Comprising scores of photographs from inside the studio of the prolific Dutch graphic designer and educator Karel Martens, this book is a testament to the personal and experimental nature of his work. Although he can be placed in the tradition of Dutch modernism, Martens seems to maintain a certain distance from contemporary developments. The shelves of books and stacks of papers seen in these images are evocative of both his professional practice and work as an artist, which more recently entails making relief prints from found industrial artefacts. A fascinating and intimate creative portrait of this design community mentor, with texts by David Senior and Martens himself.

Self Service magazine is a fashion and cultural biannual magazine.  The magazine features the preeminent players in the fashion world, with innovative editorials photographed by the world’s best photographers and stylists.

Issue no. 38 (Spring/Summer 2013) features: Iselin Steiro; Collier Schorr; Anja Rubik; Walter Pfeiffer; Hilary Rhoda; Roe Ethridge; Bo Don; Iselin Steiro; Ondria Hardin; Alma Jodorowsky; Ezra Petronio; Sophie Fontanel; Lou Lesage; Iselin Steiro; Yann Barthès; Loïc Prigent; Joseph Dirand; Maciek Kobielski; Riccardo Tisci; Venetia Scott; Kasia Struss; Marie Chaix; Suzanne Koller; Liya Kebede; Céline; Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquière; Raf Simons; Alexander Wang; Valentino; Chanel; Junya Watanabe; Prada; Christian Dior; Y-3…..

Cover #3: Iselin Steiro photographed by Collier Schorr.

Note: Due to the size/weight of this volume, your order will possibly incur additional postage costs.  We will contact you with the best shipping advice upon your order, or alternatively, please email us in advance.  Thank you for understanding.

The very sought after first book folio dedicated to the work of Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake.  Published by Heibonsha Limited Publishers of Tokyo in 1978, the book features beautiful photoshoots by the likes of Guy Bourdin, Richard Avedon, Kishin Shinoyama, Harry Peccinotti and David Bailey throughout, documenting Miyake’s creations of the 1970s.  Broken into three section (Man and his Cloth, The Form of Cloth and Witness of time) the book features a preface by Diana Vreeland and essays by Mutsuo Takahashi, Arata Isozaki, and Eiko Ishioka.

Texts are in Japanese and English.

* Condition: Very good – shows signs of general light shelf wear to front/back covers and spine, and very light sun bleaching to book edges – All care is taken to provide accurate condition details of used books, photos available on request.

Due to the size and weight of this volume, your order will possibly incur additional postage costs.  We will contact you with the best shipping advice upon your order, or alternatively, please email us in advance.  Thank you for understanding.

Introduction by Paul C. Ha. Text by Simon Baier, Yve-Alain Bois, Ann Lauterbach. Interview by Joao Ribas.

This book documents the collection of the artist Martin Wong (1946–1999).

In numerous colour illustrations, photographs that Heinz Peter Knes took together with Danh Vo, the book depicts the interiors of the Wong Fie family residency in San Francisco filled with paintings, sculptures, and mulitfaceted objects from very specific and diverse fields of interest such as asian antiques and americana that Martin Wong followed and collected together with his parents throughout is life.

This books was produced on the occasion of the exhibiton:
Julie Ault/Heinz Peter Knes/Danh Vo/Martin Wong
“Neptune Society,  San Francisco Columbarium, 4th Fl., Dome Room, South Wall, Tier 4, Niche 2” at Daniel Buchholz Galerie, Fasanenstraße 30, Berlin

Portion of exhibition text:

Under the title “Neptune Society, San Francisco Columbarium, 4th Fl., Dome Room, South Wall, Tier 4″ we are presenting an installation with new works by Dahn Vo, a new text by Julie Ault and photographs by Heinz Peter Knes, as well selected works and ephemera from the estate and collection of Martin Wong. The exhibition was organised by Dahn Vo. Together with Julie Ault and Heinz Peter Knes, Dahn Vo enters into a dialogue with the work of Martin Wong whose estate and collection iscurrently stored and administered by Martin Wong’s mother Florence Wong Fie in the Wong family house in San Francisco. Martin Wong (1946-1999) was born in Portland Oregon as the only son of Chinese immigrants Benjamin Fie and Florence Wong Fie.

Martin Wong grew up in San Francisco where he was active in the late 60s and early 70s in the art scene in San Francisco, first as a ceramic artist, then as a draughtsman and painter. In San Francisco he also became a member of the performance groups The Cockettes and Angels of Light. In 1978 Martin Wong moves to New York’s Lower East Side. Since the beginning of the 80s Martin Wong has been showing his work in the context of exhibition spaces and galleries like the Semaphore Gallery, Exit Art and PPOW which were all just being set up at that time.

