Books:

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics Space
David Bachelor, Chromophobia
Christopher Butler, Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction
Jean Baudrillard, Simulations
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle
John Berger, Ways of Seeing
Roland Barths, Mythology
Freud, Totem and Taboo
Walter Benjamin, Illumination and Reflections
Terry Barret, Criticizing Art, Interpreting Art
Brian O'Doherty, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space
Yve Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss, Formless: A User's Guide
WJT Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want, The Lives and Loves of Images
Wientraub, Danto, McEvilley, Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art’s Meaning in Contemporary Society 1970-1990
Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon, Introducing Critical Thoery
David Hickey, Air Guitar, The Eternal Dragon (Caution: this is the light beer of art theory and criticism)
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

(If nothing else, all art students should have and be reading these 2 books, in bookstore):
Theories of Contemporary Art: A Source Book of Artist’s Writings
Art and Theory: 1900-2000

Essays:

Merleau-Ponty, Cezanne’s Doubt
Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and Author as Producer
Donald Judd, Specific Objects
Michael Fried, Art and Objecthood
Martha Rosler, Lookers, Buyers, Dealers, and Makers: Thoughts on Audience
Jean Baudrillard, The Precession of Simulacra
Derrida, Truth in Painting
Paul Virilio, The Accident of Art
Michel Foucault, The Subject of Power, History of Sexuality
Kant, Critique of Judgement

Visual Organization/Color:

Rudolph Arneheim, Art and Visual Perception
Albers, The Interaction of Color
Johannes Itten, The Elements of Color

Spirituality:

Kandinsky, On Spirituality and Art
Upanishad Eknath Easwaran, Dialogue with Death: The Spiritual Psychology of the Katha
Joseph Campbell, The Heroes Journey

Installation/New Genres:

New Media in late 20th Century Art
Installation Art in the New Millenium

Book Arts Related:

Betty Bright, No Longer Innocent: The Book Arts in America, 1960-1980
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics
Cheese Monkeys (Art School Parody)

Ceramics:

Mark del Vecchio, Post-Modern Ceramics