On the wall of Climax’s New York outpost there is a green figure wearing red heels, fishnets and barely-there underwear. Her back is turned to show off her butt, which has the words ‘Climax’ written across it in pink bubble letters, and her head, with its bob of flaming red hair, turns to look haughtily at whoever walks through the doors of the East 4th Street bookstore. This ‘angry, sexy bookworm’, as Climax’s founder, Isabella Burley, describes her, is part of the Climax x Chopova Lowena collaboration that launched just before Climax’s New York opening on 5 September 2024. She might seem like a strange mascot for a bookstore, but then, Climax is anything but typical.
Founded in London in 2020, Climax is a distributor of rare or overlooked books, ephemera, periodicals, erotica, and other forms of media on art and counterculture. It’s a place where those who are perpetually hungry for ideas and imagery can satisfy their appetites with objects like Hiromi Tsuchida’s Tokyo Dolls: Blue Flower, a rare book that documents the lives of transgender women in 1970s Tokyo; Cosey Fanni Tutti’s 1987 pink VHS tape of her performances; a postcard of Cindy Sherman’s 1994 Comme des Garçons ad campaign; and other artefacts from the history of disruptive, creative thought.
