Art Basel

Nobuyoshi Araki
Senchimentaru no Tabi. (Sentimental Journey), 1971
1882

9 1/4 x 9 1/4 in. (23.5 x 23.5 cm)

Tokyo: Privately printed, 1971. Araki is a major celebrity, but when this book was self-published in 1971, he was unknown. It is a photo diary of Araki's honeymoon, including an image of a gravestone that provides an eerie foreshadowing of a later book chronicling his wife's death. All the elements that make Araki a world-class photographer are on full display here: the juxtaposition of the erotic and the banal, the expressionless beauty of modern Japanese life, the unadorned image, reduced to its bare necessity. Sentimental Journey is one of the most important Japanese photobooks published. After hundreds of books and significant fame, it remains Araki's best and most influential work.

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Miquel Barcelo
El Libro de los Ciegos( Book of the Blind), 1993
4222-BK

With text in braille by Evgen Bavcar(a blind photographer from Slovenia). 80 pages with 48 lithographs, some with added amber varnish on thick wove paper pubished in Paris. Edition of 50 signed copies, this copy is exquisity bound with a goat skin binding and an alabaster cover made to reflect the surface of a canvas of the artist.

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Alighiero Boetti
I Mille Fiumi PiÁ¹ Lunghi del Mondo (Progetto) (Classifying the thousand longest rivers in the world), 1977
10243-BK

8 3/8 x 6 3/8 x 2 1/8 in. (21.5 x 16.5 x 5.5 cm)

Deluxe issue with hand sewn cover. Printed by Boetti in Ascoli Piceno, 1977. Text by Anne-Marie Sauzeau-Boetti. 1006 pages.
Boetti worked with Anne-Marie Sauzeau on this book for over seven years. The desire to reduce the world to the binary logic of “right or wrong” may well be an acrobatic feat of highly refined, abstract intelligence but it is knowledge that bypasses the world. At the time, the world’s rivers hadn’t been measured and measurements fluctuated substantially, regarding not only the source, but even the course and the mouth of the rivers. Fluctuations up to 100 miles in length were no exception. In the book, each page is devoted to one river with a factual list of its technical data. The book conveys metaphor, process, and reality. This copy is #31 of 150 deluxe copies, with hand-sewn cover. Ex-collection Umberto Morera.

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Alighiero Boetti
I Mille Fiumi Pi√π Lunghi del Mondo (Progetto) (Classifying the thousand longest rivers in the world), 1977
7371-BK

8 3/8 x 6 3/8 x 2 1/8 in. (21.5 x 16.5 x 5.5 cm)

Printed by Boetti in Ascoli Piceno, 1977. Text by Anne-Marie Sauzeau-Boetti. Edition with red cover, numbered; 1006 pages. Produced over seven years, Boetti collaborated on this book with art critic Anne-Marie Sauzeau. Boetti had a keen interest in the relationship between chance and order, numbers and the world in various means of organization and classification, and the ways in which cultural order is imposed on the complexities of nature. Known to many scientists as “Boetti List,” the thousand plus-page book categorizes a thousand waterways in order of their length according to the most reliable documentary sources at the time. Each page is devoted to one river with a factual list of its technical data. The book conveys metaphor, process, reality—at once poetic and scientific. Edition of 500 copies.

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Irma Boom
Hommage √”  Kelly, 2016
09823-BK

8 x 6 in. (20.3 x 15.2 cm)

Designed as a tribute to one of her inspirations, the minimal artist Ellsworth Kelly, who passed recently. The enormous 1,216-page volume of offset pure color blocks is encased in a clamshell black box and printed in a limited edition of only 99 copies, each signed and numbered in pencil. Amsterdam: Slewe Gallery. This is copy #95.

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Marcel Broodthaers
La Conqu√™te de l'espace, Atlas √”  l”šÁ„Á´usage des artistes et des militaires, (The conquest of space, atlas for the use of artists and the military), 1975
6343-BK

1 7/16 x 15/16 in. (3.8 x 2.5 cm)

38 pages in slipcase, offset lithograph, containing silhouettes of a selection of 32 countries of the world shrunk to the same scale as Belgium, with no difference in size, arranged alphabetically. Published by Edition Lebeer Hossmann, Brussels and Hamburg. A tiny and most rare important final artist's book by Broodthaers that plays on language, scale, and function—it is transportable, but useless. This book was published shortly before the artist's unexpected death in 1976 thus all copies remain unsigned and are stamped “Estate M Broodthaers” and numbered by the publisher. Number 17 of 50 copies.

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Herman De Vries
Rationale Strukturen, 1967
10461-BK

18 7/8 x 18 7/8 in. (48 x 48 cm)

14 white sheets in grey printed portfolio; on the first sheet is a preface by Siegfried Maser, followed by 13 embossed prints, each signed on the reverse.
Publisher: edition hansjörg mayer, stuttgart
Edition 40, signed and 26 numbered a-z. This is an unnumbered copy.
De Vries liked to strip things away to the bone, to achieve almost total negation by using whiteness in the work, with no visible typography, thus achieving a sort of presence in absence.

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Enzo Mari
OGETTO A COMPOSIZIONE AUTOCONDOTTA (Self-composed object), 1959
8482-SC

10 x 10 x 1 15/16 in. (25.5 x 25.5 x 5 cm)

Wood, Glass and paint; signed in ink. Publisher: Galleria del Deposito, Genoa. Edition of 100. Using a series of three related and repeated elements of squares, triangles and rhombi with equal bases inside a square space with one rectangular bar, Enzo Mari produces a natural phenomena engaging the viewer's participation. The rotation of the square produces infinite combinations. References: "Enzo Mari, modelli del reale", Mazzotta, Milan, 1988, p. 46 Avossa Antonio and Francesca Picchi, "Enzo Mari, il lavoro al centro ", Electa, Milan, 1999, p. 73

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Barry McGee
Drypoint on Acid, 2006
1075

7 3/4 x 6 1/4 in. (20 x 16 cm)

Portfolio of 10 prints in a variety of printmaking techniques and collaged silkscreen additions; in a wood box with silkscreen on lid.
Published by Edition Jacob Samuel, Santa Monica, CA.
These images employ collage elements from the artist’s vast collection of old industrial printed paper, which he embellishes with his own images depicting those who live on the margins of society.

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Daido Moriyama
Nippon Gekijo Shashincho (Japan A Photo Theater), 1968
2185

8 1/4 x 8 5/8 in. (21 x 22 cm)

Paperback, title printed on the green cover, in its original cardboard slipcase. 149 black and white photographs printed using the heliogravure method. Text by Shuji Terayama. This is the first publication entirely devoted to Moriyama's work. Images are violent and dark. Deeply influenced by William Klein's New York, Moriyama transforms texture, contrast, deformation, the accidental, and abstraction into a visual language representative of the Provoke movement in Japan.

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Giulio Paolini
Cio che non ha limiti e che per sua stessa natura non Ammette limitazioni di sorta, (What doesn't have limits and what of his own nature does not allow limitation of any kind), 1968
10173-BK

9 3/4 x 7 in. (25 x 18 cm)

The book is derived from a work, "Titolo, 1968", consisting of two large canvases placed side by side like two pages of an open book. Paolini states: “I placed all the letters from written names in my notebook.” As curator and critic Germano Celant observes, a name is just an abstract characterization that coincides with the person. This copy is one of only six copies numbered with Roman numerals, V/VI, where the title is handwritten on the cover of the book. In the regular edition of 50 copies, the title is printed on the mylar dustcover.

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Adam Pendleton
Anthology #5, 2018
11882-BK

18 1/2 x 14 1/4 x 2 in. (47 x 36.2 x 5.1 cm)

Large folio with 200 compositions and a unique cover. Isolated photographs and fragments photocopied from the pages of books are layered with marks, dashes, patterns, shapes, and handwriting that frequently verges on abstraction. Each composition is unique, but many elements iterate and recombine throughout the series: masks, ceramics, phrases (“WHAT A DAY WAS THIS”; “IF THE FUNCTION”), and historical images related to modernism and decolonization in Africa. The book, which collates the works in chronological sequence, encourages readers to track these recurring components as they phase in and out across the book’s 200 pages. The compositions are directly related to Pendleton’s collages on mylar and the book translates and indexes these source collages which are usually printed on transparent film whereas in Anthology they have been silkscreened onto Shoji paper. Reflecting on the combinatorial nature of the compositions, each book has a unique cover: a patterned black-and-white canvas fabric, screen printed with one of four handwritten texts. pages.Copy n 5 of 24

