BACKWORKS, bookseller.

Catalogue No. C, Our Line of Very Expensive Merchandise.

Black & white illus. throughout. Two large folded newsprint sheets (=8 pp.), loose as issued, mailed. New York: 1978.

The rarest Backworks catalogue, their third and hard to find in good condition. WorldCat locates no examples in North America. Backworks was a New York-based collaboration between Barbara Moore and Jon Hendricks, specializing in documents and artifacts of avant-garde and experimental art. Located at 488 Greenwich Street, the store was active into the early 80s. In 1981, Hendricks left the partnership to become curator of the Fluxus collection formed by Gilbert and Lila Silverman (now at the Museum of Modern Art, New York), much of which had been purchased from Backworks.

This catalogue offers a dizzying array of artworks by artists such as Filliou, Spoerri, Brecht, Byars, Cage, Hansen, R. Johnson, Kaprow, Knowles, Ono, T. Saito, etc. There are a number of unique pieces, along with books, mixed-media pieces, and multiples.

In remarkably fine condition. WorldCat records just one copy, in the Netherlands.

❧ A. Desjardin, The Book on Books on Artists Books (2nd ed.: 2013) 423.

Price: $550.00

Item ID: 8891