World Food Books

SALE

$.00 - Out of stock

(more...)

(...less)

The eternal clean out! New items weekly.
https://worldfoodbooks.com/category/sale

File under: SALE

World Food Books Gift Voucher

Published by World Food Books / Melbourne

$20.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

A World Food Books gift voucher is redeemable in our Melbourne bookshop or via our webshop (here). An e-voucher (printable pdf) will be sent to your purchase email address (please notify us if you wish to have the voucher sent to an alternate address and wish us to fill in the receiver's details on the card).

Gift vouchers can be purchased in increments of $20 (Australian Dollars) and the total amount can simply be added to by increasing the quantity in your shopping cart. eg. A quantity of 5 gift vouchers will result in an item total of $100 - a $100 gift voucher. Simply click "ADD TO CART" 5 times, or update your quantity in the shopping cart.

If you wish to purchase multiple, separate gift vouchers in one go, please just email us and we can personally prepare and email you a payment request.

Please note: Please select Pick-Up on gift voucher purchse to avoid any postage charges. Accidental postage charges will be refunded right away!

Thank you.

For any questions, please don't hesitate to email: [email protected]

File under: World Food Books / Melbourne World Food Books Gift Voucher

Rosemarie Trockel

2026, English
Softcover, 276 pages, 27.9 x 22.2 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$145.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Edited with text by Susanne Pfeffer. Text by Valeria Gordeev, Quinn Latimer, Christoph Menke, Cord Riechelmann, Ann-Charlotte Gunzel.

From “knitting pictures” to upside down palm trees and mannequin heads in glass boxes, Trockel’s caustic oeuvre defies classification.

Finally here, the enormous MMK catalogue! German multimedia artist Rosemarie Trockel rose to fame in the 1980s with her “knitting pictures” made with industrial weaving machines. In 1999 she was the first woman to exhibit at the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Working in a variety of media, both sardonic and uncanny, her constructions always include her own critical and humorous gaze at social regimes and political structures and at nature – making definitions, restrictions, paternalism, and violence due to gender visible. While scientifically sound and precise, her observations always include her own critical and sometimes humorous gaze as a vital component as she not only captures but highlights ambivalences. This is a comprehensive overview of Trockel's oeuvre, featuring works from all creative phases, including works made especially for a recent exhibition at the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt.

Highly recommended!

File under: Rosemarie Trockel Susanne Pfeffer Valeria Gordeev Quinn Latimer Christoph Menke Cord Riechelmann Ann-Charlotte Gunzel Walther König / Köln Sculpture / Installation Art Painting Drawing Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Film / Video Photography Conceptual Art

MD72—Door Slamming Festival (2007–2018)
Edited by Alexander Schröder, Dominic Eichler, Marianna von Palombini

2026, English / German
Softcover, 560 pages, 29.7 x 22.5 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$100.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

This anthology tells the story of the influential Berlin exhibition space MD72 between 2007 and 2018, featuring more than 70 exhibitions. Over 190 contemporary artists, designers, curators, and writers are featured in this anthology. MD72 was founded by the gallerist and collector Alexander Schröder; its events reflected the repercussions of contextual art and post-institutional critique, as well as the cultural conditions of post-reunification Berlin shaped by post-feminism, postcolonial thought, and queer strategies. In addition to extensive visual documentation of exhibitions and artworks, the book offers a compendium of eyewitness accounts, essays, exhibition notes, interviews, excerpts, and commentaries from a wide range of authors.

Features: David Adamo, Jana Euler, Mark Leckey, Yves Saint Laurent, Michael Sanchez, Kai Althoff, Matias Faldbakken, Ang Lee, Peter Saville, Mathis Altmann, Barney Farmer, Lee Healey, Gunter Lepkowski, Magnus Schaefer, Tariq Alvi, Keith Farquhar, David Lewis, Mathias Schormann, Art & Language, Paul Feigelfeld, Klara Lidén, Alexander Schröder, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Valentina Liernur, Yasmine Schroeder-Elgarafi, Red Krayola, Marta Fontolan, Beca Lipscombe, Nora Schultz, Charles Asprey, Catherine Francblin, Hilary Lloyd, Elfie Semotan, Atelier E.B, Andrea Fraser, Hannes Loichinger, Gedi Sibony, Lutz Bacher, Luca Frei, Stefan Lux, Katharina Sieverding, Nairy Baghramian, Gelatin, Danny McDonald, Eric Banks, General Idea, Caoimhín Mac Giolla Leith, Amy Sillman, Dirk Bell, Isa Genzken, Eric N. Mack, Avery Singer, Kirsty Bell, Liam Gillick, Lucy McKenzie, Andreas Slominski, Sean Snyder, Bernadette Corporation, Marc Glöde, René Magritte, Gerry Bibby, Julian Göthe, Victor Man, Lucie Stahl, Julien Binet, Goldin+Senneby, André Masson, Frank Stella, BLESS, Fanny Gonella, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mladen Stilinović, Anna Blessmann, Isabelle Graw, Nick Mauss, Josef Strau, Peter Saville, Wade Guyton, Ken Okiishi, Studio Manuel Raeder, Juliette Blightman, Florian Hecker, Birgit Megerle, Juergen Teller, Cosima von Bonin, Manfred Hermes, John Miller, Philippe Thomas, Mark Borthwick, Georg Herold, Pierre Molinier, Simon Thompson, Michael Bracewell, Charline von Heyl, Sarah Morris, Torey Thornton, Janet Burchill, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, Ariane Müller, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jennifer McCamley, Ull Hohn, Jill Mulleady, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tom Burr, Yngve Holen, Jeanette Mundt, Rosemarie Trockel, David Bussel, Karl Holmqvist, Geoff Nees, Donald Urquhart, Caroline Busta, Judith Hopf, Georgie Nettell, Mona Vătămanu, Florin Tudor, Michael Callies, Alex Hubbard, Albert Oehlen, Donna Huddleston, Roberto Ohrt, Francesco Vezzoli, Sergej Jensen, Alex Israel, Ken Okiishi, Danh Vo, Ellen Cantor, Robert Jarosz, Henrik Olesen, Heinz Peter Knes, Merlin Carpenter, Sergej Jensen, Paulina Olowska, Steven Warwick, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Helen Johnson, Dietrich Orth, Michal Wasaznik, Alan Charlton, Stefan Kalmár, Daniel Pies, Marianna von Palombini, Scott Cameron Weaver, Doryun Chong, Tobias Kaspar, Manfred Pernice, Hannah Weinberger, Claire Fontaine, KAYA, Kerstin Brätsch, Kirsten Pieroth, Thilo Wermke, Anne Collier, Debo Eilers, Falke Pisano, Stephen Willats, Carole Condé, Karl Beveridge, Annette Kelm, Simon Popper, Susanne M. Winterling, John Kelsey, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Ashes Withyman, Isabelle Cornaro, Pierre Klossowski, Stephen Prina, David Woodard, Enrico David, John Knight, Mark Prince, Christopher Wool, Jacques de Koning, Valérie Knoll, Josephine Pryde, Cerith Wyn Evans, Gigiotto Del Vecchio, Jutta Koether, Manuel Raeder, Alex Zachary, Mark Dion, Stefan Korte, Reena Spaulings, Heimo Zobernig, Eliza Douglas, Andrzej Kostenko, Jeroen de Rijke, Lukas Duwenhogger, Christian Kracht, Willem de Rooij, Alexander Schröder, Martin Ebner, Kitty Kraus, Martha Rosler, Dominic Eichler, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Annette Ruenzler, Marianna von Palombini, Florian Zeyfang, Colin de Land, J. St. Bernard, Dominic Eichler.

File under: David Adamo Jana Euler Mark Leckey Kai Althoff Matias Faldbakken Mathis Altmann Barney Farmer Tariq Alvi Klara Lidén Art & Language Red Krayola Nora Schultz Andrea Fraser Gedi Sibony Lutz Bacher Luca Frei Katharina Sieverding Nairy Baghramian Gelatin General Idea Amy Sillman Dirk Bell Isa Genzken Eric N. Mack Avery Singer Liam Gillick Lucy McKenzie Andreas Slominski Sean Snyder Bernadette Corporation René Magritte Gerry Bibby Julian Göthe Victor Man Lucie Stahl Goldin+Senneby André Masson Frank Stella BLESS Gordon Matta-Clark Mladen Stilinović Nick Mauss Josef Strau Wade Guyton Ken Okiishi Juliette Blightman Florian Hecker Birgit Megerle Cosima von Bonin John Miller Philippe Thomas Georg Herold Pierre Molinier Charline von Heyl Sarah Morris Janet Burchill Ariane Müller Wolfgang Tillmans Ull Hohn Jill Mulleady Rirkrit Tiravanija Tom Burr Yngve Holen Jeanette Mundt Rosemarie Trockel Karl Holmqvist Judith Hopf Mona Vătămanu Florin Tudor Alex Hubbard Albert Oehlen Francesco Vezzoli Sergej Jensen Alex Israel Danh Vo Ellen Cantor Henrik Olesen Merlin Carpenter Paulina Olowska Marc Camille Chaimowicz Helen Johnson Alan Charlton Tobias Kaspar Manfred Pernice Hannah Weinberger Claire Fontaine KAYA Kerstin Brätsch Kirsten Pieroth Anne Collier Debo Eilers Falke Pisano Stephen Willats Carole Condé Karl Beveridge Annette Kelm Susanne M. Winterling Genesis Breyer P-Orridge Isabelle Cornaro Stephen Prina Enrico David John Knight Josephine Pryde Cerith Wyn Evans Jutta Koether Mark Dion Reena Spaulings Heimo Zobernig Eliza Douglas Jeroen de Rijke Lukas Duwenhogger Willem de Rooij Martha Rosler Mierle Laderman Ukeles Florian Zeyfang Atelier E.B. Yves Saint Laurent Peter Saville Kitty Kraus Ian Hamilton Finlay Keith Farquhar Beca Lipscombe Hilary Lloyd Danny McDonald Manuel Raeder Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley Jennifer McCamley Juergen Teller Heinz Peter Knes Pierre Klossowski Christopher Wool Georgie Nettell Mark Borthwick Simon Thompson Alexander Schröder Dominic Eichler Marianna von Palombini Michael Sanchez Lee Healey Gunter Lepkowski Magnus Schaefer David Lewis Mathias Schormann Paul Feigelfeld Valentina Liernur Yasmine Schroeder-Elgarafi Marta Fontolan Charles Asprey Catherine Francblin Elfie Semotan Hannes Loichinger Stefan Lux Eric Banks Kirsty Bell Marc Glöde Julien Binet Fanny Gonella Anna Blessmann Isabelle Graw Manfred Hermes Michael Bracewell Torey Thornton Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz David Bussel Geoff Nees Donald Urquhart Caroline Busta Michael Callies Donna Huddleston Roberto Ohrt Robert Jarosz Heinz Peter Knes Steven Warwick Dietrich Orth Michal Wasaznik Stefan Kalmár Daniel Pies Scott Cameron Weaver Doryun Chong Thilo Wermke Simon Popper John Kelsey Ashes Withyman Pierre Klossowski David Woodard Mark Prince Jacques de Koning Valérie Knoll Gigiotto Del Vecchio Alex Zachary Stefan Korte Andrzej Kostenko Christian Kracht Annette Ruenzler Colin de Land J. St. Bernard Martin Ebner Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith Walther König / Köln Group Shows / Collections Painting Art Sculpture / Installation

