The Best Surprise Is No Surprise

Electronic communications have had a transformative effect on the public discourse on contemporary art by removing temporal and geographical barriers to the flow of information and, for the first time, putting local exhibition makers and institutions in contact with an international art public unmediated by the univocal perspective perpetuated by a few leading art journals.

The Best Surprise Is No Surprise covers a seven year period beginning in 1999, and chronicles communiqués for exhibitions, publications, events, and symposia chosen from the archive of electronic announcements originally distributed by e-flux, and selected both by the e-flux readers and by some of the most active international
curators, artists, critics, and art historians of our time.

The information is accompanied by images of the events themselves, so that the book becomes a resource documenting the exhibitions as well as the evolution of their self-portrayal and promotion. 

With an introductory essay by Daniel Birnbaum, an interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and 250 e-flux announcements selected by Zdenka Badovinac, Ariane Beyn, Mircea Cantor, Binna Choi, Hedwig Fijen, Elena Filipovic, Liam Gillick, Jens Hoffmann, Eungie Joo, Samuel Keller, Francesco Manacorda, Viktor Misiano, Naeem Mohaiemen, Jessica Morgan, Molly Nesbit, Ernesto Neto, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Natasa Petresin, Brian Sholis, Nancy Spector, Christine Tohme, Tirdad Zolghadr and many more.