French artist Abraham Poincheval embarked on a new feat Wednesday by enclosing himself inside a block of stone for a week, adding to the two weeks he previously spent inside a sculpture of a bear.
Poincheval is to live entombed in a body-shaped slot carved out from a limestone boulder from February 22 to March 1, at Paris' Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum.
He will eat stewed fruit, soups and purees stashed in cubby holes inside the stone block, which is also equipped with an air vent and items such as a log book.
The artist, who has made a name for himself living in enclosed spaces, told journalists that the best way to understand objects was not from a distance but by entering them.
"I say to myself, hold on, what is this object really? And you ask yourself the question and say to yourself: 'Well, hold on, instead of distancing yourself and removing oneself from it, let's go inside and see what is really happening,'" Poincheval told reporters.
The performance left museum-goers intrigued.
"It is rather extraordinary. We are asking ourselves: What he will do for a week? How he will live? We arrived just as he went in this work of art, and I hope we will be able to follow, on the internet at least, how it will evolve," Maylis Boxberger, a Paris resident visiting the museum with her son Charles, told Reuters TV.
In 2014, Poincheval spent 13 days living inside a hollowed-out bear sculpture, eating worms and beetles to follow a bear's diet.
