Analysis Of Steve Lambert's Capitailsm Works For Me !

Through the modernist period, the criticism of higher powers over social, economic and political injustice often became subject through artistic medium, artist’s using their platform to publicise the new arising of anti-monarch philosophies, and questioning of the corrupt and unjust workings of the class system. The politically critical art of Honoré Daumier (1808- 1879) offers an insight to that of the social upheaval in 19th century France and the dawn of the individualism and controversial class criticism of the modernist artistic era, juxtaposing to Steve Lambert’s Capitalism Works for Me! (2011) a contemporary art project which calls for the public interaction to form an audience awareness of the effects of such a political and economic

reflects similar outlooks to that of Daumier’s constrasting depiction of the first and third carriages, offering the audience’s perspectives of society not through a painting of the different classes, but through a poll taken by the audience on whether or not capitalism is truly beneficial for them as individuals. The piece is constructed from a large LED sign stating the piece’s title, surrounded by scoreboards that register the "True" or "False" responses from audience members. The artwork, which has traveled through several cities in America, explores the effects the political and economical system of capitalism in the western country, the audience having to parse what capitalism means for themselves. Whilst Lambert’s work is mostly accessible to that of the middle class, it publicly explores and offers critique for a social and economical system that ultimately divides up classes from those who benefit from such a system to those who are exploited by such. The notion of being able to critique the bourgeousie and government through art was thoroughly pioneered by Daumier through his illustrative critiques that lead to the constraversial censorship of artist’s and such works, Lambert’s creation ultimately owing itself to