Letter to Abriskil aka Amiran aka Prometheus (Fantastic Man), 2009
stolen letterhead marker wood silver frame
66.5 x 51.5 cm 26 2/16 x 20 4/16 ins
For the West, it was Prometheus who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals, and whose punishment was to be chained to a mountain, which happened to...
For the West, it was Prometheus who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals, and whose punishment was to be chained to a mountain, which happened to be in the Caucasus, his liver being eternally torn out by the beak of an eagle.
For the Ossetians, it was Amiran aka Abriskil who got into a rock-throwing match with Jesus. After an enormous boulder hurled past Jesus and lodged itself deep into a mountain, Jesus challenged Amiran to unearth the rock. Amiran did not succeed, and as punishment was chained to the peak of Mt. Kazbek. Amiran was a repeat offender, to use the legal lingo of his foe’s followers: the son of a sorcerer, he singled out Christians for punishment. To this day, it is said that his despair and struggle to break free of his chains is what causes the avalanches and earthquakes in the greater region
A letter written in Ossetian, an Iranic language of the North Russian Caucasus, to Abriskil, which reads:
Dear Abriskil, It pains us to answer in the affirmative: the weeds, blackberry bushes and many many more evils still plague us and the Earth. The situation has become slightly more complicated as it seems we constitute one of those very evils ourselves. On the brighter side, though, we do now seem to have the means to break through those chains of yours. Yours, Slavs and Tatars