From his early years Martin Wong has cultivated a distinct passion for collecting in the most diverse areas. Together with his mother, he begins haunting antique shops and flea markets in search of curiosities from American Folk Art and antiques, above all Asiatic antiques, acquiring extensive knowledge and expertise in these fields. Later, alongside his work as a painter he will make a living as a dealer in Asian antiques. After moving to New York Martin Wong takes an increasing interest in the art market and begins to acquire works which interest him and which he can afford to buy. One of the first artworks which he acquired after moving to New York was a “Campbell’s Tomato Juice” box by Andy Warhol. Warhol is in many ways a model for Martin Wong and the areas of interest of both artists are astoundingly similar (at this time Andy Warhol’s private collection had not been published, which makes the parallels between Warhol’s and Wong’s collections the more astonishing).

Martin Wong also acquires a drawing by Piet Mondrian which he then sells at the end of the 80s in order to use the money as the initial capital for a Museum of Graffiti Art. By this time Martin Wong had assembled a large collection from the New York graffiti scene. The Street Art and Poetry scene in New York in the late 70s and early 80s were important points of reference for Martin Wong and substantially shaped the work he produced after the move from San Francisco. Martin Wong developed his known “Sign Language” paintings, that depict sentences in the finger alphabet of gesture language, as his answer to the ‘tags’ of the New York graffiti artists.

During his years in New York Martin Wong also kept in close contact and conducted an extensive correspondence with his family in which he informs his parents about his experiences in New York and reports, in particular to his mother, about his latest purchases and sales.

In 1994 Martin Wong is diagnosed HIV positive. When the state of his health becomes worse Martin Wong decides to move back to his parents in San Francisco. The house he returns to has in the meantime changed into a hybrid between warehouse and shrine, full of the objects, antiques and works of art that Martin Wong had regularly sent back to his mother, as well as a large number of his own works that he dedicated to his parents. Until his death in 1999, with the exception of occasional trips to New York with his mother to see exhibitions and keep up his contacts with his New York circle, Martin Wong was now to live in the parental home where he continued to work, for example on the cactus paintings or a depiction of Patty Hearst in the painting “Did I ever have a Chance”, which is, according to reports, one of Martin Wong’s last paintings and is supposed to have been his proposal for an AIDS Memorial.

In the 90s when it becomes clear to Martin Wong that he will not outlive his parents, he begins to search for a suitable burial place for his family, since it is a Chinese tradition that the son takes care of the burial of his parents. He decides on a family plot in San Francisco Columbarium, an urn repository in a cemetery in the vicinity of the Wong Fie home. In the dome on the fourth floor in row four on the South Wall Martin Wong’s urn and that of his father are now to be found.

Florence Wong Fie who lives in the family house, manages her son’s artistic legacy, archives the collection, and is working to establish a Martin Wong Foundation for Artists. The urn repository site was designed by her as if it were an annex of her house, and it is richly decorated with a changing selection of objects and photographs.

The house in its current state is a unique document of the life’s work of Martin Wong, an important representative of the art scene in New York’s lower East Side in the 80s. In a variety of ways the contents of the house on the one hand reflects the wealth of reference in Martin Wong’s works, and over and above that the unique relationship between Martin Wong and his parents with all the necessarily complicated projections and possible misunderstandings such relationships entail.

Danh Vo has been involved with Martin Wong’s work for a considerable time. In the course of many visits to Florence Wong Fie he has come to know the house and the collection. Florence Wong Fie has now announced that she will have to give up the house in the coming year and move into a retirement home. The question of the continuing existence of the collection has not at this time been clarified. Danh Vo has invited Heinz Peter Knes to make a photo-documentation of the house, and has commissioned Julie Ault to write a piece on the unique constellation of the collection. Julie Ault knew Martin Wong back in the 80s in New York and worked with him on several occasions, she also knows Florence Wong Fie.

In the course of the exhibition we will publish a book with Julie Ault’s text and Hans Peter Knes’s photographs.

With contributions by Paola Antonelli, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Andrea Branzi, Carlo Caldini, Alison J. Clarke, Experimental Jetset, Verina Gfader, Martino Gamper, Joseph Grima, Alessandro Mendini, Antonio Negri, Paola Nicolin, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Catharine Rossi, Vera Sacchetti, Libby Sellers, Studio Formafantasma, and Ettore Vitale.

EP is the first critically underpinned series of publications that fluidly move between art, design, and architecture. The series creates a discursive platform between popular magazines (“single play”) and academic journals (“long play”) by introducing the notion of the “extended play” into publishing: with thematically edited pocket books as median.

The first volume is devoted to the activities of the Italian avant-garde between 1968 and 1976. While emphasizing the multiple correspondences between collectives and groups like Arte Povera, Archizoom, Superstudio, and figures such as Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini, The Italian Avant-Garde: 1968–1976 also highlights previously overlooked spaces, works, and performances generated by Zoo, Gruppo 9999, and Cavart. Newly commissioned interviews and essays by historians and curators shed light on the era, while contemporary practitioners discuss its complex legacy.