Josef Strau
Spirits and Objects

2022, English
Softcover, 198 pages, 16 x 23 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$62.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

This publication assembles a selection of texts produced between the years 2005 and 2020, starting with The Non- Productive Attitude (2005), his prominent reflections on the anti-productive attitude in the Cologne art scene of the time. The experience of having to write the essay overnight within a few hours, and without any time for revision, triggered his interest in exploring forms of unintentional writing, and consequently the replacement of the intentional author by an unconscious writer / producer. This mode of automatic writing has manifested itself until today, and has become the core of Strau’s artistic practice.

File under: Josef Strau Walther König / Köln Art Sculpture / Installation Fiction / Poetry

The Last Canterbury Tales
by Jean Ray

2026, English
Softcover, 168 pages. 20.4 x 14 cm
Published by Wakefield Press / Cambridge

$35.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Jean Ray’s 'The Last Canterbury Tales', first published in French in 1944, makes no pretence of finishing Chaucer’s masterpiece but instead works toward a denouement of its own that reveals an unexpected act of storytelling underpinning this collection. After 600 years, Geoffrey Chaucer and his 14th-century pilgrims overcome space and time to return to the Tabard Inn in Southwark, freshly cleansed of their sins. This time it is a new cast of storytellers picking up where the others had left off – a motley crew that includes a Prioress with a taste for executions and a madman who once made the mistake of asking after the Uhu. Also among them is a new listener: Tobias Weep, secretary of the Upper Thames Book Club, who has stumbled onto their impossible gathering, pinned to his chair by the impossible weight of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s talking tomcat on his lap.

Jean Ray (1887–1964) is the best known of the multiple pseudonyms of Raymundus Joannes Maria de Kremer. A pivotal figure in the “Belgian School of the Strange,” he authored some 6,500 texts in his lifetime, along with his own biography, which remains shrouded in legend and fiction.

File under: Jean Ray Wakefield Press / Cambridge Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Fiction / Poetry

Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979

2026, English
Softcover, 488 pages, 20.3 x 22.9 cm
Published by Primary Information / New York

$82.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979 is an expansive anthology focused on concrete poetry written by women in the groundbreaking movement’s early history. It features fifty writers and artists from Europe, Japan, Latin America, and the United States selected by editors Alex Balgiu and Mónica de la Torre.

Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979 takes as its point of departure Materializzazione del linguaggio—the groundbreaking exhibition of visual and concrete poetry by women curated by Italian feminist artist Mirella Bentivoglio for the Venice Biennale in 1978. Through this exhibition and others she curated, Bentivoglio traced constellations of women artists working at the intersection of the verbal and visual who sought to “reactivate the atrophied tools of communication” and liberate words from the conventions of genre, gender, and the strictures of the patriarchy and normative syntax.

The works in this volume evolved from previous manifestations of concrete poetry as defined in foundational manifestos by Öyvind Fahlström, Eugen Gomringer, and the Brazilian Noigandres group. While some works are easily recognised as concrete poetry, as documented in canonical anthologies edited by Mary Ellen Solt and Emmett Williams in the late ’60s, it also features expansive serial works that are overtly feminist and often trouble legibility. Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979 revisits the figures in Bentivoglio’s orbit and includes works by women practicing in other milieus in the United States, Eastern Europe, and South America who were similarly concerned with activating the visual and sonic properties of language and experimenting with poetry’s spatial syntax.

Artists and writers include Lenora de Barros, Ana Bella Geiger, and Mira Schendel from Brazil; Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Liliana Landi, Anna Oberto, and Giovanna Sandri from Italy; Amanda Berenguer from Uruguay; Suzanne Bernard and Ilse Garnier from France; Blanca Calparsoro from Spain; Paula Claire and Jennifer Pike from the UK; Betty Danon from Turkey; Mirtha Dermisache from Argentina; Bohumila Grögerová from the Czech Republic; Ana Hatherly and Salette Tavares from Portugal; Madeline Gins, Susan Howe, Liliane Lijn, Mary Ellen Solt, and Rosmarie Waldrop from the US; Irma Blank and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt from Germany; Chima Sunada from Japan; and Katalin Ladik and Bogdanka Poznanović from the former Yugoslavia.

