It is a kind of vehicle, you know. It's a kind of making, spreading out ideas, that is what I think. It spreads out the idea. You must care for information and I personally try to make information available not only in a written way... I try also to work with images, with fantasy, with jokes, with humor. It accelerates the discussion of the problem of a new society.... so I work coming from the idea of art as the most important means to transform the society.

In: 'I put me on this train', interview with Art Papier, 1979; as quoted in: Joseph Beuys, Carin Kuoni. Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man. New York, 1993, p. 44