Nightcleaners & '36 to '77
Published by Raven Row, London; LUX, London and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2018, box containing a book (148 pages) and booklet (84 pages) and two discs (DVD), (colour & b/w ill.), 21.6 × 30.4 cm, English
Price: €25 (Temporarily out of stock)

Nightcleaners (1975) by the Berwick Street Film Collective has long been recognised as a landmark of British experimental film and political cinema. Together with its companion film ’36 to ’77 (1978), it pioneered a film form as radical as the Collective’s politics. The films chronicle one of the key campaigns of the women’s movement in the 1970s. The campaign to unionise women night cleaners in London anticipates contemporary issues regarding precarious labour. To celebrate the first digital release of the films, a special box set has been produced containing the two films on disc, reproductions of historical material, including news sheets of the women’s movement – one designed by Mary Kelly, a member of the Film Collective, an interview with whom is also included as well as rare illustrations and contributions from the filmmakers.

Designed by John Morgan studio.

#2018 #johnmorganstudio #ravenrow #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
From Cross To Crib
Paul Thek
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2014, 112 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 22 × 28 cm, English / German
Price: €28 (Out of stock)

This publication is devoted to a little-known temporary artwork of Thek’s, made in the winter of 1973/74 while he was a guest of the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg. His expansive environment Ark, Pyramid–Christmas (“The Manger”) filled a whole room. This exhibition, organised by the director of the museum at the time, Siegfried Salzmann, was the fourth in Thek’s series of atmospheric, large-scale projects in Europe, which engaged with individualised religious symbols. The festive period provided Thek with the occasion to present, for the first time, a self-written theatre piece in the form of a nativity play featuring children from Duisburg. A great quantity of original material and documents have been discovered in the museum’s repository and enable a reconstruction of the exhibition in this book, accompanied by an interview that Marietta Franke conducted with Franz Deckwitz, who helped with the installation in 1973.

#2014 #paulthek #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Falce e martello/The Hammer and Sickle
Enzo Mari
Published by Humboldt Books, Milan, 2020, 128 pages (b/w ill.), 14.8 × 21 cm, English / Italian
Price: €18 (Temporarily out of stock)

Falce e martello: tre dei modi con cui un artista può contribuire alla lotta di classe (“Hammer and Sickle: three of the ways an artist can contribute to the class struggle”) by Enzo Mari was the catalogue that accompanied his exhibition at the Galleria Milano in 1973. Today, the exhibition is re-proposed, with the same display and in the same historical Milanese gallery; this anastatic reprint of the catalogue is enriched with photographs and documents from the archives of the Gallery and from the Mari Archive, along with an essay by Bianca Trevisan which retraces the planning itinerary undertaken by the Milanese artist and designer, and an essay by Riccardo Venturi outlining the historical, artistic and political debate that the project was part of, and which was accompanied by a film that sparked a degree of controversy at the time. A snapshot of that tinderbox which was 1970s Italy, and a reflection on the hammer and sickle: the most iconic symbol of the whole of the twentieth century.

#2020 #enzomari #humboldtbooks
Selected Poems
Mary Ruefle
Published by Wave Books, Seattle, 2011, 176 pages, 15.3 × 22.7 cm, English
Price: €16 (Temporarily out of stock)

Now in paperback, a career-defining retrospective by a much-beloved contemporary master. Mary Ruefle’s Selected Poems gathers together the finest work from her distinguished and inimitable poetic career, showcasing the arc of her development as one of the most brilliant, expert and hilarious practitioners of the art. Anyone who wishes for poetry to be both richly challenging and thoroughly entertaining, need look no further than this capacious retrospective.

#2011 #maryruefle #poetry #wavebooks
Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959–1979
Published by Primary Information, New York, 2020, 480 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 20.3 × 22.7 cm, English
Price: €29 (Out of stock)

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 50 writers and artists from Europe, Japan, Latin America, and the United States selected by editors Alex Balgiu and Mónica de la Torre.

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 recognized 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.

Artists and writers include; Ana Bella Geiger, Mira Schendel, Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Ilse Garnier, Mirtha Dermisache, Mary Ellen Solt, Susan Howe, Liliane Lijn, Hannah Weiner, Irma Blank, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, Chima Sunada, Katalin Ladik amongst others. Designed by Scott Ponik.

#2020 #anabellageiger #concretepoetry #hannahweiner #irmablank #katalinladik #maryellensolt #miraschendel #mirthadermisache #primaryinformation #ruthwolfrehfeldt #scottponik #susanhowe #tomasobinga
Clairvoyant Journal 1974
Hannah Weiner
Published by Bat Editions, Paris, 2014, 56 pages (b/w ill.), 24 × 33 cm, English
Price: €15

Clairvoyant Journal 1974 by Hannah Weiner (1928–1997) is based on the typescripts Early and Clairvoyant Journals and includes the entries dated February 23 to June 10. This new edition of Clairvoyant Journal features an “Afterword” by Patrick Durgin, which completes his study on Hannah Weiner’s “clair-style” writing (“BIG SENSIBLE, Introductory Remarks on Clairvoyant Journal”) previously published on www.f-u-t-u-r-e.org.

With Clairvoyant Journal, Hannah Weiner writes a specific form of diary, using the characteristics of typographic styles (roman, italic and CAPITAL) to present an inner discussion between three separate voices. Clairvoyant Journal also gives an insight into the daily life of a writer living in New York in the 1970s, evoking a poetic, musical, and artistic scene, yoga and a poetical experience.

#2014 #concretepoetry #hannahweiner