MUSAFAR, Fakir. Body Play: The Self-Images of Fakir Musafar.

(San Francisco, CA): Insight Books, 1982. First edition. Softcover. 28 by 20.5cm. Unpaginated. Fakir Musafar’s (Roland Loomis) first book and the earliest substantial photographic record of the figure widely regarded as the founder of the modern primitive movement. Comprising self-portraits made between 1950 and 1980, the volume documents three decades of Musafar’s pioneering explorations of body piercing, flesh-hook suspension, corsetry, body binding, branding, and other forms of ritual body modification, many undertaken years before such practices became publicly associated with contemporary body art. The photographs are accompanied by autobiographical commentary outlining Musafar’s philosophy of “body play” as a means of spiritual exploration and personal transformation rather than spectacle or ornament. A very good copy in stapled wrappers. Published in an edition of 1000 numbered copies. This example additionally inscribed by Musafar. Scarce thus.