Design by Experimental Jetset

This large, lavishly illustrated book examines the diverse array of projects by Italian design group, Sottsass Associati – a partnership formed in Milan in 1980 between Ettore Sottsass, Marco Zanini, Matteo Thun, Aldo Cibic, and Marco Marabelli.  Each of their major projects, traversing architecture, interior design, textiles, graphic design, product design, exhibition design, furniture design, etc. are documented here in full-colour photography and illustrations, including projects for Brionvega, Olivetti, Esprit, Fiorucci, Memphis Group, Knoll, Alessi, Driade, and many others.

Essays by Ettore Sottsass, Barbara Radice, Jean Pigozzi, Herbert Muschamp, Philippe Thome, Doug Tompkins, Luciano Torri, and Marco Zanini.

*Condition: Very Good, some shelf wear, otherwise tight copy – All care is taken to provide accurate condition details of used books, photos available on request.

Due to the weight of this volume, your order will possibly incur additional postage costs.  We will contact you with the best shipping advice upon your order, or alternatively, please email us in advance.  Thank you for understanding.

Studio Alchimia was an iconoclastic, radical design group founded in Italy in 1976 by the Italian Architect Alessandro Guerriero.  The Studio Alchimia was composed of designers, whose aim was to design and manufacture exhibition pieces, rather than consumer orientated products. Their products were to be regarded as prototypes / one-offs, leading the way from the principles of modernist design to a bold, new, experimental design style.  This style would lead to the formation and popularity of Italian design groups in the 1980′s such as the Memphis Group and the new directions taken by the Alessi company.

This is truly THE book on the work of Studio Alchimia.  Published in Germany in 1988 and lavishly illustrated throughout with colour photography and illustrations, this bilingual (English/German) volume features the history of Studio Alchimia, profiles of the Alchimia members (which included designers such as Andrea Branzi, Ettore Sottsass and Michele De Lucchi, amongst many others) a full work index and bibliography, and more.

Contents: Introduction by Alessandro Mendini. I). Alchimia. 1). Redesigned cupboards. 2). Bauhaus I – II. II). Exhibition. 1). A phenomenon of design. 2). Banal objects. 3). Natural objects. 4). Blackout. 5). House of Newlyweds. III). Pilosophical expression and activity. 1). Unfinished furniture. 2). Cosmesi. 3). Juliet’s house. 4). Carnival tower. 5). Bisexual architecture. 6). ‘Nulla’ – sounding garment. IV). Space design performance. 1). Furniture as clothing. 2). Mussolini’s bathroom. 3). Sentimental robot. 4). Midsummer night’s erotic dream. 5). Ambrogio’s house. 6). Momentary environment. 7). Kitchen space. V). Architecture and interior. 1). Utopia in a test-tube. 2). Tender architecture. 3). Alchimia town. 4). Summer architecture. 5). An idea for the house. 6). House of falsity. 7). Café de Paris. 8). Colosseum/bank in Alcamo. 9). Mysterious bathing. 10). New bridge of Accademia. 11). Thodier house. 12). Alessi house. VI). Redesigning the Modern Movement. VII). New design. 1). Nuova Alchimia. 2). 1930s furniture. 3). Poetic objects. 4). Philosophical cupboards. 5). Monumental objects. 6). Timeless objects. 7). Human-life objects. 8). Architectural fashion. 9). Textile patterns. 10). The present age – the designer in the cage. 11). Design research on bicycles. VIII). Alchimia and industry. 1). ‘Sans souci’ tableware. 2). Product research on Neapolitan coffee-pots. 3). Post-modern designs. 4). Programme No. 6. 5). ‘Renault super 5′ decoration. 6). Domus. 7). Invention of a neutral surface. IX). Radical design. 1). The Forence group and Casabella. 2). Products of the Non-project period. 3). The Post-radicals.

First European edition, 1988.

*Condition: Very Good, only slight shelf wear and sun tanning – All care is taken to provide accurate condition details of used books, photos available on request.

Due to the weight of this volume, your order will possibly incur additional postage costs.  We will contact you with the best shipping advice upon your order, or alternatively, please email us in advance.  Thank you for understanding.

Alessandro Mendini – architect, designer, artist and critic, recognized protagonist of contemporary Italian culture – pays tribute to the futurist movement and, in particular, to Fortunato Depero (Funds 1892 – Rovereto 1960), with a series of works on display at the House Futurist Art of Rovereto, documented in this volume.
Furniture and tapestries inspired by the creativity of Depero and made ​​especially for this occasion by Mendini, dialogue with the works of futurist master on display in this museum house, where the Mart continues its study and research to deepen the extraordinary creative adventure the great artist.
A combination, one of the works of Depero and Mendini, which leaves emerge combinations evocative and fascinating links between them, giving each the opportunity to be educated in a new light.