The fine line between "art" and advertising

Kids, note how so many of our examples are so closely related to art. The reason for that is because "advertising" that doesn't really advertise anything is indeed art, it's just pretty... sometimes. The difference between scam and art arises in that art inspires you in some way, makes you think about things differently and challenges those around us to see life in a whole new light. Scam just makes you laugh, and sometimes queasy. 

Well now, look what have we here...An execution for the "China Organization Against Domestic Violence", entitled "Shadow".

Upon closer inspection, you can see that the little cute smiling boy is actually illustrated with millions of other kids being abused in the most interesting ways. Some are being shoved into a washing machine, others are being stretched like Mr Fantastic in Fantastic Four. Yet others are being flung by Superman with his super human strength across tall buildings. Amazing how mean some super heroes can be...

But what interests me is the idea behind the execution. A picture of a face made up of other, horrible horrible things (in this case Superman beating up children) certainly isn't fresh. Many other pieces of artwork have already used the same concept. But to call the execution in question "Shadow", along with the body copy calling on others to help children "living under the shadow of domestic violence"... WTF?! 

The image is one of a happy, smiley kid. There isn't one ounce of shadow being cast anywhere in this execution.. shouldn't the body copy have read something along the lines of "every happy kid is made up of thousands who have the shit kicked out of them regularly"? It certainly would have made a lot more sense.

Did the AD and CW sit together at any stage when they did this? Maybe they thought no one would notice because the art work is so awesome.. but wait.. they never considered that it's been done, makes fokol sense and is, at the core, pretty ugly. 

Being all knowing, I know that the only place where this sort of trash would be considered even remotely close to advertising is in Scam City.