- Title: French artist emerges from rock after one week
- Date: 1st March 2017
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MARCH 1, 2017) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** CROWD SURROUNDING STONE WITH FRENCH ARTIST, ABRAHAM POINCHEVAL, INSIDE SCREEN SHOWING POINCHEVAL INSIDE STONE CORD CLAMPED ONTO STONE STONE BEING OPENED / POINCHEVAL BEING HELPED OUT POINCHEVAL WAVING AT APPLAUDING AUDIENCE POINCHEVAL BEING LED TO MEDICAL CHECK UP AUDIENCE MEMBERS TALKING P
- Embargoed: 15th March 2017 15:38
- Keywords: artist rock Poincheval stone Palais de Tokyo Paris art museum France
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- City: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Human Interest/Brights/Odd News,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA001664Q89L
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: French artist Abraham Poincheval emerged "dazed" but "happy" on Wednesday (March 1) from living inside a giant rock for seven days.
The now world-famous artist spent the last week in a body-shaped slot carved out from a limestone rock in Paris' Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum.
He ate stewed fruit and purees in a stone equipped with an air vent and personal items like a log book.
Once helped out of the stone to enthusiastic applause, Poincheval was taken to have a quick 10-minute medical check-up away from the crowds.
The freshly-emerged artist then returned to his audience to recount how he was happy to have lived such an experience, which led him on a journey of self-discovery of sorts, albeit a rather difficult one to process, let alone immediately to put into words.
He told how he lived through moments of vertigo and dream-like, hallucinatory states - all part of his desire to explore varying concepts of time for different species and natural objects in his performances.
"There are very strong moments of vertigo, I can tell you that. The world topples monstrously, yes, yes. And that is great because it is still a pleasure, it is a gift but at the same time, in short, you still have to keep your head screwed on. But yes, there are very big moments of loss of oneself, where suddenly it is 'bam', you no longer know where you are, but you are there, that's what is great," the artist said.
He also recounted how visitors to the museum kept him company by speaking to him through the rock, and even singing and reciting poems to him.
The visitors present at the contemporary art museum as Poincheval emerged from the rock were enthralled by the artist's latest feat.
The artist's mother, Eveline Poincheval, told Reuters TV that she was proud and marvelled by her son's unconventional artistic endeavours.
"For me it is very moving. That which touches me a lot about Abraham, and which marvels me and then, at the same time, leads me further in my human dimension, is that view of sculpting his life, to search for other angles of life, which are lesser-known or which we have not explored because of our fears, or because we are often in the confines of society. So I find that magnificent," his mother said.
Other visitors, like the artist Marie Piselli and her daughter Pauline, agreed that this provocative nature of Poincheval's performance, rooted in feeling and direct experience, meant that his latest work can be justified as "art".
The artist is no stranger to living inside enclosed spaces. He spent 13 days living inside a hollowed-out bear sculpture in Paris' Museum of Hunting and Nature in April 2014, eating worms and beetles to mirror a bear's diet.
His next feat will be to mimic a hen by sitting on eggs until they hatch, in order to "basically become a chicken", a performance that will begin on March 29, and that will last from 20 - 26 days. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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