Artwork description:

This portrait of one of the greatest poets, weaved with one extra long string that connects 200 aluminum nails on the circumference, looks though centuries. Here's a beautiful English translation of The Prophet poem, where Pushkin described his mission:

We’re mired by thirst for sacred things –
Through gloomy desert did I wander,
And then the seraph with six wings
To me appeared at crossroads yonder.
I felt his dainty fingers’ graze,
As in a dream, my pupils’ haze:
Now opened prophet’s eyes enlightened
Like those of eagle when he’s frightened.
He touched my earlobes after this –
My ears were filled with noise and hiss:
I heeded then the heavens’ shiver,
The lofty angels flying free,
Vile creature’s way beneath the sea,
The valley’s vineyards’ windblown quiver.
And then my feeble lips he scratched,
Away my sinful tongue he snatched –
My tongue, so wicked and so idle –
And in its place the snake’s forked tips
Inserted ’twixt my lifeless lips
With bloody hand, like bit and bridle.
He cut with sword my heaving breast,
Threw out my heart as it vibrated,
And then a burning coal he pressed
Into the space he’d thus created.
In desert like a corpse I lay,
God spoke with words I must obey:
“Arise, O prophet, pay attention,
Do all that I’ve commanded you,
O’er land and sea with seer’s contention
Afflict the hearts of people too.”

Materials used:

String, Nails

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