Gioni (centre) with two titles on the list: our Dada survey and EH Gombrich's The Story of Art

Win Massimiliano Gioni’s 100 best-loved books

The New Museum's artistic director has chosen 100 Phaidon titles he deems essential - and you can win them all

Putting together an incredible art library is a challenge (though you're obviously in the right place to start). There is not only the problem of cost, but also the question of choice. Which monographs should you choose? Which surveys? Which canonical titles serve as an investment, and which of the more more esoteric publications are worth reading?

One of the most prominent figures within the contemporary artworld will solve this problem for one lucky ticket holder tonight, when the New Museum raffles a 100-book Phaidon library.

 

Our Phaidon Focus titles
Our Phaidon Focus titles

The prize forms part of the New Museum’s 6 November Next Generation dinner. The institution will give one lucky ticket holder one hundred books chosen by its artistic director and, we're proud to add, Phaidon author, Massimiliano Gioni.

The selection includes such venerable classics as the Andy Warhol's four-volume catalogue raisonné and our Georgia O’Keeffe, Francis Bacon and Joseph Beuys Phaidon Focus titles, as well monographs dedicated to Ai Weiwei, Peter Doig, and Gioni’s good friend, Maurizio Cattelan. There's even a cookery title, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef, by his fellow countryman, Massimo Bottura.

 

Our Andy Warhol four-volume catalogue raisonné
Our Andy Warhol four-volume catalogue raisonné

In fact, there’s a great piece over on W Magazine’s site, wherein Gioni offers a little insight into some of the titles, including Martin Parr’s Boring Postcards, “Isn’t boredom just happiness stripped of any desire?"; our Agnes Martin monograph, “Less colorful but more blissful than Fifty Shades of Grey,”; our Dada overview, "the gateway drug for so many artists and art lovers, succinctly explained in all its madness and EH Gombrich’s The Story of Art, “‘There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.' Best opening line ever."

Read the W piece here, buy a raffle ticket here, and, if you don’t win, go here to find out how you can start to build your own library for as little as $10 and £10.