Portrait of Chris Ofili, 2017. Photo by Carlos Arias

Cameron Shaw

Klaus Kertess

Few artists's names can connote such diverse associations as the Virgin Mary, Rudolph Giuliani and elephant dung. Controversy tends to dog the art of Chris Ofili, and former New York Mayor Giuliani's suspension of funding for the Brooklyn Museum upon its exhibition of his 1996 painting 

 in 1999 was but one instance of the ire Ofili routinely arouses. When these occasional media commotions subside, one sees that the work is actually pleasing in more familiar ways: Ofili's surfaces sparkle with smears of glitter and bright veneer, resembling nothing so much as African icons. But Ofili has always been political, specifically in his confrontations with racial cliché, and in his insistent incorporation of materials from popular black culture. 

 derives its title from singer-songwriter D'Angelo's 1998 lyric meditation on temptation and retribution. According to the song, the ingredients of a devil's pie include "materialistic, greed and lust, jealousy, envious / bread and dough, cheddar cheese, flash and stash, cash and cream." Similarly diverse in its references and dichotomies, Ofili's work contains contradictions. This catalogue collects his work in sculpture, painting, printmaking, and graphite drawing for the first time and includes texts by art writer and curator Klaus Kertess and writer Cameron Shaw.

Chris Ofili: Devil's Pie

Edited by Alex Israel. Text by Kevin West

The installation and interactive performance 

 formed part of the artist’s “Pussy Trilogy,” which also encompassed 

 (2004). Evoking the style of the coffee table social diary, the catalogue documents the events, known as 

, held in the artist’s Los Angeles studio in 2006. Amidst the chrome trolleys, neon signs, dream catchers, cowboy hats, hookah pipes, and camel saddles which partially constitute the installation, guests were invited to contribute to Rhoades’s ongoing project of creating a cross-cultural compendium of euphemisms for female genitalia. Evolving to fit each location, the installation debuted at Hauser & Wirth in 2005 and traveled to David Zwirner in 2007. The catalogue, conceived by and designed in conjunction with the artist, includes a foreword by Kevin West, West Coast editor of 

 magazine, as well as photographs by Joshua White and Alexia Pilat.

Jason Rhoades’ Black Pussy Cocktail Coffee Table Book

This title is out of print and available in a limited number of copies. Browse a selection of rare books 

Edited by Fabrizio Tramontano. Essays by Giovanni Leoni, Giancarlo Cosenza, and Luigi Cosenza. Introduction by Giancarlo Cosenza

Shortly after graduating in Bridge and Road Engineering in 1929 and being appointed to the rank of reserve lieutenant, I took a look around my city. There were no patterns to follow—only examples to imitate. The grand extravagant projects were the monopoly of the regime of arrogance and favoritism. A modern fish market was needed to replace the grubby “pietra del pesce" on Via Marina. I studied the problem on the spot and visited various other fish markets in Pozzuoli, Milan, Venice, Marseilles, Ostend, and Hamburg.

This is how Luigi Cosenza (Naples, 1905–1984) describes the genesis of his first project, the Mercato del pesce di Napoli (Fish Market of Naples), built in 1929 and considered the manifesto of the city's rational architecture. This book documents the "M.D.P.N." building in equally rational and elegant images from Germany's renowned Thomas Ruff, beginning with photographs taken in the dazzling light of an early afternoon in September 2002.

Thomas Ruff: m.d.p.n.

A detail of an artwork by Michaël Borremans titled The Commuter II dated 2022

Portrait of Michaël Borremans, 2025. Photo by Charlie De Keersmaecker 

Hans van Heirseele

 was published on the occasion of the artist’s second solo 

 at David Zwirner in 2006. Amongst the fourteen new paintings on view was the eponymous work 

 (2005), which portrays a young man, fashionably attired, holding two twigs from each of his nostrils. Available in hardcover, this catalogue includes a text by Belgian artist and curator Hans van Heirseele.

