What Art Does - by Brian Eno & Bette Adriaanse (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Legendary artist Brian Eno and writer/visual artist Bette Adriaanse explore the meaning and purpose of art, expanded to feature a new appendix by the authors.

Featuring a new appendix by the authors, What Art Does is an invitation to explore this vital question. It is a chance to understand how art is made by all of us. How it creates communities, opens our worlds, and can transform us.

Curious and playful, richly illustrated, full of ideas and life, it is an inspiring call to imagine a different future.

Review Quotes

"A lifetime's worth of practical wisdom and reflection. The result is a kind of joyous manifesto" - Guardian

"Remarkable for its ability to render sophisticated and sometimes slippery ideas in clear, accessible language [. . .] The most powerful ideas here present art as conduit to community, as a way to be vulnerable, to surrender [. . .] This is a beautiful book" - Irish Times

"A work of art [. . .] explains the role of art in individual wellbeing and bringing communities together in tumultuous times" - Daily Mirror

"Light but never lightweight [. . .] An upbeat audit of ideas about art's wider purpose and potential, mercifully free of scholarly didacticism or convolution" - Mojo

"Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s I wasn't afraid of Art even though my family was poor and undereducated and knew nothing about it. I was excited and wanted to join in, even to be part of contemporary art-making. I lost that confidence along the way. Became scared of Art, felt excluded by it. Reading What Art Does, has helped me regain that confidence by reminding me we're all making art all the time. That Art is for us and by us "- Viv Albertine

"Idea-rich [. . .] as visually engaging as it is intellectually stimulating" - Kirkus Reviews

"We need a new avant-garde, one that thinks "fundamentally otherwise" from how it has been co-opted. Brian Eno's "unfinished theory" is a beginning" - The TLS

"Really delightful" - Ezra Klein

"Any aspiring artist-but especially any aspiring musician-will be grateful" - The New Yorker