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This article considers the application of Lacanian psycho-semiotics to Yasmina Reza’s, Art, as a means of understanding the influence that aesthetic judgements wield as markers of social class: the defining actor in the balance of the play’s interpersonal relationships. In viewing the focus of their dispute, a recently acquired artwork, as a metaphor for the unconscious (as defined under the Lacanian psychological model), it becomes apparent the play’s structure strongly reflects that of Lacan’s analysis of Edgar Alan Poe’s The Purloined Letter. This understanding grounds a potentially lofty discussion of ‘high’ art as one that carries real-world, non-literary ramifications, contextualising the differing socio-economic power held by each of the characters and exposing the internal pressures that that imbalance exerts.