Michaël Borremans: Horse Hunting

Luc Tuymans in his studio, 2022. Photo by Otman Q

Gerrit Vermeiren

 at David Zwirner in New York, this catalogue was designed by the artist. Featured are ten paintings, many now considered iconic works and in the collections of major museums, which offer a critique of America by laying claim to real events, suppressed memories, and political issues. For Tuymans, each painting presents a fragmented glimpse of a disjointed whole; his aim is to make the audience consider each image, the opposite of each image, and the uncertainty that follows. The exhibition’s title, 

, is in itself an aberration. While it refers to a seemingly requisite order determined by society at large, it simultaneously suggests the opposite – 

– and therefore subverts the notion of correctness as it relates to social and societal expectations.

In a key painting, we are confronted by the cropped, larger-than-life-sized face of Condoleeza Rice. Prompted by a remark made by a Belgian official, in which Rice was described as “strong; not unpretty,” Tuymans’s portrait of the former United States Secretary of State forces us to reevaluate a known public figure within the parameters of the still image. In 

a perfectly-arranged dinner table evokes early Americana. In 

, the image of an empty dance hall underscores a lack of festivity – mediocrity tempered by the absence of dancing – and in 

a single couple sways over the state seal of Texas at the Governor’s Ball. In other paintings, it is the sense that something has just happened, or is about to, that suggests a fragile or ephemeral state – the eerie face of a Medieval statue; the dust cloud following the demolition of a building, with a New York City street lamp barely visible; an oval mirror reflecting a solitary lamp; the top of a canopy bed in which the cropped composition is eerily reminiscent of the water line from a flood. In the painting entitled 

, we are reminded by a tiny red light that, at any moment, things can go terribly wrong – or, at the very least, that change is inevitable.

Luc Tuymans: Proper

A painting by Lisa Yuskavage titled Night Classes at the Department of Painting Drawing and Sculpture, dated 2018-2020

Lisa Yuskavage, 2026. Photo by Jason Schmidt

Both admired and censured for the in-your-face eroticism of her paintings of women, Lisa Yuskavage has emerged from the 1990s as one of the most important figurative artists working today. Called the "premier bad-girl artist" by 

 as "an extravagantly deft painter," Yuskavage is known for her oil paintings, loaded with color and emotional content, featuring languid young women with outlandish body parts.

The small paintings that make up this book, the first monograph of her work, are often the place where the characters from the artist's larger works come alive. Exploratory in nature, these paintings provide us with a uniquely intimate look at Yuskavage's creative process-allowing us to see how they have been a method of working for more than 20 years. Writer and director Tamara Jenkins's introductory essay is a work of biography and psychoanalysis, offering an up-close look at the forces behind her work. At once sexist and feminist, real and surreal, unsettling and seductive—and always technically accomplished—Yuskavage's work continues to generate buzz and controversy.

Lisa Yuskavage: Small Paintings, 1993–2004

A painting by On Kawara, titled MAY 11, 1967, dated 1967.

On Kawara, One Million Years (Past), 1970-1971, Page 2001

Shiuji Inomata

Jean-Luc Nancy

Osho

Texts by Shiuji Inomata, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Osho

 was published on the occasion of the artist’s third solo exhibition at David Zwirner in 2004, which presented a selection of date paintings, one from each of the past forty years. Also known as the 

 series, the artist began making his now signature date paintings in New York City on January 4, 1966. Available in hardcover, this catalogue includes texts by Japanese scientist Shiuji Inomata; French philosopher Jean Luc-Nancy; and Indian spiritual leader Osho.

On Kawara: Paintings of 40 Years

A still from a film by Francis Alys, titled Children’s Game #26: Kisolo, Tabacongo, DR Congo, dated 2021.

Texts by Francis Alÿs, Lynne Cooke, Alejandro Diaz, Tom Eccles, Dario Gamboni, RoseLee Goldberg, Laurence Kardish, Harper Montgomery, and Francesco Pellizzi

, marked the temporary move of The Museum of Modern Art from Manhattan to Queens in 2002. Presented by the Public Art Fund in collaboration with the museum, it was a public parade involving over 100 participants who carried reproductions of some of the museum’s masterpieces and a living representative of contemporary art, Kiki Smith. This hardcover catalogue features extensive photographic documentation of the event as well as contributions and essays by the artist; the then Public Art Fund director Tom Eccles; curator Lynne Cook, among others.

