douglas Kornfeld
"Ozymandias" - 2009
Dimensions: 20’ x 18’ x 1’-6”
Materials: Laminated wood and steel
Location: DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln. MA
Commissioning Agency: DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park
This sculpture, titled “Ozymandias,” depicts an iconic male symbol appearing to sink into the ground. It draws inspiration from 19th-century images of half-buried Egyptian monuments and is directly informed by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous poem Ozymandias, which speaks to the impermanence of power and human legacy:
”…My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away…”
The sculpture serves as a reflection on the passage of time and the eventual erosion of even the greatest civilizations.
“Ozymandias” was also featured in the national comic strip Zippy the Pinhead on October 15, 2009, underscoring its cultural resonance beyond the art world.
(Click on the thumbnails below to see an enlarged version on the right.)
