of "Beauty Parade" by American fetish photographer, erotica historian, photojournalist, and book editor, Eric Kroll (b. 1946, New York). Beauty Parade is an incredible collection of his 1990's erotic photographs, ranking among the absolute classics of fetishistic imagery. Rising from the downtown New York art and fashion scene of the 1970s and 80s, shooting for Elle Magazine, Vogue, The New York Times and Der Spiegel, Kroll published his first book, "Sex Objects" in 1976 with a grant from the New York State Council of the Arts, a book documenting sex workers across America. "Beauty Parade" follows on from his best-seller "Fetish Girls" (1994), full of powerful women and drawing one into a world of bizarre fantasies and sadomasochistic desires while retaining a sense of irony and surreal humour. Many of Kroll's photographs refer to and pay homage to his predecessors Weegee and Bunny Yeager as well as Eric Stanton and John Willie, while being grounded in the conceptual influences of artists such as Man Ray, and Marcel Duchamp. Text in English, German and French. Wonderful introduction by Kroll.

Very Good copy in VG dust jacket, light wear.

File under: Eric Kroll Taschen / Cologne Art Out-of-print / Rare Fetishism / BDSM Fashion Photography Eros Transgressive / Visceral / Abject

Masahisa Fukase
Family

2019, English / Japanese
Hardcover, 80 pages, 31 x 23 cm
Published by MACK / London

$115.00 - In stock -

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‘My entire family, whose image I see inverted in the frosted glass, will die one day. This camera, which reflects and freezes their images, is actually a device for archiving death’. – Masahisa Fukase

For three generations the Fukase family ran a photography studio in Bifuka, a small provincial town in the northern Japanese province of Hokkaido. In August 1971, at the age of 35, Masahisa Fukase returned home from Tokyo, where he had moved in the 1950s. He realised that the Fukase Photographic Studio, which his younger brother managed, combined with the growing family members, constituted the perfect subject for a series of portraits. Between 1971 and 1989, he returned regularly and used the family studio, the large-format Anthony view camera and the changing family line-up as the basis for the series. True to his style, Fukase often introduced third-party models and humorous elements to juxtapose the ineluctable reality of time passing and the dwindling family group. He continued the series through his father’s death in 1987, up until the closure of the Fukase studio due to bankruptcy in 1989, and the consequential dispersion of the family.

Family (Kazoku) was released in 1991, and was Fukase’s last book. It begins with a photograph of the family studio and the following 31 images are family portraits made in the studio in chronological order. The book includes an extensive text written by Fukase himself and a modern essay by Tomo Kosuga.

File under: Masahisa Fukase MACK / London Japanese Photography Photography Art

Masahisa Fukase
Ravens

2017, English
Hardcover (w. slipcase), 136 pages, 26.3 x 26.3 cm
Published by MACK / London

$175.00 - In stock -

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Consistently proclaimed as one of the most important photobooks in the history of the medium, Ravens by Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase was first published in 1986 and the two subsequent editions were both short print runs that sold out immediately. This bilingual facsimile of the first edition contains a new text by founder of the Masahisa Fukase Archives, Tomo Kosuga. His essay locates Ravens in Fukase’s wider work and life, and is illustrated with numerous recently discovered photographs and drawings. Fukase’s haunting series of work was made between 1975 and 1986 in the aftermath of a divorce and was apparently triggered by a mournful train journey to his hometown. The coastal landscapes of Hokkaido serve as the backdrop for his profoundly dark and impressionistic photographs of ominous flocks of crows, which are said to serve as an allegory for postwar Japan.

Blind embossed clothbound hardback in a silkscreen printed carton slipcase.
Original afterword by Akira Hasegawa [1986] and a new text by Tomo Kosuga [both bilingual].

File under: Masahisa Fukase Tomo Kosuga MACK / London Art Japanese Photography Photography

Balthus
room 17

2014, Japanese
Hardcase folio (w. pockets, 2 leporello booklets), unpaginated, 32 x 19.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Amana / Japan

$130.00 - Out of stock

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This beautiful limited edition Balthus photobook was produced in Japan, containing a carefully selected collection photographs from approximately 2000 Polaroid photographs discovered after the death of the last master of the 20th century, Balthus (1908-2001). The elegant hardcase bookbinding, housing two folding screen-like Orihons (Japanese-accordian style book) enveloped in rich textile hues, is like a dedication to Balthus, who loved Japanese culture. The title "room 17" comes from the name of the room in the Swiss mansion Grand Chalet, where Balthus worked and photographed a young female model for eight years in study for his much loved paintings. A lovely selection of these photographic studies are collected in this touching tribute, alongside text by Nicola Page. Translation to Japanese by Tadashi Miyagi, book design by Daishiro Mori.

Very Good copy.

