Butt is it art? Chicken-imitating artist hatches eggs in wacky museum installation

A French artist, whose previous exploits include living inside a stuffed bear and navigating a river in a giant corked bottle, has used his bum to hatch his first chick after spending three weeks sitting on 10 eggs in a Paris museum.

Abraham Poincheval, 44, whose father made headlines for inventing pills that make flatulence smell of roses, has been on public display inside a glass case in the Palais de Tokyo modern art museum since March 29.

He could be seen checking on the eggs every few minutes by asking visitors or via the museum's live YouTube feed.

His patience finally paid off last week when the first of the eggs began to hatch, forcing Poincheval to temporarily rise from his nest for fear of crushing the little yellow chick that emerged.

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The artist's ordeal is far from over because he must stay in the glass case until the other nine eggs deliver their chicks before he can return home to his two human children.

''It's been really tough for him. He has slept sitting on the eggs.

"It's been a lot harder than being shut inside the rock," a spokesman for the museum said.

One of the hardest aspects of his time brooding the eggs has been the heat inside the glass vitrine, as the eggs have to be kept at a minimum of 37C.

He sat almost round the clock - he was allowed only a half-hour break every 24 hours - in one corner of the vitrine in a heavy traditional Korean cape on a specially designed ''laying table".

Poincheval has vowed that his chicks will not end up on a dinner plate.

He said he planned to give them a happy life in his father's farm in the west of France.

WATCH See Abraham Poincheval's 'nest' inside Paris's Palais de Tokyo modern art museum

In February this year the artist entombed himself for a week inside a 12t limestone boulder, and previously he spent time inside the stuffed body of a bear.

He once spent a week on top of a 20m pole, navigated a river in a corked bottle and has crossed France on foot in a straight line.

His father Christian Poincheval made the headlines in 2014 when he developed a range of pills aimed at making people's flatulence smell sweeter - of chocolate or of roses. - The Daily Telegraph

• This article was originally published in The Times.