The paintings of Alyssa Monks were featured here a few years ago. In the following link, Ms Monks crops up again, along with some other rather talented people. 

Via MeFi. 

At least we are according to the aesthetes behind Swansea’s taxpayer-funded art festival Art Across the City, which improves the locals with things like this, and specifically conceptual artist Jeremy Deller, whose work, above, is sited in a car park behind a shopping centre. The press release for this mighty piece tells us, “Deller’s plaintive request gets straight to the point. Everybody and everywhere could do with more poetry.” Likewise, presumably, “everybody” could “do with” more conceptual art too. 

Babies’ first encounters with lemon. // Montana elk herd crosses road. Will the lone straggler make it? // Paper robot field test. // A life-sized cardboard Iron Man and other cardboard creatures. // What a dog’s tongue does. // Special needs Doberman. // How many days did you spend watching that show? // If the Moon were a giant disco ball. // Build your own solar system with Super Planet Crash. // Alien audiobook. // Drag balls in Kansas, 1950s-60s. (h/t, MeFi) // Kingdom of the little people. // A-ki-ra. // Hedgehog masks. // City of darkness. // Can you do a British accent? // The coldest city. // A brief history of post-credits movie scenes. // Baby elephant gifs. // And finally, befriend your hummingbird. 

Brace yourselves, dear readers, it’s art news time. Today we marvel at the searing brilliance of the French performance artist Abraham Poincheval, who, as I type, resides in the belly of a bear. Or rather, in the hollowed-out carcass of a bear, one that’s currently situated in the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris. Mr Poincheval is, we’re told, re-enacting “a powerful sensitivity” and “profound symbolism,” one that “still grips the Western world’s imagination today.” It’s a “communion” that will “inevitably bring him to a state of profound meditation.” He’s “confounding the boundaries between man and animal.” How so, you ask? 

Just like the mammal during the winter months, Poincheval remains within a small enclosure, keeping with him all the basic things he might need to survive throughout the weeks spent inside; food, water, activities and even a place to relieve himself… By residing within the species, Poincheval aims to understand his own physical limits and experience animal nature, a symbolic image of the ‘inside out’ of a bear during hibernation. 

Mr Poincheval began his immense artistic feat on April 1 and hopes to make it through two weeks of, um, “residing within the species” and “experiencing animal nature,” albeit with pillows and electric lighting, amenities and distractions, and a kettle on hand. There is, of course, a live feed for the benefit of aesthetes unable to make it to Paris. 

I urge you to tune in. It’s gripping stuff. 

A tilt-shift film by Filippo Rivetti.