File under: Balthus Daishiro Mori Nicola Page Amana / Japan Eros Art Out-of-print / Rare Photography Painting

KIDS
A Film by Larry Clark

1995, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 20.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Grove Press / New York

$200.00 - In stock -

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First 1995 edition of the Larry Clark's Kids book, original US edition published by Grove Press in New York to accompany the release of one of the most important movies of the decade. Profusely colour illustrated throughout with iconic full-page film stills, accompanied by the entire film script written by Harmony Korine at 19 years of age.

"If Clark never shoots another picture, he will be a cinematic immortal because of this one film"—Sight and Sound

"Well, i always wanted to make the teenage movie that I felt America never made. The great American teenage movie like the great American novel. That's why I always wanted to do. I remember back in the fifties when I was a kid, and the teenage movies were like City Across The River and Cassavetes was an actor in one and Tony Curtis was in one. And I would see these movies, and I would say, 'Those kids don't look like kids, they're all older people, they're all like grown-ups.' So right away they don't ring true. That's why some of the teenage movies that I do like — Over the Edge — the reason why I liked that movie was that they used kids the right age, they actually used kids. Real kids. I knew my film had to be from the inside, so I called this kid writer I knew through skateboarding, and he came over and I told him what I wanted, and he said, 'I've been waiting all my life to write this,' and he knocked out the screenplay in tree weeks. I think when you see the movie Kids that most of us — not all of us, but most of us — will say, 'Yeah, that's the way we were, that's the way kids are."—Larry Clark

Larry Clark is one of America's most important photographers whose 1971 photo book masterpiece, Tulsa, depicted youth culture in rural America.

Very Good copy, with discolouration to left edge of cover image from sun/storage. No spine or corner damage.

File under: Larry Clark Harmony Korine Chloë Sevigny Leo Fitzpatrick Harmony Korine Grove Press / New York Film / Video Out-of-print / Rare Photography

Nobuyoshi Araki
Tokyo Lucky Hole

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

$170.00 - In stock -

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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.

File under: Nobuyoshi Araki Ota Shuppan / Tokyo Art Eros Out-of-print / Rare Japanese Photography Photography

Nobuyoshi Araki
Pseudo-Reportage

1980, Japanese
Softcover (w. metallic dust jacket), 324 pages, 25.6 x 15.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Byakuya Shobo / Tokyo

$140.00 - In stock -

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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 copy in Good dust jacket, light edge wear/spine sunning/foxing. Book block is cocked from storage.

File under: Nobuyoshi Araki Byakuya Shobo / Tokyo Eros Out-of-print / Rare Japanese Photography Photography Counterculture Fetishism / BDSM Art

Hans Bellmer
Peter Webb with Robert Short

1985, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 300 pages, 27.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Quartet Books / London

$150.00 - In stock -

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First 1985 hardcover edition of the first fundamental and comprehensive study of Hans Bellmer (1902—1975), the most provocative representative of Surrealism, authored by Peter Webb with Robert Short and published by Quartet in London. English edition. Heavily illustrated throughout with many rare images, in colour and b/w, many photographs and artworks, with bibliography, catalogue and references.

"Surrealism was one of the most exciting and influential of twentieth century art movements and much has been written about it since its great flowering in the 1930s. The lives and work of its leading figures (Ernst, Magritte, Dali and Miró) have been extensively researched, but Hans Bellmer, perhaps the most controversial and misunderstood of all the surrealists, has until now remained a mystery. Peter Webb, who interviewed Bellmer shortly before his death, has spent two years unravelling the story of this photographer, sculptor, painter, engraver and writer, and his book provides the first opportunity to evaluate Bellmer's considerable artistic achievement."—book jacket blurb

Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.

File under: Hans Bellmer Unica Zürn Peter Webb Robert Short Quartet Books / London Surrealism Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Photography Sculpture / Installation Drawing Fetishism / BDSM Art

Bill Brandt
Perspective of Nudes

1961, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 90 pages, 28 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Bodley Head / London

$300.00 - Out of stock

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Rare first hardcover 1961 edition of this very important book of nude photography by British photographer Bill Brandt, published by Bodley Head, London, with a preface by Lawrence Durrell and an introduction by Chapman Mortimer. Fascinating Braque, Picasso, Dubuffet, Henry Moore, Edward Steichen, Eikoh Hosoe, Kishin Shinoyama, to name but a few, and having a profound influence on nude photography hence-forth, Brandt's nudes are as powerful and beautiful now as they were fifty years ago.

