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Useful Art
By John Byrne
0 - Default Title
Description
Does art have to be beautiful? What if it can be useful instead? In this cutting-edge book, John Byrne shows how the concept of 'Useful Art' is helping artists and communities fight back against the neoliberal takeover of our spaces, services and lives.
Byrne demonstrates that networks of artist-led activism and community-based direct action can provide a collaborative playbook of impactful and inclusive alternatives. From Turner Prize-winning urban regeneration projects to bakeries, vegetable gardens and multi-use arts spaces, Useful Art has enormous potential for bringing people together, recovering and preserving local skills and knowledge and reclaiming artistic endeavour for real-world good.
Exploring an international selection of projects, exhibitions and activism, this important new work champions the shift from aesthetics to use value, challenging traditional ways of seeing the world symbolically through art. Reaching beyond the financial logic of the art world, Byrne shows how Useful Art can offer an artistic toolkit for implementing radical change.
Product details
Number of Pages:
286
Release Date:
2026-01-20
Publication Date:
2026-01-20
Publisher:
Manchester University Press
Languages:
Original:
English
ISBN10:
1526181541
ISBN13:
9781526181541
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
Weight:
401 g
Height:
132 cm
Width:
209 cm
Thickness:
19 cm
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