After searching for over 24 hours, Sven Sachsalber finally found the incredibly elusive needle (Picture: Facebook/Palais De Tokyo)

For most of us, finding a needle in a haystack is simply an age-old adage and should remain that way.

Not Italian performance artist Sven Sachsalber though, who has successfully turned such a challenge into his latest exhibit at a contemporary art gallery in Paris.

The installation, at the Palais De Tokyo which was broadcast on YouTube, saw the artist searching for the elusive needle for over 24 hours on Wednesday and Thursday.

He finally found it in the multitude of hay, which had been provided by a Parisian farmer, late into the second day of the exhibition.


Although Mr Sachsalber was said to be solemn during the performance and unwilling to talk to the media, Jean De Loisy, the director of the Palais de Tokyo, told the BBC that the exhibit ‘is a symbol of the search we are all doing for something, in the labyrinth in which we are’.



Mr Sachsalber has billed the performance, quite fittingly, an artistic expression for futility and tedium.

He previously hit headlines for spending 24 hours with a cow in a locked room, sawing off tree branches while standing on top, and eating poisonous mushrooms.