"These startling images rewrote the language of nude photography ... Brandt's approach was primarily formal, but his own sensibilities, combined with photography's tendency to overwhelm form's purity with life's impurities, ensured that his nudes are as interesting for their psychological undertones as for the wealth of unexpected forms he conjured. He did so with a camera that was devoid of a practicable viewing mechanism [a shutterless old Kodak he found in a secondhand shop] and thus reduced him, in effect, to working by blind instinct. ... At close range, his ancient camera yields a Venusian giantism, where sometimes sharply defined, sometimes blurred mountains of flesh loom over the artist/observer." (The Photobook A History Volume I, Parr & Badger)

Bill Brandt, best known for his photographs of London, his landscapes and portraits of celebrities, publishes here, for the first time, a selection of nudes, a subject which has obsessed him since 1945. Brandt used an old wooden camera with a wide angle lens for most of the pictures. Instead of making the camera register what he saw, he let himself be guided by the lens and made use of its acute distortion and unrealistically steep perspective. Thus the camera produced new anatomical images and shapes which his eyes had never observed. The lens helped him 'to get rid of the accepted image and to view his subjects without the cellophane-wrapping of conventional sight'. Chronologically arranged, the photographs record the transition from an early romantic style to more radical themes, ending with the pure form of extreme close-ups, taken on the beaches of East Sussex, Normandy and the Mediterranean. The pictures have fascinated Braque, Picasso, Dubuffet, Henry Moore and Edward Steichen, and had a profound influence on nude photography hence-forth.

Good—Very Good ex-libris copy w. associated markings not affecting content pages. Good dust jacket with light wear and repaired tear, preserved under mylar.

File under: Bill Brandt Chapman Mortimer Lawrence Durrell Bodley Head / London Eros Photography Out-of-print / Rare Art

HANS BELLMER
PHOTOGRAPHE

1983, Japanese
Hardcover (clothbound w. dustjacket), 152 pages, 20.5 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Orion Press / Tokyo

$150.00 - In stock -

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Exquisitely designed and produced book dedicated entirely to the photography of the German artist Hans Bellmer (1902—1975). Produced in French by Editions Filipacchi, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Musee National D'art Moderne in Paris in 1983, this scarce Japanese hardcover printing (produced and printed in Japan that same year) features a different cover, with translations to the Japanese language of the introductory essay and texts. A beautiful photo book densely illustrated with colour and black and white reproductions of Bellmer's infamous doll photography, his many studies of the female nude (including those of his wife, artist Unica Zürn), and rare photography of his objects and sculptural assemblages, his studio, and more, this volume captures an important Surrealist visionary and one of the most daring artists of the 20th century through his stunning photography. Features the wonderful "La Poupee" — Hans Bellmer's articulated, anatomically amorphous Surrealist doll, reconfigured and captured through Bellmer's intimate hand-painted photographic images. "La Poupee" acquired iconic status as perhaps the purest exemplification of the Surrealist ideal of "convulsive beauty." Bellmer constructed his first doll in the early 1930s. André Breton and Paul Eluard described it as "the first and only Surrealist object with a universal, provocative power".

German artist Hans Bellmer (1902—1975) was one of the most subversive artists associated with Surrealism, famous—notorious, even—for his erotic engravings, objects and photographs. Many of Bellmer's works were inspired by the literary works of Comte de Lautréamont, Marquis de Sade and Georges Bataille, amongst others.

Very Good copy in VG dust jacket with light wear/light foxing.

File under: Hans Bellmer Unica Zürn Orion Press / Tokyo Surrealism Photography Sculpture / Installation Out-of-print / Rare Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Art

Hans Bellmer: The Anatomy of Anxiety
by Sue Taylor

2002, English
Softcover, 310 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts

$100.00 - Out of stock

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First 2002 paperback edition of this out-of-print study on Bellmer.

"The German-born surrealist Hans Bellmer (1902-1975), best known for his life-size pubescent dolls, devoted an artistic lifetime to creating sexualized images of the female body-distorted, dismembered, or menaced in sinister scenarios. In this book Sue Taylor draws on psychoanalytic theory to suggest why Bellmer was so driven by erotomania as well as a desire for revenge, suffering, and the safety of the womb. Tracing a repressed homoerotic attachment to his father, castration anxiety, and an unconscious sense of guilt, Taylor proposes that a feminine identification informs all the disquieting aspects of Bellmer's art.

Most scholarship to date has focused on Bellmer's work of the 1930s, especially the infamous dolls and the photographs he made of them. Taylor extends her discussion to the sexually explicit prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs he produced throughout the ensuing three decades. The book includes a color frontispiece and 121 black-and-white images (eight published here for the first time), as well as appendixes containing several significant texts by Bellmer previously unavailable in English.

Sue Taylor is Assistant Professor of Art History at Portland State University, Oregon.

"While ultimately subscribing to the conventional wisdom that the misogynist implications of Bellmer's many sinister images can never be altogether dismissed, [Taylor] insists that we look beyond their manifest content towards their latent meanings. Her tone and method is thus a long way from the punitive... literalism and crudity of much Bellmer criticism."—R. S. Short, Times Literary Supplement

"An impressive book by any standards. Every page displays intelligence, erudition and visual acuity."—Metapsychology

VG copy, light edge wear, faint edge tanning.

