Is Art Really Useless?

To ordinary readers, contemporary art is incomprehensible and useless in practical terms, yet it has become an increasingly popular buzzword online and throughout society. What do people mean by artistic sensibility? How should we appreciate art? What changes can art bring to our lives?

This collection of conversations addresses these questions that the public is curious about, answering them one by one. One of the authors, University of Tokyo professor Toshihiko Miura, approaches art from a professional perspective and interprets it through logic. As he guides readers through works of art from the twentieth century onward, he breaks down preconceptions shaped by everyday experience, inspires artistic thinking, and leads readers into “an age when everyone is an artist.” He invites them to view problems in modern society from a different angle and find ways to solve them.