Cover image from Hiroshi Sugimoto's In Praise of Shadows (1999), in which he uses long exposure photography to capture abstract images of flickering candles. See number 17 below. Harper's Books: January SelectionsBelow, our 22 monthly selections; a range of books, ephemera, and other printed matter relating to art, photography, modern literature, and design. Follow the links for additional images and purchasing options. To browse similar materials, visit Harper's Books at 504 West 22nd Street and our East Hampton gallery at 87 Newtown Lane. 01. Charlie Ahearn and Kazu Kuzui Wild Style! A Message from New York Ghetto South Bronx Tokyo: JICC, 1983. First Edition. Small quarto. First Edition. Japanese publication documenting the cultural context and background for Charlie Ahearn's 1981 hip-hop film Wild Style, which was released in Japan in 1983. Thoroughly illustrated, with sections on graffiti (including photos from Fun Gallery exhibitions), break-dancing, street fashion, and DJs/MCs. Most text in Japanese, with a few English-language translations, including a statement from Ahearn. Shallow crease to front cover, else near fine in illustrated wrappers with minor rubbing. Scarce, even in Japan, with a single OCLC record located (Cornell). $2750.00 02. Mamma Andersson Aspen, CO: Aspen Art Museum, 2010. First Edition. Octavo. An elegant catalogue, published on the occasion of Mamma Andersson's first solo museum exhibition in the United States (Dec. 10, 2010 – Feb. 6, 2011); SIGNED by Andersson to title page on opening night. Featuring more than 60 color reproductions of her haunting paintings of interiors and landscapes and accompanied by texts from Heidi Zuckerman Jackson ("Save me from this Darkness"), Laura Hoptman ("Mamma Andersson: Raise a Glass to the Middle Class (Increasingly Visible only through the Rearview Mirror)" and Dominic Molon ("Contemporary Painting's Spectral Liberty"). Fully-illustrated perfectbound wrappers, with embossed lettering to front panel. Minor rubbing; near fine. $175.00 03. Richard Avedon In the American West: 1979-1984 (Inscribed) New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985. First Edition. Folio. INSCRIBED by Avedon and dated in the year following publication. Avedon's paean to the bleak frontier spirit of a changing America, with 109 full-page black-and-white portraits of cowboys, drifters, grave diggers, and one gatefold depicting a group of coal miners in Wyoming. Designed by Marvin Israel and Elizabeth Avedon, with essay by Laura Wilson. (Parr / Badger, v2, 38). This copy close to fine in brown boards, with images mounted on both front and back covers. In a near fine copy of the original publisher's acetate, rubbed as usual. $950.00 04. Walter von Beirendonck and Juergen Teller Mutilate (Deluxe Edition, Inscribed) Gent: Imschoot, Uitgevers, 1997. Deluxe Edition. Octavo. One of 50 numbered copies, SIGNED, numbered, and inscribed by Walter van Beirondonck to front endpaper: "Kiss / the Future! / Walter. / XXX." An over-the-top spiral-bound lookbook from the Belgian fashion designer, with splashy foldouts, die-cut pages, and moveable parts. Featuring the section "Slit Personalities," where a dozen fits from various seasonal collections can be mixed-and-matched by the reader, with heads, torsos, and legs split into horizontal thirds. Designed by Paul Boudens, with a number of photographs credited to Juergen Teller. A fine copy in stiff spiral-bound wrappers, with working zippers mounted to the hot pink cover to form a face. Still preserved in original packaging, neatly opened; two plastic sheets that protect the covers, with Kraft paper wrapping labeled with edition number and van Beirendonck's initials in pencil. $850.00 05. Leonard Cohen New York: Viking Press, 1966. First American Edition. Octavo. Leonard Cohen's ecstatic second novel, written on the Greek island of Hydra; "more of a sunstroke than a book," he once quipped. Minor toning to endpapers, else a fine copy in black cloth boards. In unclipped illustrated jacket; with minor toning and edge-wear, else near fine. A handsome copy. $650.00 06. Keith Haring Matrix 75: Keith Haring / New York City Subway Drawings, 1983 Hartford: Matrix / Wadsworth Atheneum, 1983. First Edition. Octavo. Published on the occasion of the 75th iteration of the famed Matrix series of contemporary art exhibitions at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, focused on the subway drawings of Keith Haring and related photographs from Tseng Kwong Chi (June 5 – Aug. 7, 1983). Contents: 10 pp., illustrated after black-and-white Tseng photos, along with a beautiful 4 pp. fold-out with Haring's drawings printed to bright blue paper. A fine copy in photo-illustrated self-wrappers. Scarce. $1000.00 07. Keizo Kitajima Shashin Tokkyubin Okinawa [Photo Mail