LA Freedom Festival celebrates Fourth of July with symbolic new sculpture – LA Daily News

When: 5:30 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, July 4

Where: Santa Monica Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles

Admission: Free

Information: https://farhang.org.

While people gather at the inaugural L.A. Freedom Festival for a night of Persian pop, ethnic food, and Fourth of July fireworks, a new public artwork will be unveiled.

Dubbed The Freedom Sculpture, the stainless steel monument by internationally renowned Sri Lankan designer Cecil Balmond and modeled on the progressive Cyrus Cylinder of ancient Persia is a gift to the city. And like the original Cylinder, its a symbol of religious freedom, cultural diversity and inclusiveness.

Heres a message that has come down 2,500 years and landed itself on a busy thoroughfare in Los Angeles where people are going to pass it by the millions, says Balmond, speaking by phone from his home in London. Its like the message keeps on traveling.

That early declaration of human rights is represented in the large-scale contemporary artwork by a metallic gold cylinder within a silver cylinder and supported by two rings that ground it to the public transit median on historic Route 66, on Santa Monica Boulevard at Century Park East. It appears lacelike, echoing the original cuneiform script from a distance.

In the day, it shines silvery with glints of gold, and by night the golden inner cylinder is illuminated by LED lights.

To build form, you have to have a poetic sense of space, he says. I like to think that my work reflects that. Of course its subjective how you decide the visitor should see and engage with your work. If you see my artworks, go to my buildings or cross my bridges, youll see theyre never static.

The Freedom Sculpture began as an idea by the Farhang Foundation in late 2013. In 2014, it launched an art competition that attracted more than 300 submissions from around the world. The panel of jurors, which included curators from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, chose the winning design in late 2015.

Balmond is known for his large public displays.

They include the award-winning Snow Words, an abstract tower of light suspended between a skylight and a mirrored floor in the lobby of the Crime Detection Laboratory in Anchorage, Alaska, to commemorate fallen officers in 2012.

In the current divided political climate, the public artwork takes on greater meaning.

Angelenos, who comprise millions of people from different ethnicities, religions and lifestyles living together in peaceful harmony, are an embodiment of these noblest of American ideals, says Farhad Mohit, vice chairman of the Farhang Foundation, which commissioned Balmond to create the work as a gift to the city. For them, the Freedom Sculpture will become an iconic symbol of another of the unique attributes of this great city.

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LA Freedom Festival celebrates Fourth of July with symbolic new sculpture - LA Daily News