File under: Lenora de Barros Mirella Bentivoglio Amanda Berenguer Suzanne Bernard Tomaso Binga Blanca Calparsoro Paula Claire Betty Danon Mirtha Dermisache Ilse Garnier Anna Bella Geiger Bohumila Grögerová Ana Hatherly Susan Howe Tamara Jankovic Annalies Klophaus Barbara Kozlowska Liliana Landi Liliane Lijn Françoise Mairey Giulia Niccolai Jennifer Pike Giovanna Sandri Mira Schendel Chima Sunada Mary Ellen Solt Salette Tavares Colleen Thibaudeau Rosmarie Waldrop Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt Primary Information / New York Concrete Poetry Poetry Art Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art

Michael Asher
Writings 1973–1983 on Works 1969–1979

2021, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 21.5 x 30.5 cm
Published by Primary Information / New York

$84.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Writings 1973–1983 on Works 1969–1979 is an essential document of a decade of formative work by Michael Asher. Originally published in 1983, the book presents 33 works through the artist’s writings, photographic documentation, architectural floor plans, exhibition announcements, and other ephemera.

Asher did not create traditional art objects; instead, he chose to alter the existing institutional apparatus through which art is presented, creating work dependent on the architectural, social, or economic systems that undergird how art is produced and experienced. For example, in 1974, he removed the partition wall dividing the office and gallery space of the Claire Copley Gallery in Los Angeles. In another work from 1978, Asher had a bronze replica of a nineteenth-century sculpture of George Washington moved from the exterior of the Art Institute of Chicago to a room in the museum that housed eighteenth-century art, changing its location, but also its function from a public monument to an indoor sculpture, as it was originally intended.

Due to its site specificity and immateriality, Asher’s work ceased to exist after an exhibition, which makes this highly sought-after book the definitive mode through which one can gain insight into the work he made during this period. As the artist states in the introduction: “This book as a finished product will have a material permanence that contradicts the actual impermanence of the art-work, yet paradoxically functions as a testimony to that impermanence of my production.”

Initiated by Kasper König, Writings 1973-1983 on Works 1969-1979 was originally co-published by the Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and was largely shaped by Asher’s close collaboration with art historian Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, who succeeded König as editor of the press.

Managing Editor: James Hoff
Managing Designer: Rick Myers

File under: Michael Asher Michael Asher Benjamin H. D. Buchloh Primary Information / New York Art Theory / Essay Minimal Art Conceptual Art Sculpture / Installation

Cruising Pavilion: Architecture, Dissident Sex and Cruising Cultures
Edited by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos & Charles Teyssou

2026, English
Softcover, 432 pages, 23 x 16 cm
Published by Spector Books / Leipzig

$82.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Cruising Pavilion: Architecture, Dissident Sex and Cruising Cultures examines the influence of cruising cultures on architecture and urban life, unfolding a typology of spaces produced by sexual – primarily gay – subcultures. From the appropriation of sites such as parks, public restrooms, and streets to purpose-built spaces like sex clubs, bars, and bathhouses, as well as the new form of virtual dérive generated by geosocial dating apps, cruising has subverted the libidinal cartography and use of the modern metropolis.

The book considers these spatial practices through the lens of artistic avant-gardes that have emerged at the intersection of sex, art, and architecture. It follows the eponymous curatorial project initiated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos, Rasmus Myrup, Octave Perrault, and Charles Teyssou, which traveled from Paris to Venice and on to New York, Fire Island, and Stockholm.

Features Andreas Angelidakis, Monica Bonvicini, Tom Burr, Shu Lea Cheang, Victoria Colmegna, DYKE_ON, General Idea, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Henrik Olesen, Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo), Hannah Quinlan + Rosie Hastings, Carlos Reyes, Prem Sahib, Jaanus Samma, S H U Í (Jon Wang + Sean Roland), Steven Warwick, Robert Yang, Trevor Yeung, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation), Studio Karhard, Etienne Descloux, Horace Gifford, Pol Esteve + Marc Navarro, Madelon Vriesendorp, Samuel R. Delany, Hal Fischer, Gayle Rubin, Joan Nestle, David Wojnarowicz, and more...

Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou are a Paris-based curatorial duo. Their recent projects include Paris Orbital, a series of events at the Pinault Collection – Bourse de Commerce, and the Conversations series for Paris+ par Art Basel in October 2023.

File under: David Wojnarowicz Andreas Angelidakis Monica Bonvicini Tom Burr Shu Lea Cheang Victoria Colmegna DYKE_ON General Idea Sidsel Meineche Hansen Henrik Olesen Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo) Hannah Quinlan + Rosie Hastings Carlos Reyes Prem Sahib Jaanus Samma S H U Í (Jon Wang + Sean Roland) Steven Warwick Robert Yang Trevor Yeung Diller Scofidio + Renfro Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation) Studio Karhard Etienne Descloux Horace Gifford Pol Esteve + Marc Navarro Madelon Vriesendorp Pierre-Alexandre Mateos Charles Teyssou Samuel R. Delany Hal Fischer Gayle Rubin Joan Nestle David Wojnarowicz Steven Warwick Spector Books / Leipzig Art Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Eros Fetishism / BDSM Counterculture LGBTQ+ Film / Video

Paul Virilio
Bunker Archeology

2026, English
Hardcover, 212 pages, 22 x 26 cm
Published by Spector Books / Leipzig

$105.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

The reputation as an auteur that Paul Virilio (1932–2018) enjoys today derives from the work he did for his Bunker Archeology. When, in the second half of the 1950s, he began photographing abandoned Second World War bunkers along France’s Atlantic coast, he was working with glass as an artistic medium. In 1966, he presented his photographs to the public for the first time in the magazine architecture principe, which he co-edited. At the time, he was particularly interested in the architectural aspects of these wartime installations. He saw the bunkers as 'harbingers of a new architecture', which he sought to capture in the term 'cryptic architecture'. The first exhibition of Virilio’s Bunker Archeology was staged at the Centre Pompidou in 1975, while the museum was still in the process of being established. His seminal book was published in conjunction with this. It laid out all the motifs of his philosophical thinking: military space and communications warfare, camouflage and acceleration, a scrupulous reading of the present coupled with a desire for philosophical speculation. Although it is almost fifty years since the work was first published, Bunker Archeology is still full of connections to the present. To coincide with an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, a new edition of the book is being published in French, English, and German.

