Why "Dying King"

My first two series of small sculptures in the 1960s were titled "King" and "Queen". These were essentially abstract. In the 70s I inverted the elements that characterized the "King" and that inverted form provided the elements of the subsequent Dying King sculptures.

Several motifs are identifiable influences in the Dying King series of sculptures: the reclining or supine figure [Henry Moore reclining figures / sarcophagus figures], the fragmented or broken figure [Belvedere Torso / Moore's two and three piece reclining figures], the abstracted figure [in every art tradition], and the figure subsumed by landscape forms [hills, caves, valleys, eroded rocks (scholars' rocks)].

The horizontal axis of the work is essential: visual scanning from near to far reveals repetition and variation of edges, lines, surfaces, and masses.

The segments of the torso [thorax, abdomen, and pelvis] constitute the major structural elements of this work, though they are not recognizable representations. The thorax is characterized by a shield or scapula form and by a passageway from from to back, the abdomen by a large cavity opening to the back and by an arch spanning from thorax to pelvis, and the pelvis by bone, valley, and plow-like forms. No more specific representation of the body is intended.

The "Dying King" remains as the vital theme of my work. I have done other good work since the 1988 full-scale sculpture, most fully abstract, but the abstract work does not achieve the peculiar vitality energized by the amalgamation of landscape with the human figure.

So why the title? I have considered re-titling the 1988 piece "Torso/Landscape" which is more explanatory and less given to political, psychological, or mythological associations, all of which are inaccurate and distracting. Yet there it is: the title :"King" seems persistent in much of human history, and perhaps we can associate it with something dignified and substantial in ourselves rather than with those who have attached it to themselves as a symbol of power.

And we die, however dignified and substantial we were. The title reminds us that the work is not entirely abstract and that it reflects our vulnerable bodies and the complex landscape we live in.

I realize that there is some internal contradiction here in not simply numbering the work, leaving it as a visual object, free of conceptual baggage. But, after many years, the title still seems fitting for the work.