Elemental Living, Phaidon, 49.95 USD
While one might be quick to shout "house porn" and salivate over the dozens of homes in this monograph, the fundamental takeaway is the special architectural relationship that these structures have with the natural world. By focusing on 20th- and 21st-century homes that were made to exist in nature or using the natural world, this collection shows the deep design concern at the core of each respective living space: to engage with their surroundings in innovative ways. The sense of environmental awareness might make you want to disconnect for a while and explore the countryside.
David Hockney: A Bigger Book, Taschen, 2500 USD
Paging all David Hockney super fans: You can't possibly buy anything better than this. The massive monograph (it needs its own desk) chronicles and tracks every point of the artist's decades-long career, starting with his teenage years in England through his recent postmodern iPad drawings in America. Hockney conceived of and structured the book, which features more than 450 original works, 600 beautiful pages, and a handwritten artist statement from the maestro himself. Just don't ask us how much it weighs.
Dennis Hopper: Colors, The Polaroids, Damiani, 45 USD
Before Polaroids became a popular Urban Outfitters checkout item or a fun, old school way to document parties, Dennis Hopper toted his beloved Polaroid camera around Los Angeles in the mid-1980s to document the overwhelmingly prevalent gang graffiti that covered the streets. Drawn to the abstract shapes and overlapping paint, Hopper became fascinated with the medium and ended up taking hundreds of pictures, which prompted his journey back into the world of photography. This volume presents his thoughtful Polaroid work in color for the first time ever.
Yves Klein: In/Out Studio, D.A.P./Verlag Kettler, 60 USD
Yves Klein—one of the forefathers of minimal and pop art—died far too young in 1962, but his work will certainly persevere in the art world, especially through thoughtful and exhaustive volumes like this. This major Klein overview features hundreds of previously unearthed archival photographs alongside original works, which together provide great insight into his inventive mind. Additionally, his pioneering advances in performance art are vastly detailed through additional photos and text. This is must-read for any Klein fan, as well as those interested in post-war European art.
Art in Detail, Thames & Hudson, 39.95 USD
If you can't make your way to the Met or Louvre anytime soon to inspect famous works of art up close and personal, know you're in good company with this volume. By "zooming in" on the finer points of 100 celebrated paintings—with works by Mondrian, Pollock, Monet, and El Greco—these macro reproductions reveal subtle details one certainly would've missed with a simple Google search.
Ellsworth Kelly: Photographs, Aperture, 50 USD
The art world is still mourning the death of Ellsworth Kelly last year. As a result of Kelly's prolific creative output, he's widely considered one of the most important artists of the modern era. He took up one of his little-known specialties, photography, in the 1950s, and enjoyed recording his unique vision of the visible world around him. (The exterior of homes, for example.) This decades-spanning monograph is the first one solely dedicated to Kelly's photography, and Kelly himself was involved in creating it before he passed away. It's a wonderful, thoughtful tribute to the late artist. "When you look at the world, everything is separate—each thing is in its own space, has its own uniqueness," Kelly writes in the book's opening statement. "When I take photographs, I want somehow to capture that."
