Art and Language

One has to appreciate Marcel Duchamp, one of the forefathers of the Dada art movement of the early 20th century. That the process of creating is more important than the art, and the disregarding of traditional art methods and ideas; are some of the main ideas behind Dada. Let's look at a quote from Mr. Duchamp:

"As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good--I use it because I have to, but I don't put any trust in it. We never understand each other."

-Marcel Duchamp, quoted in: Art & Physics by Leonard Shlain, p. 204

Me, personally, I like to write and have always been interested in prose, poetry, words and word play. Some things though are only expressible in visual terms, ...emotion, intuition, the subconscious, ...which is why I thank Duchamp for helping to allow artists to break away from the traditional role of merely recreating reality. These ideas that became Dada are still only beginning to become widely integrated into modern culture in my opinion.