File under: Hans Bellmer Sue Taylor The MIT Press / Massachusetts Eros Gender Studies / Sexuality Out-of-print / Rare Surrealism Sculpture / Installation Photography Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Fetishism / BDSM Painting

TOKYO 1970 BY JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHERS 9
Taiji Arita, Eikoh Hosie, Daido Moriyama, Masatoshi Naito, Hajime Sawatari, Issei Suda, Yoshihiro Tatsuki, Shuji Terayama, Katsumi Watanabe

2013, Japanese
Softcover, 212 pages, 28.2 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Amana / Japan

$160.00 - In stock -

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First edition of this wonderful collection of Japanese photographers that captured 1970s Tokyo, now out-of-print. In the world of fine art photography, post-war Japanese photography is continuing to gather attention. Many Japanese photographers were active specifically during the large cultural and political development of the 70s as the country experienced rapid economic growth. At the time, new styles of expression with a strong focus on the individual viewpoint were beginning to develop, which were distinct to the social documentary photography prior to that. This also coincided with the development of photography within the fashion and advertising field, reflecting a period where the works of many unique photographers and styles began to grow. A careful selection of 160 bodies of works by 9 prominent photographers of the time, each individually portraying the excitement and rapid growth which symbolised the era. Taiji Arita, Eikoh Hosie, Daido Moriyama, Masatoshi Naito, Hajime Sawatari, Issei Suda, Yoshihiro Tatsuki, Shuji Terayama, Katsumi Watanabe.

Very Good copy with good dust jacket.

File under: Taiji Arita Eikoh Hosie Daido Moriyama Masatoshi Naito Hajime Sawatari Issei Suda Yoshihiro Tatsuki Shuji Terayama Katsumi Watanabe Amana / Japan Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Counterculture Art Sociology / Politics Protest / Revolt Performance / Dance / Theater

Vilém Reichmann
Fotografien

1989, German
Hardcover, 136 pages, 25.5 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Ex Pose Verlag / Berlin

$90.00 - In stock -

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First edition of the out-of-print hardcover monograph on the work of Czech Surrealist photographer Vilém Reichmann, published on the occasion of a major survey exhibition at the Museum Bochum in 1989 and the Austrian Photo Archive in the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna in 1990. Extensive documentation of Reichmann's photographic works, including his incredible experimental photogram works. Includes portrait, biography, bibliography and texts by Antonín Dufek and Peter Spielmann in German.

Vilém Reichmann (1908-1991) was one of the premiere Czech surrealist photographers. Reichmann comes from the German-Jewish community in Brno and began photographing in 1930, whilst working as a graphic artist for numerous left-wing magazines in Czechoslovakia. Influenced by the Depression and war years, he developed a Surrealist style modelled on lyrical interpretations of reality through visual metaphors. After World War II he became a member of ‘Ra’, a Czech Surrealist art group, and his work shows the influence of textural abstraction and absurdist humor. Antonín Dufek, an erudite specialist in the field of the Czech photography, confirms Reichmann’s fundamental position in the history of the Czech photography, especially its surrealist movement.

Very Good copy, only very light wear to spine ends, cover, internally perfect.

File under: Vilém Reichmann Antonín Dufek Peter Spielmann Ex Pose Verlag / Berlin Art Photography Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism

Vilém Reichmann

1994, Czech / English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 276 pages, 23 x 20.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Foto Mida / Czech Republic

$100.00 - In stock -

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First edition of this now long-out-of-print and most comprehensive hardcover monograph the work of Czech surrealist photographer Vilém Reichmann. This exceptional volume is profusely with over 200 full-page colour and b/w plates of Reichmann's photographic works, including his incredible experimental photogram works, and a selection of rarely seen drawings and paintings. Texts throughout by accomplished curator and Czech photography specialist Antonín Dufek (b. 1943) in Czech with an inserted booklet of all texts translated to English. Includes biography, bibliography. A scarce resource on this great artist.

Vilém Reichmann (1908-1991) was one of the premiere Czech surrealist photographers. Reichmann comes from the German-Jewish community in Brno and began photographing in 1930, whilst working as a graphic artist for numerous left-wing magazines in Czechoslovakia. Influenced by the Depression and war years, he developed a Surrealist style modelled on lyrical interpretations of reality through visual metaphors. After World War II he became a member of ‘Ra’, a Czech Surrealist art group, and his work shows the influence of textural abstraction and absurdist humor. Antonín Dufek, an erudite specialist in the field of the Czech photography, confirms Reichmann’s fundamental position in the history of the Czech photography, especially its surrealist movement.

VG copy in VG dust jacket. Foxing to cloth edge, top of cloth, light waving to block.