from Okinawa (No. 3): Play Map of GT. Street] Tokyo: Parole-sha, 1980. First Edition. Stapled quarto. The third of four volumes of Keizo Kitajima's Photo Mail from Okinawa, published to coincide with his show at Daido Moriyama's Camp Gallery and predating Kitajima's work in book form. This gritty magazine, fully-illustrated after black-and-white photos on glossy paper, characterizes the evolution of Japanese photography from out of the Provoke era. While Kitajima retains some of Provoke's hallmarks, his emphasis is more on people and less on abstraction. His images of a seedy Okinawa evoke a Punk, or even Hip Hop, sensibility, forming the genesis of the New York work for which he is best known. A near fine copy in stapled photo-illustrated wrappers. Scarce. $950.00 08. Rem Koolhaas Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. First Edition. Quarto. Koolhaas's immensely influential "retroactive manifesto" for Manhattan architecture—perhaps equally famous for its now-iconic cover image, illustrated by Koolhaas' wife, Madelon Vriesendorp. In this surreal architectural drama, Vriesendorp depicts the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings together in bed, wilting in post-coital exhaustion, while the Rockefeller Center plays the jealous husband, emerging from a doorway at stage left to shine a spotlight onto the guilty couple. A near fine copy in pink boards with black lettering. Illustrated jacket with minor rubbing and short edge-tears, else also near fine. A pleasing copy. $950.00 09. Barbara Kruger [Two Announcement Cards for Early Solo Exhibitions] New York: Annina Nosei Gallery, 1984/1986. A pair of announcement postcards for early Barbara Kruger solo exhibitions at Annina Nosei's Prince Street Gallery (Mar. 10 – Apr. 14, 1984 and Feb. 8 – Mar. 2, 1986). With rectos fully illustrated after black-and-white details from her works (Surveillance is Your Busywork and You Colonize Lacerated Objects, respectively). Minor scuffing to postcards; near fine. $350.00 10. Yayoi Kusama Hustlers Grotto: Three Novellas (Signed) Berkeley, CA: Wandering Minds Books, 1998. First American Edition. Octavo. SIGNED by Kusama to title page, in the year of publication. Featuring translations of three of Yayoi Kusama's novellas, revolving around themes of castration fantasy, hallucinations, and suicidal ideation: "The Hustlers Grotto of Christopher Street" (originally published in 1983), "Foxgloves of Central Park" (1992), and "Death Smell Acacia" (1984); each translated by Ralph McCarthy. A fine copy in illustrated wrappers, which reproduce Kusama's Sex Obsession (1992), with a 1964 portrait of Kusama incorporated into the design of the rear cover. $750.00 11. Piero Manzoni and Germano Celant Piero Manzoni: Catalogo Generale (Two Volumes in Slipcase) Milano: Skira, 2004. First Edition. Quarto. A two volume catalogue rasionné for the work of Piero Manzoni, edited by famed curator Germano Celant. The first volume featuring a series of Celant's texts on Manzoni, printed in both Italian and English, accompanied by lavish color reproductions of Manzoni's works. The second volume with descriptive catalogue of 1144 works, illustrated in black-and-white, with lengthy biography, exhibition history, and bibliography. Minor rubbing to cloth spines, with illustrated laminate boards; near fine. In illustrated cardboard slipcase, with some rubbing, also near fine. $500.00 12. Joan Miró / Pierre Matisse Gallery Miró: "Peintures Sauvages," 1943 to 1953 New York: Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1958. First edition. Slim quarto. Exhibition catalogue from New York's Pierre Matisse Gallery, featuring a striking lithographic cover design by Joan Miró. Printed in Paris. Contents: [32] pages, thoroughly illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of Miró's paintings, interspersed with a lengthy essay from James Fitzsimmons. Descriptive catalogue of exhibited works at rear. Bright lithographic wrappers, side-stapled, with minor offsetting to rear wrapper; near fine. $150.00 13. Elizabeth Peyton Elizabeth Peyton: Live Forever (Inscribed) Tokyo: Composite Press, 1997. First Edition. Octavo. This copy INSCRIBED by Peyton to front endpaper in red ink: "15 April 1998 / To Andy / Save Love / Live Forever / Love / Elizabeth Peyton." The first collection of Elizabeth Peyton's portraits of musicians, friends, and historical figures; published in Japan, with 78 color reproductions. Further illustrated by a series of her photographs at rear, from which many of her portraits derived. Accompanied by a critical text from David Rimanelli and a poetic text from Gavin Brown, under his pseudonym Meicost Ettal. A fine copy in thick boards with glossy illustrated spine, which reproduces a detail from her delicate portrait of Kurt Cobain. $500.00 