WePresent's Brilliant Book Gathers 60 Artists in 304 Pages

Brilliant: Unexpected Art From Everywhere is a 304 page hardback that collects original work from 60 artists and writers, edited by the arts platform WePresent, with an introduction by Russell Tovey and text by Roxane Gay. It reached New York this month with a launch evening at Jeansdown, a poster giveaway at a New York shop and a shipping date that depends on which listing you read.

Sixty Creative Minds Between One Set of Covers

The book is organized around discovery, not around a movement or a medium. Phaidon's description groups the work under cultural memory, immigration, the female gaze, physical transformation and the internet, and it interleaves artist profiles with literary essays, short fiction and graphic manifestos. Ai Weiwei and Sheila Heti are among the names listed for those manifestos.

The contributor list reads like a cross section of who is being watched right now. Mous Lamrabat's color saturated look at 1990s nostalgia is in it. So is the behind the scenes material from The Long Goodbye, the short film Riz Ahmed made with the director Aneil Karia, and the making of FKA twigs' video for Cellophane. Jarvis Cocker, Olivia Laing, Caleb Azumah Nelson, David Sedaris, Kneecap, Moses Sumney and Pussy Riot appear on the same roster, so the book is not limited to people who work in galleries.

That breadth is the design decision. A reader who arrives for Sedaris can land on Abramović, and one who arrives for a music video can land on a photographer. Mixing the formats is the pitch.

Quil Lemons Shot New Photographs for It

Some of the book is new. Photographs by Quil Lemons, Micaiah Carter and Renell Medrano were made for it, along with a manifesto by Marina Abramović and an essay by Roxane Gay. Commissioned pages are the difference between a collected anthology and an object that has its own reason to exist.

Lemons was in the room for the launch. WePresent toasted the book at Jeansdown with its team and several of the artists featured inside, among them Flo Ngala, Bráulio Amado, Adam Prieto and Lemons. Mark Sommerfeld photographed the evening.

The guest list is a small version of the table of contents. Contributors from different corners of the book standing in one New York room is what the pages argue for: that the most interesting work right now does not share a category.

WePresent Made The Long Goodbye Before It Made a Book

WePresent is the arts platform that grew out of the file transfer company WeTransfer, and it says it has worked with more than 1,000 artists from over 100 countries. A book is a new format for it, but commissioning is not. WePresent commissioned and first released The Long Goodbye in March 2020, and the film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short at the 94th Academy Awards in March 2022, with Ahmed taking home his first Oscar.

That history explains the choice of material. A film commissioned by a web platform and rewarded by the Academy is a clear proof that unexpected art can come from a place with no gallery attached. Putting its making inside a hardback gives that proof a shelf life a feed does not have.

Several retailers list the Monacelli Press as the imprint, and Phaidon sells it directly. The ISBN is 9781580937573.

A Poster at Casa Magazine Until November 2

For New York readers there is an incentive to buy in person. Through November 2, Casa Magazine in New York is giving a complimentary Marina Abramović poster with every purchase of the book while supplies last. Abramović also wrote the manifesto inside it.

The timing suits her. Abramović covered NOWNESS Paper Issue 28 earlier this month, her Venice show Transforming Energy at the Gallerie dell'Accademia ran from May 6 to October 18, and she turns 80 on November 30. A manifesto in a hardback and a poster on a wall put her in two places at once during that year.

Publication details are less tidy. Launch week materials describe the book as shipping now from Phaidon.com, while Phaidon's UK page says it will ship from November 5, 2026. Retail listings give October 27, 28 and 29. Anyone buying should check the date on the page they order from, because the dates do not agree.

It also lands in a season of art books in New York. In September Pace Publishing brought a facsimile of Paul Thek's notebook to the New York Art Book Fair, a reproduction of one artist's private pages. Brilliant makes the opposite case: one volume holding the public work of 60 contributors.