File under: Vilém Reichmann Antonín Dufek Foto Mida / Czech Republic Art Photography Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism

Ken Domon
Kodomotachi (Children)

1976, Japanese
Softcover (card covers w. dust jacket), 136 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Nikon Salon Books / Tokyo

$80.00 - In stock -

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First 1976 edition of Kodomotachi (Children), a photo book by the esteemed Japanese photographer Ken Domon, renowned for his realistic portrayal of post-war Japan. In this second volume in the Nikon Salon Books series, Domon captures the candid and poignant moments of children across Japan, reflecting the resilience and innocence of youth during a transformative period in the nation’s history.

Ken Domon is one of the representative photographers of postwar Japan. He took news photos grounded in realism, portraits and snapshots of famous and ordinary people, as well as photos of cultural assets such as temples and Buddhist statues. His lens captured moments that revealed truths in the turbulent Showa era.

VG copy in VG dust jacket with mild wear/tanning/chipping to edges. Preserved under mylar wrap.

File under: Ken Domon Nikon Salon Books / Tokyo Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare

Francesca Woodman
On Being an Angel

2016, English
Hardcover, 232 pages, 23.1 x 17.5 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln Moderna Museet / Malmö

$75.00 - In stock -

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On Being an Angel takes its title from a caption the artist inscribed on two of her photographs—self-portraits with her head thrust back and her chest thrust forward. Typical of Woodman’s work in the way they cast the female body as simultaneously physical and immaterial, these photographs and the evocative title they share are apt choices to encapsulate the work of an artist whose legacy has been unavoidably colored by her tragic personal biography and her death, at age 22, by suicide. In less than a decade, Woodman produced a fascinating body of work—in black and white and in color—exploring gender, representation, sexuality and the body through the photographing of her own body and those of her friends. Since her death, Woodman’s influence continues to grow: her work has been the subject of numerous in-depth studies and exhibitions in recent years, and her photographs have inspired artists all over the world. Published to accompany a travelling exhibition of Woodman’s work, Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel offers a comprehensive overview of Woodman’s oeuvre, organized chronologically, with texts by Anna Tellgren, Anna-Karin Palm and the artist’s father, George Woodman.

Francesca Woodman (1958–81) was born in Denver, Colorado, to an artistic family and began experimenting with photography as a teenager. In 1975 she attended the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 1979 she moved to New York to attempt to build a career in photography. Woodman’s working career was intense but brief, cut short by her death in 1981.

File under: Francesca Woodman Anna Tellgren Daniel Birnbaum Ann-Sofie Noring Lena Esseling Anna-Karin Palm George Woodman Walther König / Köln Moderna Museet / Malmö Photography Art

Miroslav Tichý
Dedicated to The Women of Kyjov

2008, English
Hardcover (w. obi-strip), 220 pages, 23 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Walther König / Köln

$170.00 - In stock -

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First edition of this beautiful hardcover monograph on the work of Miroslav Tichý, published in 2008 by Walther König and quickly out of print. Profusely illustrated throughout with Tichý's works alongside informative background about the artist and his work by contributors Harald Szeemann, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Clint Burnham, Roman Buxbaum.

After studying at the Academy of Arts in Prague, Miroslav Tichý, born in 1926 in the former Czechoslovakia, withdrew to a life of isolation in his hometown of Kyjov. In the late 1950s, he stopped painting and, during his daily walks, began to take photographs of women with cameras he made by hand. He mounted his prints on handmade frames and added finishing touches in pencil, shifting from photography to drawing. Disregarding the rules of photography, for four decades Tichý created a large oeuvre of poetic, dreamlike views of female beauty.

A former neighbor, Roman Buxbaum, discovered Tichý's hidden work in the 1980s and has been documenting and collecting it ever since. In 2004, the esteemed international curator Harald Szeemann mounted the first solo exhibition of the nearly 80-year-old artist. That same year, Tichý was given the Rencontres d'Arles Photographie Discovery Award and the Kunsthaus Zurich organized a large retrospective. Solo exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art (MMK) Frankfurt followed in 2008. Tichý does not see his exhibitions, for he no longer leaves his house. This beautifully produced, thorough volume collects the work — perfectly.

Very Good copy with light wear. Interior Fine. With original illustrated publisher's obi-strip.

File under: Miroslav Tichý Harald Szeemann Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev Clint Burnham Roman Buxbaum Walther König / Köln Photography Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Art Drawing Out-of-print / Rare

Miroslav Tichý
Screenshots

2023, Czech / English / German
Softcover, 256 pages, 24 x 33 cm
Published by Edizioni Periferia / Lucerne

$175.00 - Out of stock

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Despite his art education, Czech painter and photographer Miroslav Tichý (1926–2011) was considered an outsider due to his unconventional approach to photography that revealed a voyeuristic fascination for the female body. His analogue photography shows traces and errors he deliberately sought out by building his own cameras and telephoto lenses. In the 1970s and ’80s, Tichý regularly took pictures of his television screen. Because he lived close to the Austrian border, he was able to circumvent the censorship of Eastern Bloc media and watch the more permissive films and late night shows from the West. Many of his seemingly surreptitious screenshots appear in this book.

