dishevel books, an independent publisher of art-related titles with a bent for subjects sassy, scholarly and subversive …

Maurice O'Riordan photograph Coconut Grove Darwin

Maurice O’Riordan, De Latour Street, Coconut Grove, Darwin, 2023, digital photograph; © Maurice O’Riordan                             

Intro

Founded in 2023, dishevel books is an initiative of Darwin-based writer and curator Maurice O’Riordan. Maurice is a former editor of Art Monthly Australasia (2008-14) and director of Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin (2014-17). He currently works for Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education at Batchelor Press and as curator of the Institute’s Art Collection. Maurice has written extensively on the visual arts over the past three decades. He has curated/co-curated numerous exhibitions, the most recent being Gary Lee — midling (Coconut Studios, Darwin, 10 August - 9 September 2023) at which dishevel books launched its debut title, Heat: Gary Lee, selected writings, art & anthropology.

Dishevel books is not currently receiving book proposals or manuscripts.

Retailer and distributor enquiries are welcome.

midling: Larrakia language - 'together’           

Gary Lee, Frank, 2006, newly editioned 2023, type C print on Ilford cottonrag paper 25.95 x 31.94cm (paper); edition: 2 x A/P + 3; © Gary Lee; enquiries Coconut Studios, Darwin: www.coconutstudios.com                       

titles - current / forthcoming

$120 + postage/packaging-handling        first edition published August 2023                                     

Heat: Gary Lee, selected texts, art & anthropology        

Gary Lee, Keep Him My Heart, A Larrakia-Filipino Love Story 

(in production, based on the theatre production of the same name, first performed in 1993, Darwin)                                                                           

Andy Ewing, Carry, 2015, acrylic on paper, 70 x 50cm                      

© the estate of the Artist; photo: Fiona Morrisson                          Collection: Charles Darwin University                                                 image from forthcoming monograph                                                    

midling exhibition poster nightcliff

Feel free to follow our out-and-about antics on the odd Facebook post: (3) Facebook

outro

Poster display, Nightcliff IGA entrance, Darwin, August 2023, photo: Maurice O’Riordan              

Gary Lee artist 1980s Sydney

Gary in Sydney, c. mid-’80s wearing a T-shirt from Tiwi Design                

with ‘Lizard design print’ by Angelo Munkara and Ray Young; photographer unknown

Reproduced in the article Aboriginal art ripoff, Heat: Gary Lee …, p. 41                   

Article first published in G. Lee. (1988). Foreword, Worona, ANU newspaper, 24 March 1988.  

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Gary Lee, sketch for see-through kimono blouse, c. 1981, pen on A4 paper, © Gary Lee

reproduced in the article So in that sense, Aboriginal gay, Heat: Gary Lee …, p. 172

Article first published in Hodge, D. (1993). Did you meet any malagas? A homosexual history of Australia’s tropical capital. Darwin: Little Gem Publications