Paul Virilio (1932–2018), French philosopher, urbanist and critic of the media society. His most important works include War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception (1984) and Polar Inertia (1990).

File under: Paul Virilio Paul Virilio Spector Books / Leipzig Architecture / Interior Photography Philosophy Crime / Violence

Mark Manders
Studio Snapshots

2025, English
Hardcover, 140 pages, 29 x 21 cm
Published by Roma / Amsterdam

$85.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

‘Studio Snapshots’ comprises a series of black-and-white photographs taken in the studio of Dutch artist Mark Manders, where finished and unfinished works reflect various stages of the creative process. Notably, the selection of images gives a sense of the artist’s approach and method, with various tools, objects, implements, and materials appearing in the photographed spaces alongside his creations in progress.

File under: Mark Manders Roma / Amsterdam Art Sculpture / Installation

Lutz Bacher
Burning the Days: An Exhibition

2026, English
Softcover, 304 pages, 29 x 22 cm
Published by Astrup Fearnley Museet / Oslo WIELS / Brussels Roma / Amsterdam

$98.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Edited by Helena Kritis and Solveig Øvstebø

Published by Astrup Fearnley Museet, WIELS, and Roma Publications, the catalogue brings together three newly commissioned essays approaching Bacher's art from distinct yet intersecting perspectives. Kate Nesin takes The Betty Center — Bacher's archive of nearly 300 black binders, later realised as an artwork — as a point of departure to examine her engagement with archives, containers, and readymade forms. Juliane Rebentisch reads Bacher's work as a sustained practice of opacity that stages accumulation, self-exposure, humour, and citation to unsettle fixed identities and disrupt the clichés through which meaning is usually secured. Finally, Emily LaBarge reads Bacher through the logic of the pun, showing how her works hinge on double meanings and perceptual slippages that make uncertainty the condition of viewing. Burning the Days: An Exhibition occupies a distinct place within the lineage of Bacher’s artist books. It is the first major publication on Bacher produced entirely after her death and without her direct involvement or design input.

Design: Julie Peeters.

File under: Lutz Bacher Julie Peeters Kate Nesin Emily LaBarge Juliane Rebentisch Astrup Fearnley Museet / Oslo WIELS / Brussels Roma / Amsterdam Art Conceptual Art Sculpture / Installation Photography

Bill 6 (Demode)
Edited by Julie Peeters

2026, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 28 x 24 cm
Published by Bill / Brussels

$86.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

‘Bill’ is an annual magazine that prioritises visual reading of its photographic stories without the distraction of text. The 192 offset pages are printed in CMYK, silver, and black and white on a dozen different paper stocks, along with some Japanese bound signatures. Contributors to this sixth instalment include conceptual artist Rosemarie Trockel, Croatian artist Hana Miletić, RareBooksParis, architect and designer Thorben Gröbel, Japanese artist Yuji Agematsu, French artist Claude Closky, California-based artist Sam Contis, Dutch photography studio Blommers/Schumm, photographer Michael Schmidt, Swiss artist Beat Streuli, and photographer Adrianna Glaviano.

File under: Rosemarie Trockel Hana Miletić RareBooksParis Thorben Gröbel Yuji Agematsu Claude Closky Sam Contis Blommers/Schumm Michael Schmidt Beat Streuli Adrianna Glaviano Julie Peeters Bill / Brussels Periodicals Photography Fashion Art

Investigating Sex: Surrealist Discussions
Edited by José Pierre; Afterword by Dawn Ades

2011, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 21.6 x 13.8 cm
Published by Verso / London

$52.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

“The surrealist’s approach to sexuality was original and important … I feel this book will amaze us all.” —George Melly

Are women’s orgasms more intense than men’s? What did André Breton think of homosexuality? Can love be separated from physical desire?

In 1928 a group of surrealist writers and artists held twelve round table discussions to address these questions. Calling them “researches into sexuality,” their bizarre and humorous conversations are now made available in this new edition in all their surreal and salacious detail. Their research spanned the most critical period for surrealism, a time of bitter political disputes, echoed in the intensity of these meetings and in the range of participants, including André Breton, Paul Eluard, Yves Tanguy, Benjamin Péret and Pierre Naville.

Well before the so-called sexual revolution, their erotic exchanges broke sexual taboos and encouraged surrealists to openly share the libidinal themes they explored in their writing and art. In doing so, JoAnn Wypijewski writes in the new introduction, they are revealed as “lovers and prigs, fantasists and humanists, adventurers in mind if not always in flesh—flawed, foolish, brilliant, clangingly sexual human beings.”

Afterword by Dawn Ades
Introduction by JoAnn Wypijewski
Edited by José Pierre
Translated by Malcolm Imrie

"These discussions are absolutely fascinating."—Kathy Acker, author of Blood and Guts in High School

"... readers are in for a treat: a cascade of opinion, at times insightful, frequently infuriating, often comedic."—Zoe Strimpel, The Observer

José Pierre was a playwright, novelist and art historian. He belonged to the postwar Paris surrealist group that formed around André Breton. He was a member of Actual, an archive for the dissemination of the secret history of surrealism.

