Costas Varotsos’ The Poet is a multi-layered sculpture made out of 15 tons of broken glass donated by the DESTE Foundation to the City of Nicosia, Cyprus. Originally created for the 1983 exhibition 7 Greek Artists: A New Journey, this sculpture represents both a remarkable example of contemporary art production and a creative statement made by the convergence of parallel cultural interests; the collaboration of public and private initiative – a fundamental purpose of the DESTE Foundation.
As the title of the sculpture implies, Varotsos intended to create a piece which would represent the power inherent in the artist’s world, the sharpness of one of his greatest tools: language. For Varotsos, language is the instrument that can cut through the world of established images at moments of intellectual and spiritual immobility. It is the mental implement that can destroy and attack while, at the same time, recompose, create, and regenerate both the mind and the senses. Consequently, the choice of glass as material stands for a series of multiple meanings: fragility and aggressiveness, transparency and obstruction, light and volume.
The Poet is a man of all times and of all places; an image that both repels and allures the spectator; a creature that soars over one’s head, looking down both in an aggressive and benign way. The Poet accompanied Varotsos’ dreams throughout his life, finally taking form and volume after his encounter with Cyprus. Not only is the sculpture, now standing by the walls of Nicosia near the Famagusta Gate, the product of an artist from Greece, but also the result of a close and creative collaboration between two cultural entities, Cyprus and Greece.
