Wednesday 9 May 2018

more roversi / mm magic. never seen this one before, yohji yamamoto s/s 1997. #paoloroversi #mmparis #yohjiyamamoto


more roversi / mm magic. never seen this one before, yohji yamamoto s/s 1997. #paoloroversi #mmparis #yohjiyamamoto


more roversi / mm magic. never seen this one before, yohji yamamoto s/s 1997. #paoloroversi #mmparis #yohjiyamamoto


Wako Book 1-5 / Wolfgang Tillmans



Edition : First / Tokyo / Wako Works of Art / 1999-2014 / Softcover. / VG+ / VG+
5 volumes, 4to, ca 80pp each. Printed wraps in semi transparent wrappers as issued, book 2 published in wraps without dustwrap. Numerous Colour and Black & White plates. Each volume printed in an edition of between 1200 and 1500 copies.

Ultra beautiful and quiet collections from Tillmans, who designed and edited them. A combination of still lives, scrap book-esque snapshots, fragments and process work with volumes 3 and 5 published to coincide with Litchler, and Affinity.

Les Images d'Antonioni / Carlo di Carlo



Edition : First / Rome / Cinecitta / 1992 / Softcover. / VG+
4to, Unpaginated (ca 128pp). Printed wraps. Numerous Colour Black & White plates. Text in English and French.

Stunning visual Antonioni monograph, comprising of set stills from almost all of his films, including Blow up, La Notte, L'Avventura and L'Eclisse. Very Monica Vitti heavy, with Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni and Alain Delon along with a who's who of the new wave. The work of Antonioni has always been exercise in elegant and subtle scenography, and the still images here exemplify this in a way that the moving image inherently cannot, making it an essential reference to his work.

Purple Prose no.1 / Elein Fleiss, Olivier Zahm et al.




Edition : First / Paris / Purple Books / 1993 / Softcover. / Near Fine
8vo, 64pp. Printed wraps. Numerous Black & White plates. Text in English and French.

The first issue of Purple Prose, which was more an organ for the personal ideas and tastes of Fleiss. With Kippenberger, Chaude Closky, Henry Bond, Dike Blair, poetry and post modern cultural theory.

Comme Des Garcons Furniture / Rei Kawakubo



Edition : First / Tokyo / Comme des Garcons / 1990 / Softcover. / Near Fine / VG+
4to, 2 volumes. Unpaginated (72pp & 8pp). Printed wraps. Black & White plates. Text in English and Japanese. OCLC traces no copies, though a few are known to exist, with one confirmed institutional holding.

Maybe the hardest to find, and most obscure comme reference- Comme des Garcons furniture was produced in 1990 as a simple book with no text, minimal art direction, and little in the way of explanation. 28 pieces, from No.1 - No.28, produced between 1983 and 1990, presented opposite their sources. Kawakubo's furniture could be seen to be post modern if it were not so minimal, she said herself the chairs had- 'an essence of simplicity and weren't made for your derriere, but for your admiration.' and that "Comme des Garcons furniture can come to its true essence when placed in an environment that is not too pretentious... ...One can enjoy them better when they are placed in, for instance, an entrance hall or hallway where there exists no constraint." Reputedly at the 1988 presentation in Chicago the furniture was to be placed in a large pile in the middle of the room, with more being supplied if the pile was too small. One can only imagine.

Teenage Precinct Shoppers / Nigel Shafran




Edition : First / New York / Dashwood Books / 2013 / Softcover. / VG+
8vo, Unpaginated (60pp). Printed wraps. Numerous Colour and Black & White plates. One of 500 copies. Small closed tear top spine.

The legendary Shafran project gets a proper printing. There are two series of portraits of teenagers combined here, a black and white series shot in Ilford town centre in the suburbs of East London which originally appeared in I-D magazine in 1990 and had an influence on a whole generation of London based photographers in the early nineties for it's stripped down no frills approach to portraiture and fashion. The second color series was shot both in Ilford Town Center and Brent Cross Shopping Centre, a shopping precinct (a British term for mall). As in all Shafran's work none of the details seem trivial. Instead the choices these teenagers make in hair and make-up in clothes and attitude reveal a sense of profundity.

Finlandia / Jouko Lehtola




Edition : First / Rouen / POC / 2004 / Softcover. / VG+
4to, 102pp. Printed wraps. Very small crease to ffep. Numerous Colour images. Text in Finnish, French and English.

"Jouko Lehtola is a Finnish photographer, born in Helsinki, and most widely known for his late-90s club series "Young Heroes." He is both angry and enthusiastic, and he excels at sussing out those same reactions in unexpected places--a tattooed biker sitting below a wall of gaily colored prize ribbons; kids in mohawks and girls with clownishly messy lipstick; men with sideburns and sunburns and two black eyes. Lehtola gets, it has been said, within smelling distance, and his viewers benefit." Harrowing and beautiful violence.

Coreennes / Chris Marker




Edition : First / Paris / Editions du Seuil / 1959 / Hardcover. / VG+
Large Oblong 8vo. 144pp. Laminate boards as issued. Black & White plates. Text in French. A little rubbing and scuffing to corners.

A key work in Marker's compex career. Already established as a journalist, and working with film makers and friends such as Alain Resnais, William Klein and Agnes Varda, in 1959 he travelled to North Korea as part of a delegation of journalists and observers. The resulting book was presented as a 'Court m'trage' or 'short film' divided into 9 chapters in collaboration with Juliette Caputo- and stands as an early example of his cine roman technique later used in 'commentaires' and translated into his most famous film 'La Jetee' in 1962- where words, space, frequency and image resonance all interplay into narrative. Coreennes also exemplifies Marker's earlier sentiments with the Petit Planete series he edited at Seuil, "Not a guidebook, not a history book, not a propaganda brochure, not a traveller's impressions, but instead equivalent to the conversation we would like to have with someone intelligent and well versed in the country that interests us.", a sentiment which would have greatly contrasted with the west's perceived image of North Korea in the late fifties. That the book appears so natural and effortless is only testament to Maker's mastery of image, text and narrative.

Mandala Zukan / Yoshiichi Hara





Edition : First / Tokyo / Banrou Sha / 1988 / Softcover. / VG+ / VG+
Square 8vo, 600pp. Printed wraps in Dustwrapper. Numerous Black & White plates.

A stunner from the very underrated Yoshiichi Hara. The main subject of his work was strippers and hostesses, but he also aces at street photography. This is quite probably the best of his books. Pretty unknown.