Abstract

From 1st till 13 April 2014 continuously, the performeur Abraham Poincheval lives inside a bear naturalized in one of the showrooms of the Musée de la chasse et de la nature in Paris. The animal is fitted out to receive his tenant as well as a whole device of autonomy. What reveals such an artistic act? A fable, where the ancestral order of domination would symbolically be spilled, between the human being-predator and the animal-consommé; no without irony because the performance takes place in a place dedicated to the tradition of the hunting in Western Europe. The biblical history revisited by Jonas and by the whale? Except that here the journey is motionless and accompanied with the diurnal stream of visitors of the museum. It is a question here of being literally in the skin of the bear and in permanent relation with the public: during the performance a webcam in the bear connects 24/24 live Poincheval and the world via Internet.