"OZYMANDIAS"
Above: Digital Rendering: "Monument"
The Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts has commissioned Douglas Kornfeld to build the sculpture "OZYMANDIAS". The 18 foot high plywood artwork will be completed in Summer 2008.
This sculpture will portray, in monumental scale, a contemporary icon representing “Man.” If one argues that the symbols of a culture reflect its aspirations and ideals, then this banal and generic figure used so ubiquitously throughout the world, built at monumental scale, raises important questions about symbols and contemporary culture.
This sculpture will portray, in monumental scale, a contemporary icon representing “Man.” If one argues that the symbols of a culture reflect its aspirations and ideals, then this banal and generic figure used so ubiquitously throughout the world, built at monumental scale, raises important questions about symbols and contemporary culture.
The sculpture was inspired by images of ancient Egyptian monuments made during the Napoleonic invasion of North Africa. At the time sand had covered much of the Sphinx and Giant statues at Abu Simbal in upper Egypt.
The title of the piece comes from a short poem by Shelley composed in 1818:
The title of the piece comes from a short poem by Shelley composed in 1818:
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"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.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"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.
Above: Digital Rendering: "OZYMANDIAS" , rear view.