Week 2

Dunhuang Chen

0244729

Critical Practice

This photo belong to the well-known Chinese artist - Weiwei Ai. It is called ( One tiger with eight nipples ). That is so obvious to understand this picture through its name: a man with four women. the tiger means the man with full bread who is siting in middle of picture and eight nipples represent four women surrounding him.

There are totally five nude figure there (a male and four females) and each character’s pose is slightly different. Take a quick look, three figures are siting and other two are standing somehow. Then we observe them individually, the first left female is sitting in a chair and facing right from audience`s view. Then the second right female is standing on the ground and smiling, using a hand to cover her mouth. The man is also siting in a chair in dead center of picture visually and placing both hands on his thigh. A female is standing just behind the man closely. Then the last female is siting on his right side.

We need to carefully look at plenty details from each figures regard their micro-behaves, expressions and other objects in this picture. Apparently, the men is in the most important position of all. He is siting in a large chair with backrest and the central part of him-his genitals is covered by his arms and both hands is put on his left thigh. The first left girl with glasses is siting in a chair without backrest and facing right toward the center-the man. The right girl next to her is standing near the man, she is smiling with covering her mouth by hand and her left hand is holding the backrest of man`s chair. The third girl is standing behind the man and just showing her head only. The last women is relatively fat than other females, she is wearing a jade bracelet and a jade necklace particularly and siting in a backrest chair.

Actually, each person and his or her behavior has deeply connections and implied meanings. The only man here is covering his central part, the Chinese character “挡” （dang) means covering, and “central part” is translated into Chinese that is 中央（zhong yang）, therefore “covering central part” could be pronounced as “dang zhong yang” . What is interesting that 挡（covering) and 党 ( political party) are homophones. So the man with his performance could be interpret as dang zhong yang ( 党中央）which means the central government. the hands putting on his left thigh may means left learning persistently. The first left women with long hair represent intellectuals because of wearing glasses. Playing her hair means intellectuals are flattering the central government, Raised buttocks implies they have social positions, facing towards man shows they are always led by government. Her chair has no backrest indicate that intellectuals is unreliable! The right girl next to him is considered as the media. She is standing between two figures with smiling means that she has no position at all. But her hand is grasping the backrest of man`s chair and she is ready to site with the man together seemingly, it tells that government controls the media. the fat women wearing jewelries most the right side represent wealth so obviously, that is bourgeoisie. She is siting in a backrest chair tells us that they are absolute dependable. She and the man have a group photo If we look at them very closely, that make sense because fortune is government`s favorite after all. The last pool girl standing behind the man whose most part is covered. She must be people definitely because she has no space and being ignored.

This picture perfectly explain the reality of the present Chinese society. I cannot agree more as a Chinese.