Unpaginated, printed on rectos only. Square 4to (155 x 155 mm.), printed softcover, title on spine. Luxembourg: Casino Luxembourg – forum d’art contemporain; Dijon: L’Office, Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Dijon, 2001.

Rare Stanley Brouwn (1935-2017) artist’s book, printed in an edition of 700. Text in English and French. The “imaginary column” — measured in “one old foot of Luxembourg = 295 mm.” — grows from 30 feet to 100.

A fine copy. Among American institutions we found just the example at the Art Institute of Chicago.

❧ Harry Ruhé, Stanley Brouwn: a chronology (2nd ed.: 2005). More

Unpaginated, printed on rectos only. Square 4to (155 x 156 mm.), printed softcover, artist’s name on spine. [Strasbourg]: Musée d’art moderne et contemporaine Strasbourg, 2001.

A rare artist’s book by Stanley Brouwn (1935-2017), from an edition of 600 copies. Text in English and French. Here the artist measures his steps in “one old foot of strasbourg = 298 mm.” He begins with 60 minutes of steps and concludes with 120 (as printed on the antepenultimate leaf).

Fine. We locate just three examples in North America.

❧ Harry Ruhé, Stanley Brouwn: a chronology (2nd ed.: 2005). More

Six pages of color paintings of species of sweet potatoes. 14 folding leaves. 8vo (267 x 190 mm.), orig. decorated semi-stiff wrappers, stitched as issued, manuscript title label on upper cover. [Japan]: late Edo.

Sweet potatoes are one of the glories of the Japanese table. The author of the text of this finely illustrated manuscript was the Nagasaki resident Tokitane Kohiga, mathematician and scholar of materia medica. The text was written in October 1805, and this is surely a later copy.

The sweet potatoes of Ryukyu (today, Okinawa) are famous. The potatoes came from China and began to be cultivated... More

Eight folding leaves. 8vo, orig. brown wrappers, new stitching. N.p.: Afterword dated 1833.

First edition and extremely rare; we find no copy in WorldCat. Sasaki (1785-1861), who studied medicine in Kyoto, was an official domain doctor in Sendai in northern Japan. He specialized in women’s illnesses at the local medical school and oversaw the preparation of drugs from its botanical garden. This work was written in response to the great Tenpo famine, which began in 1833 in the northern regions and spread throughout the island nation in the following years.

Sasaki based this book on several classic Chinese works of... More

58 finely colored images of eyes & two drawings of cataract surgery in the text. 19 folding leaves of text & 8 leaves of images. 8vo (235 x 162 mm.), orig. wrappers, stitched as issued. [Japan]: late Edo.

A finely illustrated manuscript on eye diseases. The text is divided into two sections. The first is concerned with 49 external eye maladies, and the second part deals with 18 diseases of the eye itself. Much of the text discusses eye surgeries, accompanied by lists of medicines appropriate for each procedure. The treatments include elements of Chinese medical practices, and we notice... More

Six fine black & white brush drawings in the text. 17 folding leaves. 8vo (268 x 200 mm.), orig. patterned semi-stiff wrappers, stitched as issued. From end of text (in trans.): “All the information came from Farmer Watanabe of Shimotsuki Province [today’s Tochigi Prefecture]…March 1814…copied by Yamamoto.”

Flax was, without any competitor, the most important of all vegetable fibers throughout the world until the close of the 18th century. Its refined fiber, linen, worn by peasants, was especially important in Japan, until cotton surpassed flax as the supreme vegetable fiber of commerce in the 19th century.

In this most attractive... More

Many color illus. 135 pp. Oblong 4to (212 x 300 mm.), pictorial semi-stiff wrappers. Buenos Aires: 2013.

First and only edition of the rare Carrión catalogue raisonné. This is an essential book for understanding Carrión’s life and work, not just for its recording of all of his known bookworks (unique and editioned), but also for the insightful essay by Heriberto Yepez, entitled “The Four Periods of Ulises Carrion,” published here for the first time and not reprinted since.

The catalogue records each of the artist’s books with several pictures, beginning with La Muerte de Miss O. (1966), then the final... More

Black & white illus. throughout. [112] pp. 8vo, pictorial softcover, title on spine. Berlin: Merve Verlag, 1980.

A rare Kippenberger artist’s book; printed in an edition of 1500 copies, according to Koch. Merve Verlag was an underground publishing firm founded in West Berlin in 1970 by a neo-Marxist collective led by Heidi Paris and Peter Gente. Merve focused on contemporary philosophy and radical political theory and this photography book was a surprising departure for the firm.

“The artist book with 114 uncommentated reproductions of portraits of women (some with the author) is not typical of the Berlin-based Merve Verlag publishing... More

36 color photographs, film negatives, and a printed price-list. San Francisco: 2000.

An extremely rare and complete example of Steven Leiber’s 38th catalogue, of which only approximately 47 copies were made and sent to his clientele. Each copy is unique. The catalogue was modeled after Dinos and Jake Chapman’s multiple Aygotic Exposure (1996). Leiber’s clients received a roll of film that they had to develop in order to view the catalogue’s offerings. The original roll is not present for obvious reasons. Leiber took the photographs in his grandmother’s home, casually staging the artworks around the house; his office and inventory... More

Very rare three-part publication by Martin Kippenberger (1953-97) memorializing his extensive travels around Brazil in 1985-86. Each was printed in an edition of approximately 600 copies, according to Koch. Among North American institutions, we found just three libraries with the complete three-volume set.

I: “In the series Endlich 1-3 [Finally 1-3] (published to accompany the exhibition Gib mir das Sommerloch [Give me the Silly Season] from 8 June to 4 July 1986 at the Galerie Erhard Klein in Bonn), Kippenberger published ‘the spoils’ of his journey to Brazil under the title ‘The Magical Misery Tour. Brazil December 15, 1985-March 12... More

Color illus. throughout. 50 pp. & plates. Large 4to, cloth-covered boards, pictorial dust-jacket, title on spine. Köln: Lenbachhaus München & Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2000.

An important and richly illustrated On Kawara exhibition catalogue that is now rather scarce. This show was devoted to Kawara’s I Got Up postcards. With texts by Ulrich Wilmes and Michel Butor in German, French, and English. More

12 black & white illus. [24] pp. Very tall 8vo (169 x 356 mm.), orig. printed wrappers (some sunning), staple-bound. Zurich: Bruno Bischofberger, 1969.

LeWitt’s second “autonomous” artist’s book – i.e., not connected to an exhibition or part of another publication. This is one of 1000 copies printed, all of which were numbered (ours is no. 924), there were also 500 copies signed by LeWitt.

49 three-part variations… was published by the Zurich gallerist Bruno Bischofberger, with whom LeWitt had his first solo presentation in February-March 1968. Bischofberger, along with Konrad Fischer and Heiner Friedrich, was one of the earliest... More