"The real, reality, is becoming the prospective domain of art, and art is becoming technique in a literal, 'practical' sense: making and remaking things rather than painting pictures..." (1)
This appears to be a liberal view of art away from "picture making," but "thing making" is a linear progression from "picture-making." The real change in art away from from investing abstract bodies with abstract hierarchical meanings.
The modern artist has assumed full responsibility for his art, and now for the definitions of his own consciousness, attempting to perceive how he perceives (this applies to all senses) and erasing the separateness between artistic disciplines.
(1) Herbert Marcuse, "Art in the One-Dimensional Society," Arts Magazine 41, no. 7 (May 1967), 31.
Robert Irwin, Notes Toward a Conditional Art, selection from Jan Butterfield, "Robert Irwin, Re-Shaping the Shape of Things: Part 2, The Myth of the Artist," Arts Magazine 47, no. 1 (September-October 1972), 30-32.