File under: Yves Tanguy Antonin Artaud Dawn Ades JoAnn Wypijewski José Pierre Malcolm Imrie André Breton Paul Eluard Yves Tanguy Benjamin Péret Pierre Naville Antonin Artuad Verso / London Surrealism Fetishism / BDSM Eros Art Theory / Essay Psychoanalysis Philosophy Philosophy / Psychoanalysis

Paying Attention: Essays on Art and Culture
by Lynne Tillman

2026, English
Softcover, 344 pages 21 x 14 cm
Published by David Zwirner Books / New York

$69.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

From award-winning novelist and cultural critic Lynne Tillman, 'Paying Attention' is the first collection of essays devoted to her incisive, provocative, and singular reflections on art and culture.

'Paying Attention' gathers more than fifty of the best and varied examples of Lynne Tillman’s writings in reference to art and culture published over the course of forty years. In essays that operate outside typical categories or genres, Tillman reflects on forms including film, painting, photography, poetry, and fiction, as well as notions of fame, originality, embodied viewing and thinking, collective activity, aging, illness, American identity, cultural politics, modernity, strangeness, and time. Such is the stuff that relates art to life, and life to art.

Collected mainly from museum and gallery catalogues, artists’ books and monographs, her column in 'Frieze', and magazines including 'Aperture' and 'Artforum', these meditations on artists and writers, in the broadest sense of these labels, collide as a portrait of our cultural moment. Tillman’s inventive use of language and lateral thought, her ability to evoke conditions of the larger world in often just two thousand words on a specific artwork or individual, make her one of the most significant critics of our time. As she acknowledges, in a piece on the artist Robert Gober, “In writing on art, words reach for other words, phrases, idioms, and through them more images and ideas leap out.” In her introduction, Elizabeth Schambelan notes that a hallmark of Tillman’s writing alongside artists is an “elegant rendering of complexity,” and in approaching Tillman’s body of work and thought, Schambelan herself imbricates the art, voice, and language of criticism.

File under: Lynne Tillman David Zwirner Books / New York Art Theory / Essay

Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician in Search of Myth
by M.E. Warlick

2001, English
Softcover, 335 pages, 22. 9 x 15.2 cm
Published by University of Texas Press / Texas

$84.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Surrealist artist Marx Ernst defined collage as the “alchemy of the visual image”. Students of his work have often dismissed this comment as simply a metaphor for the transformative power of using found images in a new context. Taking a wholly different perspective on Ernst and alchemy, however, the author persuasively demonstrates that the artist had a profound and abiding interest in alchemical philosophy and often used alchemical symbolism in works created throughout his career. A revival of interest in alchemy swept the artistic, psychoanalytic, historical, and scientific circles of th elate 19th and early 20th centuries, and the author sets Ernst’s work squarely within this movement. Looking at both his art (many of the works she discusses are reproduced in the book) and his writings, she reveals how thoroughly alchemical philosophy and symbolism pervade his early Dadaist experiments, his foundational work images in surrealism, and his many collages and paintings of women and landscapes, whose images exemplify the alchemical fusing of opposites.This pioneering research adds an essential key to understanding the multilayered complexity of Ernst’s works, as if affirms his standing as one of Germany’s most significant artists of the 20th century.

"M. E. Warlick's book is a unique and highly significant contribution to the literature on modern art and modern culture in general."—Linda D. Henderson, Professor of Art History, University of Texas at Austin

" ... when M. E. Warlick discusses {Ernst's] early art and the Surrealist context, she is authoritative... Her own scrupulously researched chapters on the artist's formative years and pre-Surrealist paintings, together with her abbreviated history of alchemy, its literature and the"occultation of Surrealism" which began in the 1920s, are useful additions to the existingscholarship."—TLS, 21 September 2001

File under: University of Texas Press / Texas Surrealism Theory / Essay Art Painting Sculpture / Installation Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Drawing Eros Occult / Esoterica

Marguerite Duras
My Cinema

2023, English
Softcover, 408 pages, 17 x 11 cm
Published by Another Gaze Editions / UK

$44.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Working chronologically through her nineteen films, made between 1966 and 1985, this collection of reflections by Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) includes non-standard press releases, notes to her actors, letters to funders, short essays on themes as provocatively capacious as ‘mothers’ and ‘witches’, as well as some of the most significant interviews she gave about her cinematic and writing practices (with filmmakers and critics including Jacques Rivette, Caroline Champetier and Jean Narboni). In Duras's hands, all of these forms turn into a strange, gnomic literature in which the boundary between word and image becomes increasingly blurred and the paradox of creating a cinema that seeks ‘to destroy the cinema’ finds its most potent expression. Yet, Duras is never concerned only with her own work, or even with the broader project of making cinema: her preoccupations are global, and the global crucially informs her perceptions of the way in which she works. With the audiovisual as a starting point, her encyclopaedic associative powers bring readers into contact with subjects as diverse as the French Communist Party, hippies, Jews, revolutionary love, madness and freedom, across four decades of an oeuvre that is always in simultaneous dialogue with the contemporary moment and world history.

File under: Marguerite Duras Jacques Rivette Caroline Champetier Jean Narboni Marguerite Duras Another Gaze Editions / UK Film / Video Theory / Essay Art Sociology / Politics

Wols
Photographien

1988, German
Softcover (staple–bound), 20 pages, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Goethe-Institut / Münich

$35.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

1985 German catalogue dedicated entirely to the magnificent photographic work of Wols. Illustrated throughout with his striking still life, portrait, and Paris street images, accompanied by text from Laszlo Glozer.

Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (27 May 1913, Berlin – 1 September 1951, Paris), a German painter, photographer, engraver, and graphic designer. Though broadly unrecognized in his lifetime, Wols was close to Surrealism, and is considered a pioneer of Lyrical Abstraction, one of the most influential artists of the Tachisme movement, and of Informal art in Europe. He moved to France when he fled the Hitlerian regime, with a recommendation from the artist-teacher Moholy-Nagy. Illegal immigrant, he was considered as a deserter and a stateless person, arrested many times by the French police. In 1936, Wols received, with Léger and Rivière's help, a limited resident permit, working as a photographer — his unusual fashion and interiors photographs were sold as postcards and printed in many international fashion magazines. Immediately after the beginning of the Second World War, Wols was enprisoned with many Germans in different French internment camps, where Wols realized many surrealist drawings and watercolours that he is now well-known for. He spent most of the war trying to emigrate to the United States, an unsuccessful and costly enterprise that may have driven him to alcoholism. After the hype from the war had died down, he had his first exhibition of watercolors in December 1945 at the Galerie René Drouin, Paris, where despite the lack of commercial success he made an impression. His paintings represented a rejection of figuration and abstraction, and a projection into a metaphysical plane. In the years following the war, Schulze concentrated on painting and etching. His health declined severely towards the end of the 1940s; in 1951 he died of food poisoning at the Hotel Montalembert in Paris, after releasing himself from hospital against medical advice. After his death his works were shown at the Kassel documenta (1955), documenta II (1959) and documenta III (1964).

Very Good with some cover wear/age.

File under: Wols Laszlo Glozer Goethe-Institut / Münich Art Photography Out-of-print / Rare Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism

Tosquelles: Healing Institutions
Edited by Joana Maso

2026, English
Softcover, 344 pages, 25.4 x 17.78 cm
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$46.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

A landmark anthology of Francesc Tosquelles's intellectual, clinical, and political writings, many available in English translation for the first time.

Edited by Joana Maso, translated by Robert Hurley and Mara Faye Lethem

Often consigned to legend, the life of Francesc Tosquelles reads as an adventure story of clinical, political, and collective experimentation around healing institutions. Joining the Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole psychiatric hospital in Nazi-occupied France, Tosquelles invented what would become “institutional psychotherapy” with poets, film critics, photographers, and psychiatrists including Jean Oury, Agnès Masson, Frantz Fanon, Tristan Tzara, and Paul Éluard.

This first anthology of Tosquelles’s writings shines a light on his forgotten history, from his engagement as a psychiatrist during the Spanish Civil War alongside anti-Franquist and anti-Stalinist communists, to his progressive return to Catalonia following his role in the “cultural revolution” of “institutional psychotherapy” in France. Through translations of texts never before available in English, Tosquelles’s powerful voice reminds us how important politicized relations to institutions are in our times of sick institutions, scapegoating of strangers, and globalized war.

File under: Joana Maso Francesc Tosquelles Robert Hurley (Translator) Mara Faye Lethem Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Psychoanalysis Philosophy / Psychoanalysis Philosophy Socialism / Communism / Capitalism Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Protest / Revolt

Claude Cahun
Cancelled Confessions

2024, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 256 pages, 22 x 17 cm
Published by Thin Man Press / London

$74.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Cancelled Confessions reveals Claude Cahun to be a major surrealist writer and pioneering queer theorist almost a century ahead of her time.

"The re-appearance of this glittering and dissenting semi-lost epic is a gift… Cahun’s writing is stylish, playful and prescient, peopled with angel slang, flowering disavowals, God’s lipstick and an infinite layering of masks."—Daisy Lafarge, author.

In 1930, Claude Cahun (born Lucy Schwob) and her partner, artist Marcel Moore (born Suzanne Malherbe) published their surrealist masterpiece, Aveux non Avenus, translated here as Cancelled Confessions and available in English for the first time in twenty years. Susan de Muth’s revised translation of Cancelled Confessions has a new introduction by art historian Amelia Groom which contextualizes it within contemporary queer discourse.

"It’s a surrealist, trans, queer, autofiction, (anti)memoir, and also none of those things. It’s a text, and a life, felt as connection and at the same time completely singular."—McKenzie Wark, author.

'The kaleidoscopic text is pieced together from diverse fragments… there are philosophical and subversive theological musings, aphorisms and fables, letters and dialogues, dreams and hymns, nightmares and jokes,' writes Groom. The book’s nine sections are prefaced by dreamlike photomontages (reproduced in high definition here) which reflect, illuminate and converse with the verbal content. Upon publication, Aveux non Avenus simply baffled all but a few of Cahun’s friends and admirers, leading Cahun to describe herself as, ‘An unwanted Cassandra’. Now, however, is the time of the remarkably prescient Cahun and Moore.

"Cahun was a pioneer of gender-bending role-playing…eerily ahead of her time she has attracted an almost cult-like following."—The late David Bowie

Cahun and Moore’s appeal is wide and universal. They were adventurers in life as in art. Cahun famously terrified Andre Breton in the 1920s when she appeared in a Paris café with her head shaved and painted gold. Having moved to Jersey in 1938, Cahun and Moore waged a mischievous two-person resistance campaign against the occupying Nazi forces from 1940. Finally caught and imprisoned in 1944, they were sentenced to death in 1945, saved at the very last moment by the armistice.