Francis Alÿs: The Modern Procession

Thomas Ruff, Düsseldorf-based photographer and conceptual artist, was born in 1958 and attended the Bechers's master class at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. He embarked on a truly striking career as an artist with a stunning series of large-format photos of artist friends, all printed with astonishing sharpness. Not long thereafter he again made a splash on the art scene with his "Sternenhimmel/Stars at Night," a second series of photographs, this time of the nocturnal firmament, once more printed in large formats. 

Ruff's most recent work is devoted to a theme which, while being considered scandalous by the media, has won the highest awards the art world has to offer. In "Nudes," he focuses on pornography, or rather on stills taken from pornographic scenes he has found on the Web, and then processes them electronically before blowing them up to immense proportions. Digitally colored, alienated by blurring contours and at times eliminating focus, the content dissolves into more or less abstract fields of color, forcefully unnerving our perception, our expectations and our erotic fantasies. 

A short story by Michel Houellebecq, Ruff's dream author for the occasion, unequivocally points to what the photographer's pictures are about, namely the act of solitary surfing through artificial worlds, the distance of purported intimacy, sex and love in the age of the Internet and of swinger clubs. In other words, the end of Romanticism.

Thomas Ruff: Nudes

Frank Moore

Frank Moore: Between Life and Death, Twin Palms Publishers, 2002

In 1977 Frank Moore took a freighter from Montreal to Santander, Spain. He traveled through Spain, France, and Morocco, finally settling in Paris, where he obtained a residency in the Cité des Arts. Upon his return to New York, Moore began a decade-long involvement with modern dance, theater, film, and video that paralleled his development as a painter. The increasing devastation of the AIDS crisis through the eighties profoundly and irrevocably transformed his life and work. His work was included in the 1995 Whitney Biennial and is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Albright Knox Art Gallery.

Frank Moore: Between Life and Death

Philippe Pirotte

 at David Zwirner in New York, this catalogue documents Luc Tuymans’s fourth solo show at the gallery. After its showing in New York, the artist expanded this body of work to exhibit at the Belgium Pavilion of the 2001 Venice Biennale, where he was chosen to represent his country.

 examines the colonial history of Belgium, by focusing on the colonization of Zaire, previously known as the Belgian Congo. In his 1999 book entitled 

De moord op Lumumba (The death of Lumumba),

 Ludo de Witte makes the allegation that various institutions, including the Belgian government, were responsible for the 1961 murder of the Congo’s first legally elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, shortly after gaining independence. As a result of this publication, the “Lumumba Commission” was set up to investigate the matter further.

The exhibition’s title refers to the derogatory nickname 

, i.e. beautiful boy, which was given to Belgian’s young King Baudoin by the Congolese, and which was promptly changed by the Congolese authorities to the more respectful and authoritative 

, i.e. beautiful, noble man. The painting entitled 

 is a life-size portrait of the 24-year old Baudouin in a crisp white suit, arriving for the first time in the Congo for a four-week triumphant procession in 1955. The authority suggested by Baudoin’s uniform and his medals is contradicted by the featureless youthful face of the king, and his awkward and uncomfortable pose.

Here Tuymans explores a politically charged subject matter by employing a subtle and remote realization of specific events and people. Although the subject matter in this work refers specifically to regional history, the artist’s choice of paintings for this group of work invites parallels to recent American history. The racial divide apparent in the United States, reverberates throughout this body of work.

Beautiful White Man

Luc Tuymans: Mwana Kitoko

Bruce Wagner

Born and raised in Mississippi and Tennessee, William Eggleston began taking pictures during the 1960s after seeing Henri Cartier-Bresson’s 

. In 1966 he changed from black-and-white to color film, perhaps to make the medium more his own and less that of his esteemed predecessor. John Sarkowski, when he was curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, called Eggleston the ‘first color photographer,’ and the world in which we consider a color photograph as art has changed because of him.

