Courtesy of Phaidon.
Each month, our Southampton gallery features an exclusive pop-up bookshop, curated by writers connected to the artistic community of the Hamptons. Our next installment features the selections of New-York-based writer and curator Dodie Kazanjian who has written about the art world for Vogue for over three decades. In addition to her writing, Kazanjian is the director of Gallery Met, a non-profit contemporary art space at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where the visual and performing arts find a unique, symbiotic dialogue. Kazanjian's reading list reflects this curiosity for the arts in its many forms—and of course, her appreciation for great writing.
1. The Art Book, Revised Edition
The Art Book, essential reading for over fifteen years, is now in its third edition. Covering the Middle Ages to the present, the text features hundreds of prominent artists of various genres, mediums, and periods. The new edition includes profiles of Berenice Abbott, Hilma af Klint, Lee Krasner, Jacob Lawrence, Cao Fei, Clara Peeters, and more.
Courtesy of Phaidon.
2. The Lives of Artists: Collected Profiles (Calvin Tomkins)
Culling the best of a prolific career, The Lives of Artists compiles 82 of Calvin Tomkins’s artist profiles (and features an introduction by the one and only David Remnick). Subjects include Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman, and Jasper Johns, observed in glorious detail. Fun Fact: The Lives of Artists is a Billy Norwich favorite, too.
Courtesy of Phaidon.
3. Life Meets Art: Inside the Homes of the World's Most Creative People (Sam Lubell)
Sam Lubell’s text offers the opportunity to snoop around the domestic interiors of history’s most fascinating figures, from Leonardo da Vinci’s Chateau in Amboise, France to Pablo Neruda’s seaside home in Chile. Replete with powerful insights and eclectic styles, the book, according to Lubell, relishes in “the spaces that purely reflect their values, their wants, and their spirits, designed just for them and those they love.”
Courtesy of Phaidon.
4. The Garden: Elements and Styles (Toby Musgrave)
The Garden follows the success of The Gardener’s Garden, and, like its predecessor, is equal parts enlightened reference book, how-to guide, and lush imagery. Toby Musgrave transports the reader to the Frida Kahlo’s gardens, glass houses in Vienna, and community spaces in New York, alternating between domestic, escapist, and whimsical landscapes.
Courtesy of Phaidon.
5. The Design Book, New Edition
Predicated on a love of great design, The Design Book relishes in both the seemingly banal and the most memorable heavy-hitters, from a basic whisk to the Eames Lounge Chair. The book collects and carefully praises hundreds of objects, in what Design Week called “the rare trick of creating something accessible and wide-ranging, but genuinely interesting and informative too.”
Courtesy of Phaidon.
6. Nonstop (Tomi Ungerer)
Nonstop follows the tortuous journey of Vasco and his small friend, Poco, as they navigate the post-apocalypse—with only Vasco’s shadow as a guide. It is the last of the late Tomi Ungerer’s poignant children’s books and is full of insights into friendship, faith, and maintaining hope in a weary world.
Courtesy of Phaidon.
7. What is Cooking: The Action: Cooking, The Result: Cuisine (Ferran Adrià)
Ferran Adrià, formerly head chef of elBulli, is considered among the best—if not the best—chef in the world. In What is Cooking, Adrià explores the human relationship to food preparation, featuring the balance of science, technology, chemistry, and imagination that he brought to his three-Michelin-starred restaurant.
Courtesy of Phaidon.
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