THE NEW RARE EDITIONS, JAMES MULLORD, Bookshelf, Publications, 2026

Produced for THE NEW RARE EDITIONS in 2026, James Mullord’s Bookshelf, Publications brings together a replica bookshelf and three publications connected to Philippe Thomas. A unique work, it sits between furniture, display structure and archive. The publications remain functional objects while the shelf shifts their status through placement: from reading material to exhibition object, from storage to sculpture. Exhibited at THE NEW RARE EDITIONS, London, 5–30 June 2026, the work formed part of an installation in which publications, replica furniture, exhibition supports and architectural elements circulated between their conventional functions. Condition: as exhibited. Here, the bookshelf operates simultaneously as support, display and work.

The work includes the following three publications:

• PUBLIC — Archives Contemporaines Internationales, no. 3, edited by Philippe Cazal, Éditions spéciales, Paris, September 1985–February 1986. A 72-page artist magazine in illustrated wrappers, 31 × 23 cm, containing “Philippe Thomas: Sujet à Discrétion?”, published under the name Michel Tourner eau. The contribution places Thomas’s self-commentary within an assumed authorial identity.
• Daniel Bosser / Philippe Thomas, Philippe Thomas décline son identité, Galerie Claire Burrus / Éditions Yellow Now, France, 1987. A 40-page paperback, 16 × 23.5 cm, designed by Philippe Thomas and produced in relation to the 1987 conference of the same title, moving between lecture text, script and artist’s book.
• Laura Carpenter / Philippe Thomas, Insights, Galerie Claire Burrus, Paris, 1990. A 78-page French-language paperback, 14 × 21 cm, published in an edition of 1,500 under Laura Carpenter’s name. Taking the form of a personal diary, it stages commentary on the agency readymades belong to everyone® through displaced authorship.