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Dieter Roth
Stundenbilder (Hourly Photographs), 1977
11692-BK

4 x 6 in. (10.2 x 15.2 cm)

16 leather bound books containing a total of 305 signed photographs with hand written time stamping.
On January 1, 1977, at 1:00 a.m. in Chicago, Roth devised an ambitious photo project for which he planned to take one photograph every hour, 24 hours a day, for 365 days of a year: every hour a shot of what simply lay in front of him at that particular moment. Although he abandoned this idea in March he self-published a set of 16 books in readymade bindings in a small edition of 3 which documents the idea. It is one of the key works of conceptual artists’ books of its time and is a testament to how far ahead of his time Roth's ideas really were. A prescient precursor of Instagram!

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Dieter Roth
Book HB (2. Aufl.), 1973
9451-BK

15 x 15 in. (38 x 38 cm)

24 blue and orange hand-cut sheets with slots at 90, 75, and 60 degrees. With the 38cm square format, Roth goes back to smaller sized paper he started using in the early 1960s. This is copy 7 of the proposed edition of 25, signed and dated on title page.

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Dieter Roth
book fc, 1965
11453-BK

16 1/8 x 16 1/8 in. (41 x 41 cm)

Portfolio with 22 blue and orange sheets. Hand-cut slots at 45 and 90 degrees in various sizes. Hand written colophon by artist with an impression of his fingerprint. All sheets contained in black cloth cover box with “FC” in colors in the middle. Typed instructions are added, most probably typed by Roth himself. Inscription: “Handcut for Ives-Sillman”. Edition 4/50. Not recorded in Roth's Collected Works vol. 20.

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Dieter Roth
Book BB, 1964
7643-BK

15 3/4 x 15 5/8 x 5/8 in. (40.3 x 39.8 x 1.8 cm)

18 red and green sheets with hand-cut slots at 90 degrees in various sizes (0.2, 0.5, 1.0 1.5, 3.5 and 6.5cm). In black paper over board folder in publisher's black box with Diter Rot Edition MAT collection 64 on spine. "Diter Rot BOOK bb, IDEA 1958, sc. 1964 for MAT" with artist's fingerprint in black ink. This is copy 16 of the proposed edition of 50.

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Dieter Roth
book aa, 1960
7833-BK

15 x 15 in. (38 x 38 cm)

Portfolio of 18 sheets. black and white with handcut rectangular slots of different sizes, when arranged by viewer yields endless possiblities. This is the first of the series of these famous hand cut books. Published by Edition MAT in 1959 which was the brainchild of Daniel Spoerri and Karl Gerstner. The idea was to take an original art piece from an artist to be reproduced. This is the copy no. 30 with his fingerprint and dated Sept. 60. 38 X 38 cm. DR. CW. 20 # 4.

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Dieter Roth
book e, 1960
4408-BK

15 x 15 in. (38 x 38 cm)

22 black and white sheets with different cut out shapes, including trapezoids. Hand-cut slots at 75, 80, 87, 88, 89 and 90 degrees in various sizes. Hand written colophon by artist with an impression of his fingerprint. Copy 12 of 25. In his Collected Works vol. 20, Roth identifies only 20 copies completed.

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Dieter Roth
Manuscript letter from Roth to Andre Balthazar, 1960
4141-OR

14 1/2 x 7 5/8 in. (37 x 19.5 cm)

Double sided typed letter with pencil additions and two unique stamp drawings.

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Dieter Roth
Book T1, 1959
11343-BK

8 5/8 x 8 5/8 in. (22 x 22 cm)

Unique example of Roth's interactive artist book. 25 hand cut sheets with slots cut at angles (width of slots: 3,5,9,15, 30mm), 15 sheets colored (3 per each size) in red, blue, and yellow thick gels and 10 sheets being white (2 per each size). Title page pasted down with signature, date "oct 59", and artist's fingerprint onto black cut board with typewritten title on spine. Each sheet is 19x19cm with a custom card binding that is 22x22 with "diter rot book t1" on the spine.

