A couple of mommy’s little angels were caught on tape tearing apart a piece of artwork at a Shanghai museum recently. What’s more, their parents were also caught on camera, filming their kids’ act of destruction with a smile.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the artwork the kids broke was a pair of angel wings made of glass. The piece titled “Angel is Waiting” has been on display since 2014 at the Shanghai Museum of Glass and now we finally know what it was waiting for.
The CCTV footage shows two women (presumably parents) holding up their mobile phones to film as their two kids play inside the rope barriers protecting the sculpture. The rowdy children bump into the sculpture, touch it and finally yank a part off.
After learning about the incident, the Chinese artist Shelly Xue has decided to just leave the mangled piece as is, choosing to change the name of the work to “Broken,” while the museum has set up a screen to loop the footage showing how exactly it got its new name.
Before:
After:
The incident has generated considerable outrage online with most of it directed at the two mothers:
“The guardians should take full responsibility and compensate the artist,” reads the top comment on one thread with over 27,000 likes.
“The artist should also install a family portrait of the vandals and title it “Upbringing,” wrote one Weibo user.
“I suggest that the artist change the name of the broken artwork to — “Shameless Idiots,” commented another.
Some netizens have also linked the incident to China’s larger scourge of “little emperors,” a title given to recent generations of only children in China, who have been spoiled by excessive attention given to them by parents and grandparents thanks to the effects of the recently-defunct one-child policy.
So, go ahead and add angel wings to the list of things spoiled by China’s “little emperors,” already including the economy and Instagram. This is exactly why they can’t be on TV anymore.
Watch the video below:
[AD]: Experience a 10-day culinary adventure in top restaurants around China from May 20 to 29!