File under: Miroslav Tichý Céline Mathieu Edizioni Periferia / Lucerne Photography Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Miroslav Tichý
Les formes du vrai / Forms of Truth

2011, English / French
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 248 pages, 24 x 30 cm
Published by Kant / Prague

$160.00 - Out of stock

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Like the Prague exhibition that provided the opportunity to publish it, this stunning, over-sized hardcover book is the 'explosive' result of the meeting between two personalities with a heretical reputation: the great photographer Miroslav Tichý and the former situationist Gianfranco Sanguinetti. Both are better known internationally than they are in the Czech Republic. Their paths were destined to cross - simply for the originality and radical nature of their approach to life. Tichý's work inspired Sanguinetti to make critical and riveting insights into the art of our age. While his comments may fuel polemical debate, they cannot leave the reader indifferent. The photographs by Tichý that are being presented for the first time in this book and at the City Gallery Prague represent a strict selection that prioritises the eloquence of symbols that pervade Tichý's work and which are, according to Sanguinetti, the key to his art.

Lavishly illustrated in colour throughout with all texts in English and French.

Miroslav Tichy (1926-2011)
After studying at the Academy of Arts in Prague (1945-48), Miroslav Tichy withdrew to a life in isolation in his hometown of Kyjov, Moravia, Czech Republic. In the late 1950s he quit painting and became a distinctive Diogenes-like figure. From the end of the 1960s he began to take photographs mainly of local women, in part with cameras he made by hand. He later mounted them on hand-made frames, added finishing touches with pencil, and thus moved them from photography in the direction of drawing. The result are works of strikingly unusual formal qualities, which disregard the rules of conventional photography. They constitute a large oeuvre of poetic, dreamlike views of feminine beauty in a small town under the Czechoslovak Communist regime.

File under: Miroslav Tichý Gianfranco Sanguinetti Kant / Prague Photography Art Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic

Hans Bellmer

1971, French
Hardcover (clothbound w. dustjacket), 88 pages, 25 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Editions Filipacchi / Paris

$100.00 - Out of stock

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First hardcover edition of this great monographic book on the work of Surrealist visionary Hans Bellmer, published in 1971 by Editions Filipacchi, Paris. Heavily illustrated throughout with wonderful reproductions of Bellmer's incredible drawings, photography, sculptures, paintings, alongside texts in French, biography and bibliography.

German artist Hans Bellmer (1902 – 1975) was one of the most subversive artists associated with Surrealism, famous—notorious, even—for his erotic engravings, objects and photographs. Many of Bellmer's works were inspired by the literary works of Comte de Lautréamont and Georges Bataille, amongst others. He was best known for the exquisite life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. "Bellmer was born in the city of Kattowitz, then part of the German Empire (now Katowice, Poland). Up until 1926, he'd been working as a draftsman for his own advertising company. He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party by declaring that he would make no work that would support the new German state. Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany. Bellmer was influenced in his choice of art form by reading the published letters of Oskar Kokoschka (Der Fetisch, 1925)."

Very Good copy with light foxing to initials in VG dust jacket with some age and closed tears, preserved under removable mylar wrap.

File under: Hans Bellmer Editions Filipacchi / Paris Surrealism Drawing Art Eros Out-of-print / Rare Photography Sculpture / Installation

Rosemarie Trockel
Post Menopause

2005, English / German
Softcover (w. folded poster dust-jacket), 192 pages, 22.5 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Walther König / Köln

$320.00 - In stock -

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Rare 2006 edition (w. original fold-out dust-jacket poster) of Rosemarie Trockel's Post Menopause catalogue (raisonné), published on the occasion of the major 2005—2006 exhibition Rosemarie Trockel: Menopause, at the Museum Ludwig, Köln, and MAXXI-Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome.

This wonderful, major survey disappeared from print very fast, quickly becoming a valuable item in the mid-2000s. A catalogue raisonné of sorts, collecting Rosemarie Trockel's work from 1980—2005 (sculpture, wool works, drawings, publications, garments, photography, video — including many very rarely seen objects), Post Menopause remains one the best, most comprehensive, and Trockel-esque books produced on one of Germany's most important and influential conceptual artists. Not surprisingly, since Post Menopause was realised in close collaboration between Trockel herself with Museum Ludwig curator Barbara Engelbach, and designed by her regular design collaborator, and sometimes muse, the great graphic designer Yvonne Quirmbach. Extensive chronological cataloguing of all works, biography, bibliography, and bilingual (English and German) essays by Brigid Doherty, Silvia Eiblmayr, Barbara Engelbach, Kasper König, and Gregory Williams.