File under: Claude Cahun Claude Cahun Marcel Moore Susan de Muth Amelia Groom Thin Man Press / London Eros Performance / Dance / Theater Australian Photography Surrealism LGBTQ+

Carlton
by Les Gray

1973, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 18 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Sun Books / Melbourne

$65.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

First printing from 1973 of this photo-book dedicated entirely to the streets of the suburb of Carlton, Melbourne, by Australian photographer Les Gray (1920 - 2013). With an introduction by poet Garrie Hutchison (b. 1949) titled "Canning Street, Carlton, August 1973", this handsome little landscape album of snapshots captures the people, terraces, and shopfronts of early 1970s Drummond, Rathdowne, Cardigan, Faraday, Lygon, Gratton, Station, Canning, and Elgin streets. Published by Sun Books.

Good—Very Good copy with light wear/age.

File under: Les Gray Garrie Hutchison Sun Books / Melbourne Australian Art Australian Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry

Sydney Diary 1974 – 1984
by William Yang

1984, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 142 pages, 26 x 36 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by James Fraser / Sydney

$250.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Rare first 1984 hardcover edition of one of the greatest Australian photo-books, William Yang's "Sydney Diary."

Absolutely stunning large-format book of Yang's photography from the late 1970s-early 1980s, documenting the Sydney party scene, gay community, and general Australian cultural atmosphere of the period, from the beach to the runway to the disco via the further reaches of sex, drugs (including the incredible "poppers" spread), celebrity and political demonstration. It is a collection of "friendships lost and found, fragile landscapes, modern icons, images of the incessant pursuit of pleasure, of innocence and experience, ecstasy and desire. In the many ways of looking at this work some will find only sensation, a lurid catalogue from a provincial paparazzi. Certainly it has an appeal to the sensations, a visceral power. But to me this book represents much more. It is a unique exploration of the human spirit, a confession from a guilty romantic, a solitary journey through the land of the dispossessed." - Jim Sharman (Introduction)

William Yang (b. 1943, Mareeba, Queensland. Lives and works Sydney, New South Wales) is principally known as a photographer exploring issues of cultural and sexual identity, integrating this practice with writing, performance and film. Starting out as a playwright, Yang turned to photographing parties and social events as a way of making money. His 1977 exhibition, Sydneyphiles, and 1984 book Sydney Diary, recorded the emergent gay community and Sydney party scene of the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s, Yang began to explore his Chinese heritage, and his photographic themes expanded to include landscapes and the Chinese in Australia. Yang began performing monologues with slide projections in theatres in 1989, integrating his skills as a writer and a visual artist. These slide shows were recognised as a unique form of performance theatre and have since become his preferred way of showing his work. Yang has toured Australia and the world with shows such as Sadness, Friends of Dorothy, The North, Blood Links and Shadows.

Very Good copy of the now very rare Australian photo-book, in original illustrated dust jacket (VG, with some tanning).

File under: William Yang James Fraser / Sydney Photography Australian Art Art Eros Australian Photography LGBTQ+ Drugs / Psychedelia

Brice Marden
Work Books 1964-1995

1996, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 232 pages, 30 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Richter Verlag / Dusseldorf

$200.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

Rare first hardcover edition of Brice Marden — Work Books 1964-1995, published by Harvard University Art Museum and Richter Verlag on the occasion of the major travelling exhibition of 1997—1998 (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Wexner Center for the Arts, The State University of Ohio, Harvard University Art Museum). Profusely illustrated throughout presenting the comprehensive and important workbooks and sketchpads of American minimalist Brice Marden (b. 1938) together in one volume. With illustrated essays by Dieter Schwarz and Michael Semff. With an exhibition history, bibliography, biography, and list of works. Bi-lingual texts in German and English.

Brice Marden (b. 1938) is an American artist known for his subtle explorations of colour and gestural lines. Marden, who rose to prominence in 1960s New York, is renowned for an ever-evolving abstract practice with roots in Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, and calligraphic traditions. Throughout his lyrical canvases, Marden paints colourful networks of serpentine lines that flow hypnotically throughout the picture plane. He sometimes replaces his paintbrush with a stick, giving his lines a more organic appearance. Such interest in line, gesture, and material experimentation is at the heart of Marden’s drawing and painting practices; early in his career, he painted with a kitchen spatula.

First hardcover edition, VG—Near Fine. VG—NF dust jacket.

File under: Brice Marden Dieter Schwarz Michael Semff Richter Verlag / Dusseldorf Art Painting Drawing Out-of-print / Rare Minimal Art

Alexandra Bircken
SomaSemaSoma

2025, English / German
Softcover, 160 pages, 28 x 21 cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$68.00 - In stock -

(more...)

(...less)

This publication offers backstage access to one of the most compelling artistic outputs exploring the boundary between the human body and the machine.

Alexandra Bircken combines a variety of materials and techniques with which she explores the boundary between the human and the created environment. At the same time, the Berlin-based artist dissects everyday technical objects with surgical precision, bringing the biomorphic nature of machines into view. This dual approach leads to an ambivalent work that is both cyborg-like and androgynous and questions human behaviour and desire. This book brings together Bircken's work from the past twenty years, along with an in-depth interview with the artist and a selection of reference and archive images collected over three decades.

File under: Alexandra Bircken Paul Bernard Selma Meuli Kathleen Rahn Bruno Marchand Walther König / Köln Art Sculpture / Installation

New :