Sea and Sky, Bielefeld Art Museum
Driven to Kill I May 2017
In April, a BMW racing through a fructo
market in Foshan in China’s Guangdong
province knocked down a 2-year-old girl
and rolled over her head. As the girl’s
grandmother shouted, “Stop! You’ve hit
a child!” the BMW’s driver paused, then
switched into reverse and backed up
over the girl. The woman at the wheel
drove forward once more, crushing the
girl for a third time. When she finally got
out from the BMW, the unlicensed driver
immediately offered the horrified family
a deal: “Don’t say that I was driving the
car,” she said. “Say it was my husband.
We can give you money.”
It seems like a crazy urban legend: In
China, drivers who have injured pe-
destrians will sometimes then try to kill
them. And yet not only is it true, it’s fairly
common; security cameras have regu-
larly captured drivers driving back and
forth on top of victims to make sure that
[ In China, drivers
who have injured
pedestrians will
sometimes then
try to kill them.
And yet not only
is it true, it’s fairly
common ]
they are dead. The Chinese language
even has an adage for the phenomenon:
“It is better to hit to kill than to hit and
injure.”
This 2008 television report features
security camera footage of a dusty white
Passat reversing at high speed and
smashing into a 64-year-old grandmoth-
er. The Passat’s back wheels bounce
up over her head and body. The driver,
Zhao Xiao Cheng, stops the car for a
moment then hits the gas, causing his
front wheels to roll over the woman.
Then Zhao shifts into drive, wheels
grinding the woman into the pavement.
Critique of Chinese Culture
Although lacking a unifying new aesthetic,
The Cynical Realism Movement works with
it’s own share the same tone of satire and
humor, depicting the psychological fallout
felt by the population and the artists them-
selves.
Their views are without a doubt critical,
however they also employ the ironic feel and
even self-criticism to soften the impact.
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.isms I May 2017
.isms I May 2017
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