14. Gerhard Richter Goslar: Edition Mönchehaus-Museum, 1988. First Edition. Artist's book published on the occasion of Gerhard Richter being awarded the 1988 Goslarer Kaiserring. Contents: [24] pages, with commemorative text from Dieter Honisch (in German), illustrated after 10 of Richter's out-of-focus photographs of Goslar, which he created especially for this booklet. (Butin, 63). Near fine copy, in stapled illustrated wrappers. Scarce, with only 4 OCLC records located in North America. $250.00 15. Edward Ruscha and Melissa Feldman (publisher) New York: Creative Time, 1985. First Edition. Thin folio. SIGNED by Ed Ruscha on the front cover, underneath the drawing that he was commissioned to design for this Creative Time production. (Engberg & Phillpot, M55). Faint creasing along the spine and a touch of soiling to the back cover along the spine, else near fine in side-stapled illustrated wrappers. $450.00 16. Amy Sillman Boston: The Institute of Contemporary Art / Prestel: DelMonico Books, 2013. First Edition. Quarto. Published on the occasion of the traveling exhibition curated by Helen Molesworth, originating at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (Oct. 3, 2013 – Jan. 5, 2014). Thoroughly illustrated in color, with a number of scholarly essays. A facsimile of vol. 7 of Sillman's zine The O.G. is pasted-in towards rear. Some marginal toning to pages, else a near fine copy in purple boards in a fine illustrated jacket. $200.00 17. Hiroshi Sugimoto CCA Kitakyushu and Korinsha Press, 1999. First Edition. Spiral-bound octavo. An artist's book featuring 20 long exposure photographic images, printed on acetate plates, capturing the various states of flickering candles, interleaved with plain white cards. A color folding plate at rear depicts Sugimoto's related installation at the Center for Contemporary Art, Kitakyushu. Near fine in illustrated spiral-bound boards, with minor blemish to top of spine. Complete with black paper slipcase with silver titles, also near fine. $500.00 18. Ed Templeton Japan: Super Labo, 2009. First Edition. Octavo. A fully-illustrated zine from Templeton, featuring a series of his photographs, mainly of skateboarders, some in color. Edition of 500 copies. A fine copy in photo-illustrated stapled wrappers. $150.00 19. Wolfgang Tillmans Why We Must Provide HIV Treatment Information (Inscribed) Muizenberg, South Africa: Treatment Action Campaign / London: HIV i-Base, [2006]. First Edition. Slim quarto. Contents: [94] pages. Boldly INSCRIBED by Tillmans in pencil across the inside cover (dated 2008). Report from an international HIV treatment literacy meeting held in Cape Town, concluding with a primer on then-available drugs and methodologies. Thoroughly-illustrated after color photographs from Wolfgang Tillmans, who helped produce the book along with Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and London's HIV i-Base, with funding from Taschen. Some rounding to corners of illustrated wrappers and dull scratches to front and rear panels. A better than very good copy, with warm inscription. Uncommon, especially signed. $650.00 20. Cy Twombly, Salvatore Scarpitta, et al Near Catastrophe: Novelli, Perilli, Scarpitta, Twombly, Vandercam (Exhibition Poster) Rome: Galleria La Tartaruga, 1959. Announcement poster for Cy Twombly's second group show at Rome's Galleria La Tartaruga in the same year, exhibiting along with Gastone Novelli, Achille Perilli, Salvatore Scarpitta, and Serge Vandercam. Printed recto/verso to glossy sheet (19.5 x 11.5 inches); here folded in thirds. With one work from each artist reproduced in black-and-white to verso. Minor scuffing at margins, with some wear at folds, but else a near fine copy of a scarce survival. $750.00 21. Andy Warhol The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). (Signed with Drawing) New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. First Edition. Octavo. This copy SIGNED by Warhol on half-title page, alongside his drawing of a Campbell's soup can. Warhol waxes philosophical on a wide range of topics: love, beauty, art, death, fame. Near fine, with minor discoloration to ends of boards, in a better than very good jacket, with some edge-wear and diagonal chip to top of rear panel. $3500.00 22. Andy Warhol Andy Warhol: A Print Retrospective (Framed Announcement Card) New York: Castelli Graphics, 1981. Folding announcement card (7.5 inches square) for a retrospective exhibition of Warhol's graphic works at Leo Castelli (Nov. 21 – Dec. 22, 1981), with front panel illustrated after a bright pink Marilyn (1967). A near fine copy, archivally hinged in white lacquer frame with UV plexiglass (12 inches square). $1500.00 HARPER'S BOOKS HARPER'S CHELSEA 512 HARPER'S CHELSEA 534 HARPER'S APARTMENT HARPER'S EAST HAMPTON HARPER'S LOS ANGELES |