William Eggleston: 2¼

This collection invites readers into the irreverent, boundary-pushing world of R. Crumb, one of the most influential cartoonists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Bringing together iconic characters, subversive narratives, and his unmistakably intricate linework, these books trace how Crumb revolutionized underground comics, energized graphic arts, and challenged conventions around politics and popular culture. Taken together, they offer a vivid, uncompromising portrait of an artist whose work continues to disrupt, provoke, and inspire.

brings together twenty-five of R. Crumb’s most ambitious, acclaimed, and profound comics, exemplifying the artist’s creative output over the twenty-five years following his early experimentation.

chronicles R. Crumb’s obsessions—from sex to the Bible, music, politics, and the vicissitudes and obscenities of daily life. 

R. Crumb Collection

A scuplture by Yayoi Kusama called Dancing Pumpkin dated 2020

Yayoi Kusama, 2021.  Photo by Yusuke Miyazaki

Spanning four beautifully designed books, the Yayoi Kusama collection offers an immersive journey into the artist’s singular world. Bringing together paintings, sculptures, large-scale installations, and poetry, these titles capture the radical imagination and boundless visual language that have made Kusama one of the most influential artists of our time.

Featuring the vibrant and dynamic work of Yayoi Kusama, 

is the perfect canvas for imagination. The paintings on the cover and endpapers of Kusama’s first Artist Journal provide the perfect motivation for any creative pursuit.

, Kusama brings us into her private world through poetic recollections, giving readers an intimate view into her creative process and the essential role language plays in her paintings, sculptures, and daily life.

Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers

 explores the monumental 2023 exhibition at David Zwirner, New York through the specific lens of the visitor—illustrating thirty-five paintings, a gigantic sculptural installation of pumpkins, a trio of towering, colorful flower sculptures, and a fan-favorite 

 at David Zwirner, New York—an all-white, domestic interior that viewers were invited to cover with dot stickers of various sizes and colors. This catalogue reveals the transformation of the space from a clean white interior to a stunningly saturated room, with ceilings, walls, and furniture covered in myriad multicolors.

Yayoi Kusama Collection

This set of six children’s books from David Zwirner Books embodies our mission to celebrate creativity in a fun, accessible way. Perfect for kids and adults alike, these beautifully illustrated, engaging titles make ideal gifts for families, teachers, and art lovers of all ages.

series of lift-the-flap books, geared toward children under the age of three, shares the different ways artists Yayoi Kusama and Ruth Asawa view the world.

 series highlights a diverse group of artists and art workers, inviting young readers to explore creative ideas and discover the boundless possibilities of self-expression both in the classroom and beyond.

illuminate different elements of the art industry, showcasing the richness of print culture to a young audience in gorgeous tricolor illustrations.

Children’s Books (6 Book Set)

These four children’s books introduce young readers to the creative life, telling stories in a colorful, engaging, and age-appropriate way. Blending vivid illustrations with clear, accessible language, the series invites children to discover how art is made and who makes it.

Children’s Books (4 Book Set)

The two titles in the William Eggleston Collection honor the artist’s trailblazing role in the field of color photography and his lasting impact on contemporary visual culture.

, a series of photographs taken by Eggleston between 1969 and 1974, offers a journey through the mythic and evolving American South, seen through the artist’s lens.

 catalogues the last major group of William Eggleston’s photographs to ever be produced using the dye-transfer method, the format in which he originally presented his work.

William Eggleston Collection

A sculpture by Ruth Asawa, called Untitled (S.175, Hanging Single-Lobed, Four-Layer Continuous Form within a Form), dated c. 1992.

The Ruth Asawa Collection honors the work and legacy of the American artist, educator, and arts advocate. These three meticulously designed volumes trace her extensive body of work—from her iconic wire sculptures to her works on paper—while situating her within postwar American art and highlighting her lifelong commitment to bringing art into the everyday.

 brings together a broad selection of her sculptures, works on paper, and more, demonstrating the centrality of Asawa’s innovative practice to the art-historical legacy of the twentieth century.