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Thomas Ruff
World Wide Cloud
, 2018
12421-BK

18 5/8 x 15 1/8 x 2 3/4 in. (47.5 x 38.5 x 7 cm)

*container designed by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
For more than ten years now, Thomas Ruff has been gleaning the web for images to use in various series, including the one whose title he has taken from a common digital filename extension: jpeg (formed from the initials of Joint Photographic Experts Group). The resolution of these digital images is a function of the number of pixels they are composed of. Thomas Ruff uses grids of identical dimensions, which determine images of a constant digital “weight.” These grids constitute abstractions which, observed from a certain distance, produce traces of images extracted from an unnameable corpus. The images gathered in this work show billows of smoke, destined to disappear, whose causes â€~~ the events that produced themâ€~~ remain a matter of speculation. They are accompanied by a poem by Patrick Bouvet, which signals the ubiquity of a catastrophe “visible from” Bordeaux, the outskirts of Madrid, Algiers, Tripoli, Kobané, Washington… The upper face of the pinewood container designed by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron is covered by a printed image â€~~ specially produced for each copyâ€~~ representing the JPEG image of the wooden lid on which it is printed.

Each copy contains 10 original signed photographs (chromogenic prints)
Pinewood case
Text in French and English
Limited edition of 30 copies

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Ed Ruscha
Set of 16 books from Henry Hopkins, 1963-78
4377-BK

Set comprises 16 seminal books by the artist: Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Various Small Fires, Some Los Angeles Apartments, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Royal Road Test, Business Cards, Nine Swimming Pools, Crackers, Babycakes, Real Estate Opportunities, A Few Palm Trees, Dutch Details, Records, Colored People, and Hard Light. All signed or inscribed to Hopkins except Babycakes, which has the rare ”compliments of author card” signed "give to henry, Ed" from Ruscha enclosed. Hopkins was the curator at the LA County Museum in the 1960s and bought Ed's first painting for the museum. Henry Hopkins directed the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art before returning to UCLA, where he led the Wight Art Gallery and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Dimensions variable.

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Nakahira Takuma
Kitarubeki Kotoba no Tameni. For a Language to Come, 1970
2180

12 x 8 1/2 in. (30.5 x 21.6 cm)

Paperback with an illustrated cover and dust jacket. Original cardboard slipcase with title and name of author printed on the covering sticker. 103 black and white photographs printed using the heliogravure method. Text by Okada Takahido. Graphic concept by Kimura Tsunesisa. Nakahira was the instigator of the movement PROVOKE and, in a sense, its political conscience. This work reflects the best of the group's aspirational work even though it appeared well after they split up. Mainly nighttime photographs, these images taken between 1965-1970 have great expressive and lyrical force.

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Shomei Tomatsu
Oh Shinjuku., 1969
1931

Paperback with illustrated cover. 120 black and white photographs with the text by Shomei Tomatsu at the end of the publication. That this publication appeared at the same time as the second issue of Provoke is no coincidence. The photographer's exploration of the Shinjuku district focuses on similar subject matter, namely sex, drugs and underground lifestyles. Nevertheless, Tomatsu's work contrasts with that of Morriyama or Nakahira in its clarity and precision.

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Cy Twombly
Octavio Paz, Eight Poems, Cy Twombly, Ten drawings, 1993
5653-BK

13 1/8 x 10 in. (33.4 x 25.7 cm)

Complete set of four unsigned heliogravures in color by Cy Twombly and eight poems by Octavio Paz, hors-texte, title, justification, colophon, and reproductions of the artist's drawings, text in English and German, on smooth wove and laid papers, signed on the colophon by Paz and Twombly.
Published by Udo and Anette Brandhorst, Cologne.
100 copies of the Special Edition (the total edition was 1,000), bound in two volumes (as issued), with full margins, in excellent condition, original paper-covered portfolios, and original paper covered slipcase.

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Christopher Wool
Four Short Stories(4 parts), 2004
11783-BK

19 x 13 in. (48.3 x 33 cm)

A set of four color Inkjet prints on wove paper with full margins, printed by the artist, each one signed, dated, and numbered in pencil. Title sheet on copy paper. Published to benefit the Camden Arts Center in London. Edition of 65 copies.

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