A highly recommended and invaluable resource on the artist.

Rosemarie Trockel (*1952) is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential conceptual artists in Germany. Her sculptures, collages, ceramics, knitted works, drawings and photographs are noted for their subtle social critique and range of subversive, aesthetic strategies—including the reinterpretation of “feminine” techniques, the ironic shifting of cultural codes, a delight in paradox, and a refusal to conform to the commercial and institutional ideologies of the art system.

VG/VG.

File under: Rosemarie Trockel Barbara Engelbach Brigid Doherty Gregory Williams Silvia Eiblmayr Walther König / Köln Art Out-of-print / Rare Sculpture / Installation Painting Photography Drawing Conceptual Art Film / Video

Witness To Her Art
Adrian Piper, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Mona Hatoum, Daniela Rossell, Eau de Cologne ...

2006, English
Softcover, 336 pages, 26 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College / New York

$280.00 - In stock -

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First edition of this very special, now very rare catalogue published in 2006 on the occasion of the major survey exhibition Witness To Her Art, featuring the work of Adrian Piper, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Daniela Rossell and the seminal magazine Eau de Cologne, published by gallerist Monika Sprüth between 1985 and 1989. Profusely illustrated throughout with artworks by all artists, reproductions of important artist publications, installation views, and many works by other related artists, alongside texts by Adrian Piper, Kara Walker, Daniela Rossell, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Monika Sprüth, Rhea Anastas, Michael Brenson, Norton Batkin, Johanna Burton, Aruna D’Souza, Pamela Franks, Janet Kraynak, David Levi Strauss, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Ann Reynolds, Hamza Walker, and many more.

Publisher's blurb:
"This radical new study aims to change the way that some of the most influential artists of the past 40 years are seen—all of them women. Emphasizing questions of autonomy, critical intelligence and artistic intention, "Witness to Her Art" presents works by Adrian Piper, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, Daniela Rossell and "Eau de Cologne," a magazine published by gallerist Monika Sprüth. The artworks are accompanied by original writings by the artists, contemporaneous criticism and newly commissioned essays by Pamela Franks, Aruna D'Souza, Johanna Burton, David Levi Strauss, Hamza Walker and Cuauhtémoc Medina. The ambitious works presented and interpreted herein invite us to consider the impact of the feminist revolution across generations while rendering obsolete any stigma associated with shows or catalogues limited to women artists. Taking its lead from Conceptualism, feminism, and from its included artists, "Witness to Her Art" reaches for art history's capacity as a medium of world-making."

Highly recommended. Very Good copy with light edge wear/rounding to stiff overlay boards.

File under: Adrian Piper Mona Hatoum Cady Noland Jenny Holzer Kara Walker Daniela Rossell Monika Sprüth Adrian Piper Kara Walker Daniela Rossell Mona Hatoum Cady Noland Jenny Holzer Rhea Anastas Michael Brenson Norton Batkin Johanna Burton Pamela Franks Janet Kraynak David Levi Strauss Ann Reynolds Hamza Walker Aruna D'Souza Cuauhtémoc Medina Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College / New York Group Shows / Collections Curatorial Art Sculpture / Installation Feminism Photography Theory / Essay Conceptual Art

Post Human
by Jeffrey Deitch

1992, English
Softcover (french-folds), 144 pages, 28 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by FAE Musee d'Art Contemporaine Pully / Lausanne

$160.00 - In stock -

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First 1992 English edition of the legendary Post Human exhibition catalogue, published on the occasion of the touring exhibition curated by Jeffrey Deitch, June 1992—October 1993. Post Human brought together the work of leading young international artists confronting a new artificial “real” world; a new figuration. The participating artists examine the media’s obsession with the “virtual reality” of the body beautiful through works that reveal the neuroses that plague contemporary society. In Deitch's words, this lavishly designed catalogue "explores the implications of genetic engineering, plastic surgery, mind expansion, and other forms of body alteration, to ask whether our society is developing a new model of the human being. It poses the question of whether our society is creating a new kind of post-human person that replaces previous constructions of the self. Images from the new technological and consumer culture and the new, conceptually oriented figurative art of thirty-six young artists will endeavor to give us a glimpse of the coming post-human world."

Featuring the work of Dennis Adams, Janine Antoni, John M Armleder, Stephan Balkenhol, Matthew Barney, Ashley Bickerton, Taro Chiezo, Clegg & Guttmann, Wim Delvoye, Suzan Etkin, Fischli / Weiss, Slyvie Fleury, Robert Gober, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Damien Hirst, Martin Honert, Mike Kelley, Karen Kilimnik, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, George Lappas, Annette Lemieux, Christian Marclay, Paul McCarthy, Yasumasa Morimura, Kodai Nakahara, Cady Noland, Daniel Oates, Pruitt & Early, Charles Ray, Thomas Ruff, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Pia Stadtbäumer, Meyer Vaisman, Jeff Wall.

