NARRATOR:
Art Chicken No. 12, created in 2004 by Duan Jianyu, is a horizontal oil painting on canvas measuring about 182 centimetres high and 217 centimetres wide. In the painting, a big chicken is suspended upside down from a coconut tree against a background of mountain ranges under a cloudy sky.
The coconut tree is on the left of the painting and has a height of about three-quarters of the work. Its thin trunk, painted grey, bends towards the right. At the top of the tree, nine frond leaves and ten round coconuts are outlined with simple brushstrokes in different shades of green. The leaves fan out and droop downwards. They have jagged edges and are paler in parts where the paint looks thin and dry.
A big chicken hangs upside down from the coconut tree, its right foot tied to the tip of a frond, its body nearly touching the ground. Plump and yellowish-brown, the chicken is almost as big as the tree itself. It has no hair, no head, and no claws. The follicles on its skin make it look like roast chicken.
The sky in the background is pale blue mixed with a touch of light yellow. Beneath it, a range of rolling mountains come in varying shades of black and light grey, undulating with steep inclines and declines. The mountains in the foreground are dark and dim, while those further away look brighter. At the foot of the mountains are thick strokes of black paint on the right and greyish-white on the left, creating the impression of a land surface or a lake.
