Stefan Sagmeister is a world famous artist specializing in graphic design, typography, interactive and environmental art (Stefan Sagmeister 2017). He uses his art to confront many controversial topics and allows his audiences to take part in his art. We will be able to see Sagmeister's causes and design strategies by looking at a few key Marxist theories such as how two opposites cannot exist without one another and how we place ourselves in our social structure relative to others. We will do this by using his artworks Everybody always thinks that they are right, Obsessions make my life worse but my work better, and The happy show.
2 RESEARCH AND VISUAL ANALYSIS
Firstly we have figure 1, Everybody always thinks that they are …show more content…
Sagmeister states: “I do obsess over our work and think that a number of our better projects came out of such an obsession” (Sagmeister & Walsh 2016). He has proven this statement himself, as he admits that without the obsession for something, certain outcomes would not be possible. The artworks sentence is relevant specifically to this theory because if a person has no obsession over something in his/her life then there will be nothing to worsen or better but if the person has an obsession over a specific object/person in his/her life, then they have the possibility to worsen their life and better their work. An example being, if a person is so obsessed finding the cure for cancer that he/she only concentrates on this aspect of his/her life this could not be the most healthy thing to do as they gradually lose their friends, money etcetera but the day that they have the cure for cancer their obsession will have paid off even though they have completely shut down the other aspects of their life. One cannot exist without the …show more content…
The piece we’re focusing on requires you to take one candy from one of the tubes rated one to ten depending on how happy you feel, this is based on Sagmeister's ten year exploration on happiness (Stefan Sagmeister Sa). Here we can see that the theory of how two opposites cannot exist without one another is very true. If each person at the exhibit takes a candy from a tube then we will easily be able to establish how happy the general audience is and by how much. This can only happen because of the availability of this candy machine artwork. The opposite is also true, if no one took candy from the tubes we would find it difficult to determine how happy the general audience is. This artwork also only works if people are at at the exhibit and take part, versus if no one was there and did not take part the exhibit would not exist. Thus proving that these two separate states are mutually exclusive and that each opposite cannot exist without the other (Sewell & Woods 2000). In figure 3, The happy show, where the theory of how we place ourselves in our social structure relative to others is very true. Often as people we rate our happiness on our social status. This means that we believe that we are very happy when we are very popular, rich, successful and have all the latest new gadgets. This also then means that we are not happy or are sad or are depressed when we are lonely, poor, unsuccessful