"Post Human was virtually a manifesto trumpeting a new art for a new breed of human. As Deitch’s text explained in the fragmented mottos that punctuated the billboard-style graphics of Dan Friedman’s catalogue design, “It is becoming routine for people to try to alter their appearance, their behavior, and their consciousness beyond what was once thought possible.” And we go on to read, “With the embrace of artificiality, Realism as we used to know it may no longer be possible.” The glossy color plates spoke volumes, whether the illustrations came from art or from “life.” The catalogue was to become something of a cult item that triggered the imaginations of many younger artists. Here was a permanent anthology of the “posthumanity” that surrounds us not only in galleries but on television, in magazines, even in real life, where the friendly androids among us chatter on about Botox and face-lifts. In the catalogue pages, one could see, for instance, four photos of Jane Fonda in four completely different but equally synthetic guises; Pat Buchanan being made up by a cosmetician for a TV appearance; computer morphs of once- human faces; before-and-after bellies and buttocks; and dead center, a profile view of Michael Jackson, clearly the sun god of this new solar system, who would later be deified by Jeff Koons.

This pure plastic environment, whether peopled by Ivana Trump or Barbie, set the stage for the artists in the show, whose works played perfectly in this parallel universe that was quickly replacing that old-fashioned thing called Nature. The result was a complete reshuffling of the contemporary-art deck, with an international mix of thirty-six artists (singles and pairs) that embraced Thomas Ruff and Jeff Wall, Clegg & Gutmann and Pruitt/Early, Damien Hirst and Cindy Sherman, Matthew Barney and Yasumasa Morimura, Charles Ray and Martin Kippenberger. A new dynasty had installed itself, and this ruling class demanded fitting ancestry."—Robert Rosenblum, Artforum (October 2004)

"Looked at from the point of view of being difficult cultural issues to a broader public than usual, the project Post Human could not have come about at a better time. (…) Deitch’s central thesis—that the voluntary manipulation of the human body through surgery, cosmetics and exercise, combined with recent technologies allowing us to simulate the experience of reality, have produced a culture in which the body no longer serves as a cohesive, organic reference point—fits well in an age in which pop starts, politicians and even artists themselves seem to delight in changing their physical identities to suit their purposes. No longer the domain of privacy and difference, the body has become a public crossroads where the merging of real and artificial, organic and synthetic, and even good and evil, is taking place right before our very (ahem) eyes."—Dan Cameron, Frieze (September–October 1992)

Good—Very Good copy of the sought after English language edition (the catalogue was produced in five languages) some wear to extremities, light light knocking/creasing to boards and spine, but overall a handsome copy.

File under: Dennis Adams Janine Antoni John M Armleder Stephan Balkenhol Matthew Barney Ashley Bickerton Taro Chiezo Clegg & Guttmann Wim Delvoye Suzan Etkin Fischli / Weiss Slyvie Fleury Robert Gober Felix Gonzalez-Torres Damien Hirst Martin Honert Mike Kelley Karen Kilimnik Martin Kippenberger Jeff Koons George Lappas Annette Lemieux Christian Marclay Paul McCarthy Yasumasa Morimura Kodai Nakahara Cady Noland Daniel Oates Pruitt & Early Charles Ray Thomas Ruff Cindy Sherman Kiki Smith Pia Stadtbäumer Meyer Vaisman Jeff Wall Fischli & Weiss David Weiss Peter Fischli Peter Fischli & David Weiss Peter Fischli/David Weiss Jeffrey Deitch FAE Musee d'Art Contemporaine Pully / Lausanne Group Shows / Collections Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Sculpture / Installation Photography Conceptual Art Out-of-print / Rare

Moyra Davey
Les Goddesses / Hemlock Forest

2017, English
Paperback, 128 pages, 17 x 25 cm
Published by Bergen Kunsthall / Norway Dancing Fox Press

$65.00 - In stock -

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This latest book by New York–based artist Moyra Davey is based on two related projects, Les Goddesses (2011) and Hemlock Forest (2016), which each take form through text, photography, and film. Layering introspection and personal narratives with meditations on the lives and works of other writers, filmmakers, and artists—ranging from 18th-century feminist writer and activist Mary Wollstonecraft to Chantal Akerman, Karl Ove Knausgård, and Davey’s own five sisters—the artist explores such themes as compulsion, artistic production, family, and life and its passing.
Edited by Karen Kelly and Barbara Schroeder.

Texts by Moyra Davey and an introduction by Aveek Sen.
Design by Filiep Tacq.

File under: Moyra Davey Moyra Davey Aveek Sen Karen Kelly Barbara Schroeder Bergen Kunsthall / Norway Dancing Fox Press Art Poetry Fiction / Poetry Photography