Abstract
Useful Art Award discussed issues of art's value in contexts of the Jindřich Chalupecký Art Award for Young Artists. The paper discusses Jacques Ranciere's thinking about the ethics and politics of aesthetics while looking at writing of the British theorist John Byrne.
Byrne positions the idea of useful art as a way how to avoid commodification of art. The article centres its argument around the usefulness of unpredictability that art offers as a tool for thinking about future art awards.