“A King Aesthetic?” Tim Rollins and K.O.S. and the Ethos of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The collaboration between Tim Rollins and K.O.S., from 1998 to Rollins’s death in 2017, was one of the most enduring, unique, and prolific creative partnerships in the recent history of the visual arts. This chapter explores how the purpose and structure of their collaboration, as well as the visual and thematic elements of their art, were shaped by Rollins’s Baptist faith. Furthermore, this chapter examines how Rollins and K.O.S. were inspired and guided by the ethos of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., employing King’s sermon “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life” as a model, and how Rollins and K.O.S.’s art visualizes an aspiration for personal, social, and spiritual renewal.