Biographies / autobiographies

In this deeply personal volume, Simone Fattal's close friend and confidante Hans Ulrich Obrist delves into the artist's past to explore the remarkable breadth of her body of work.

An autobiographical account and uncompromising meditation on the meaning of design, in the voice of the man who represented the ethical and political conscience of the discipline in the second half of the 20th century.

An essential guitarist for over forty years, and an enlightened partner to John Zorn, Tom Waits and John Lurie, Marc Ribot composes here, through memories, short stories and essays, a self-portrait of rare originality.

In this first critical volume and biography of the Indian artist Lalitha Lajmi (1932–2023), author Skye Arundhati Thomas delves into Lajmi's archives, papers, letters, and sketchbooks in pursuit of clues about the artist's character and path.

A partly autobiographical novel that the German surrealist artist and author Unica Zürn (1916-1970) wrote for her ten-year-old daughter in 1953, although it would never be published in her lifetime. This is the first translation of the tale from German into English.

This critical biography guides readers through artist Magda Stawarska's practice via a series of journeys—from the streets of Istanbul to the canals of Venice and across the waters of Zanzibar.

The story/manifesto of an architect's life: a re-reading of Gilles Perraudin's career by himself, enabling us to retrace the path of a thought in perpetual motion.

This monographic essay explores Iris Clert, an unclassifiable and emblematic figure of the 1960s artistic avant-garde.

The culmination of a multidisciplinary project developed over ten years, where Miquel Mont blends real and fictional autobiographical elements to explore the economy of affects.

The fifth volume of the bie bao series presents Ilya Zdanevich's fictional auto-biographical writings based on his one-year stay in Istanbul in 1921.

A picaresque memoir written from inside the heart of the revolutionary twentieth century by one of its most crucial witnesses.

This latest book—part of a ten-volume series that began with Léman in 1990—takes up and redistributes the elements of an investigation whose main material is autobiographical. The author restores an imaginary "childhood" that he writes about in a poetic attempt to understand it, and never ceases to "become".

Wesley Brown narrates the day when trumpeter Miles Davis was assaulted by the New York Police Department. A dramatic and humorous story, told from multiple perspectives including that of Frances Taylor, Davis's wife, and the musicians in Davis's bands: a timely meditation on the psychological impact of police brutality, through the lens of a day in the life of Miles Davis.

The life and work of the precursor of happening and streaking in Japan, Itoi Kanji (aka Dadakan, 1920-2021): the first comprehensive chrono-biographical study in Western language on the great Japanese Dadaist nudist ascetic, with a rare iconography.

New expanded edition of an essential text for defining the thought of composer Pierre Henry (1927-2017): a musical biography in the sense of a diary and an autobiography in forty-two sequences that accompanied him in various forms between 1977 and 2005 (audio download link included).

Writer Inge Bondi sheds fresh light on the life of her close friend and colleague, the Austrian American photographer Ernst Haas (1921–86), an early innovator in color photography, whom she first met in New York's Magnum offices in 1951.

In this memoir, Harlem-born trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah recounts decades of national and international touring with the Sun Ra Arkestra and charts the rise of New York loft jazz scene, offering a fascinating portrait of advanced music in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan from the 1970s through the 1990s.

Igor Terentiev's biography of Ilya Zdanevich published in 1919 in Tbilisi.

A very personal text by Yann Chateigné Tytelman, curator and critic, who establishes a link between his past, his childhood and his career as a curator, his artistic choices, his exhibitions, often in connection with the theme of silence.

An experience of introspection, an epistemological reflection and an act of resistance in the face of depersonalization, around the question of the name.

First Arabic translation of Virginie Despentes' cult book King Kong Theory.

An autobiographical artist-talk as a performance delivered from the artist's bed over Zoom.

The oral and visual autobiography of one of American photography’s most legendary figures.

A sketch history of the 1980s American home-taping and electronic music scene through the career of sound artist, field recordist, percussionist, and visual artist Jeph Jerman.

A life, between art and cinema (the Swiss film curator’s visual autobiography, with guest appearances from Fassbinder, Warhol, Waters and many more).

A poetic journey through the anxious spaces of memory, explored here by one of the most powerful voices of Mediterranean poetry of his generation.

A very personal literary narrative, with a singular writing, of a migrant's experience of wandering and borders.

The French choreographer looks back on his career in a very personal text, both playful and poetic.

The English translation of Zdanevich's Dadaist autobiographical lecture in Paris in 1922, where he adopts the name Iliazda. In this entertaining lecture, the achievements of the avant-garde is presented as a combination of zaum, polymorphous sexuality, aleatory forms and scatological interpretation of culture.

The first comprehensive monograph of the art and life of Iranian American artist of Armenian descent Sonia Balassanian: in this deeply personal portrait, author Dr. Omar Kholeif weaves together poetry, memoir, and historical anecdote to trace the contours of Balassanian's world.

Raphaël Minnesota retraces the career and explores the whole oeuvre of Patrice Kirchhofer (1953-2019), one of the most mysterious and mythical filmmakers of French experimental cinema.

Wesley Brown narrates the day when trumpeter Miles Davis was assaulted by the New York Police Department. A dramatic and humorous story, told from multiple perspectives including that of Frances Taylor, Davis's wife, and the musicians in Davis's bands: a timely meditation on the psychological impact of police brutality, through the lens of a day in the life of Miles Davis.

A novel by Liam Gillick.

The fascinating story of Jack Goldstein, the beginnings of CalArts, and some of the illustrious fellows who, in the 1970s and 1980s, led the transition from conceptual art to the Pictures Generation, paints an uncompromising picture of the art world then and now.

A history of the museum of modern art, exhibitions and discourses on art and its public in the 20th century, from the trajectory of Jean Cassou (1897-1986), writer, resistance fighter, art critic, poet and chief curator of thenational museum for modern art of France from 1945 to 1965.

The first book to examine the life and work of the fascinating figure of Saul Bass, exploring the designer's revolutionary career and his lasting impact on the entertainment and advertising industries.

The first published fiction text by art critic and author Camille Azaïs, which questions the return to the home of American women since the 2010s.

A collection of biographical and musical essays about composer-performer Julius Eastman—a compelling portrait of Eastman's enigmatic and intriguing life and music.

A celebration of the 40 years of career of electropop pioneers.

The biography of the singer and performer Mikami Kan, figure of the Japanese underground scene, with two unreleased concerts on CD.

The life and work of Amercian experimental musician/composer/intermedia artist Jerry Hunt (1943-1993)—an intimate portrait of a lifetime spent with one of the most eccentric figures in the world of new music