Revealing rarely seen work alongside her iconic looped-wire sculptures, 

 celebrates Asawa’s unique vision and intimate subject matter. The catalogue is a document of the breathtaking and surprising eponymous exhibition organized by Helen Molesworth.

 is a welcome reminder to find inspiration in the everyday object. The delicate works featured in the artist’s first Artist Journal beckon the inner artist to carve out time to look and create.

Ruth Asawa Collection

A gelatin silver print by Diane Arbus, titled Triplets in their bedroom, N.J. 1963, dated 1963.

This two-volume collection offers an unparalleled view of Diane Arbus, one of the most original and significant artists of the twentieth century. Together, the books examine her groundbreaking portraits across the breadth of humanity, underscoring the depth, rigor, and complexity of her vision alongside the rich archive of critical conversations it sparked.

 brings together forty-four photographs made in private places across New York, New Jersey, California, and London between 1961 and 1971, demonstrating the artist’s singular ability to enter private worlds.

 offers an assemblage of articles, criticism, and essays from 1967 to the present, charting the reception of the photographer’s work and providing comprehensive insight into the critical conversations, as well as misconceptions, around this highly influential artist.

Diane Arbus Collection

ekphrasis

The ekphrasis Collection (31 books), David Zwirner Books

 series, updated to included the recently published 

, is available now as a bundle of our 31 in-print titles. The 

 series is dedicated to publishing rare, out-of-print, and newly commissioned texts as accessible paperback volumes. It is part of David Zwirner Books’s ongoing effort to publish new and surprising pieces of writing on visual culture.

The ekphrasis Collection (31 books)

Discover the incandescent work of American abstract artist Joan Mitchell with this book bundle, featuring in-depth explorations of her bold paintings and lyrical compositions.

 focuses on the years 1979 to 1985—a significant and deeply generative period within Mitchell’s decades-long career.



Joan Mitchell: I carry my landscapes around with me

 spotlights Mitchell’s large-scale multipanel works from the 1960s through the 1990s.

Joan Mitchell Collection

A portrait of Gerhard Richter by Werner Bartsch.

Photograph of Gerhard Richter collection books, published by David Zwirner Books

The Gerhard Richter Collection offers an in-depth look at recent work by one of the world’s most influential artists. Spanning painting, abstraction, and image-based experimentation, these titles celebrate Richter’s ongoing innovation and his mastery of complex, often highly technical processes. Together they provide a compelling portrait of an artist whose practice remains as rigorous, exploratory, and boundary-defying today as ever.

presents a suite of works on paper from 2023 that encapsulates and refines the fundamental principles that have consistently defined Richter’s artistic journey. Reproduced at actual size, the drawings encourage in-depth observation and inspire a compelling reimagining of abstraction.

 explores abstraction and chance in art and writing. An artwork of its own, this intimate volume inspires both close looking and a beautiful interpretation of abstraction.

presents Richter’s last paintings along with his recent explorations in drawing, printing, and sculpture.

Gerhard Richter Collection, David Zwirner Books

Gerhard Richter Collection

Portraits. Luc Tuymans

Elaine Scarry

Acclaimed theorist and scholar Elaine Scarry uncovers profound connections between color and our intuitions about mind, spirit, and the immortal through readings of works by Proust, Woolf, and Murasaki, offering fresh insights into the interplay between language and the mysterious image-making power of the mind.

How do writers summon color into being—not only in the worlds they depict, but in the minds of their readers? Unlike the visual arts, literature has no physical medium; its images instead emerge on the reader’s mental retina. In this new commission from David Zwirner Books, Elaine Scarry blends literary analysis with contemporary neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and philosophy to investigate this phenomenon of imagining color.

Through close readings of texts by Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Lady Murasaki, and the medieval Pearl poet, Scarry explores how the brain conjures hues and sensations without the eye encountering actual pigment or light. Drawing from classic experiments on imagination, Scarry reveals the surprising ways literature triggers quasi-physical responses, as words transform into vivid, sensorial experiences.

 series’ exploration of how language gives form to visual experience, showing that literary description can summon colors and images in the mind’s eye.

Imagining Color: Elaine Scarry, front cover

Imagining Color

All Books

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David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.