What's the Use? Constellations of Art, History, and Knowledge (Valiz, Van Abbemuseum, L'Internationale, 2016), is a collection of essays on the 'uses' of art. The starting point of the Reader is that art is an integral part of social, economic, and political processes, and that it is best understood in dialogue with these contexts, rather than as a 'thing in itself'. In their contributions, artists and writers explore the exchange between art, use, knowledge and history; now and in the past.

At the start of the cultural season Veem House for Performance and Valiz invite you to the launch of this book in Amsterdam, and moreover to discuss publicly the questions it raises. Is art only art insofar as it refuses to be useful, or can art practices serve a broader purpose in the world? What uses might art have? And how do we understand artistic autonomy today? Given the current state of the artfield, these issues seem ever so urgent: What ís the use?!

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Freehouse Zuid - Radicalizing the Local