June 12, 2015: Crying children projected on factory smoke in China
 

http://cellar.org/2015/polchild1.jpg

Poignant, captured beautifully. And happening in China, where pollution is the biggest problem... but where speaking out on such things typically isn't acceptable.

http://cellar.org/2015/polchild2.jpg

Bypassing the metaphor and putting this work on a real life stage, art can be subversive in ways that dissidents can't imagine.

http://cellar.org/2015/polchild3.jpg

"Clean the air, let the future breathe again." A powerful statement.

http://cellar.org/2015/polchild4.jpg

Wait, what? Right, they got me. Blog designboom presents this as if it's art, but it's actually an advertisement, for a desktop air purifier company.

But wait, isn't it still subversive? If it was art when I thought it was art, is it still art? Is it art because they said it was? Art is hard.