Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) said he wanted to "put painting once again at the service of the mind", meaning that art is an intellectual process. He valued ideas more than the art object itself, and this new way of understanding art also liberated the creative process.
I think that many artists today think the same way. Today art is so much more than what it was for example during the Renaissance. Back then art was limited to a canvas or to sculptural materials. It was about hidden messages and icons while as today it's more or less right out there questioning everything.
Duchamp loved the word play- poetry or puns- more than sequential communication, and he undermined the very idea of unique art objects with his "readymades". The readymades were found objects, ordinary manufactured items, like a bicykle wheel, snow shovel or a urinal. The last object is the readymade which I belive Marcel Duchamp is mostly know for today. It is called "The Fountain" and he said that it was an art object simply because he as an artist had chosen it and said so. Maybe his word could have been the final answer to everyones question to; what is art? or; what makes art being art?
