Publishing

A excerpt from a painting in a cubist style, which shows a key and a book

Our publications give light to new research and ideas in art and visual culture.

JW Power, Nature morte (Beach), Chau Chak Wing Museum, PW1961.60.

Since the late 1970s the Power Institute has published pamphlets, monographs and edited volumes. In the 1980s, we established our peer-reviewed imprint, Power Publications. We often co-publish, and recently established the "Powered by Power" imprint to support contemporary Australian artists. Our next phase introduces innovative digital publishing.
 


 

 

Components

Featured Publications

John Young History Projects Cover

John Young: The History Projects (preorder)
By: Olivier Krischer

$50.00AUD
Between 2005 and 2019, Hong Kong-born Australian artist John Young Zerunge created 11 art series which he called ‘The History Projects’. This book is a critical guide to this expansive body of artworks, which explore diasporic memory, transcultural identity, and what Young describes as an ‘ethical responsibility’ towards the past.
Featuring more than 400 images, and a wide variety of texts—including new essays and interviews, key republished articles, poetry, artist reflections, and diary pages—this book is a definitive reference for Young’s transformative recent practice and its urgent reckoning with history as unfinished business.

Please note that all preorders will be posted in mid April 2025
Cover of book "Chinese Toggles"

Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature
By: Shuxia Chen and Min-Jung Kim

$49.95AUD
This book introduces the understudied cultural artifact of the Chinese belt toggle, known as zhuizi (坠子). Similar to their better-known Japanese counterparts netsuke, these small carved ornaments offer a rare glimpse into everyday life in early modern China. Toggles were a feature of traditional Chinese garments from the 17th century but were scarcely collected. A collaboration between the Powerhouse Museum and Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, this publication reveals one of the world’s largest collections of these extraordinary objects.
Ian_Burn_Collected_Writings_1966-1993_Front_Cover

Ian Burn: Collected Writings 1966–1993
By: Ann Stephen

$49.00AUD
Ian Burn has been described as many things: an activist, a trade-unionist, a journalist, an art critic, a curator and an art historian—or, as he once described himself in a moment of self-deprecating alienation, ‘an ex-conceptual artist’. Edited by Burn’s friend, frequent collaborator and eminent art historian, Dr Ann Stephen, this volume brings together 49 pieces of Burn’s own agile and expansive writings alongside a vast collection of his artworks. The collection concludes with reflections on Burn’s life and work from prominent figures and past collaborators in the form of memorial lectures.
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Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day
By: Edited by Clothilde Bullen with contributions by Timmah Ball, Kelly Gellatly, Natalie Harkin and Tamsin Hong

$75.00AUD
Edited by Clothilde Bullen, with essays by Timmah Ball, Kelly Gellatly, Natalie Harkin and Tamsin Hong, this volume is an image-rich, comprehensive survey of internationally acclaimed Kokatha and Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce.