The Uses of Art is a memoir of transformative encounters with art, asking what it would mean to make use of art in the way we make free and personal use of music and literature. Artist and writer Sal Randolph answers with stories of sitting eye-to-eye with Marina Abramović, making the pilgrimage to Walter de Maria’s The Lightning Field, and returning again and again to a Tiepolo painting at the Met. The Uses of Art invites readers into new methods of looking, engaging with both the classic museum visit and with contemporary art, including the work of Lygia Clark, Ann Hamilton, Eva Hesse, Roni Horn, David Horvitz, Juliana Huxtable, Donald Judd, Ragnar Kjartansson, Agnes Martin, Bernadette Mayer, Aki Sasamoto, and Tino Sehgal. Liberating and emboldening, this book will change the way you experience art. [publishers’ note]

Foreword by Paul Soulellis; afterword conversation with Adam Moss.