Freedom - Zenos Frudakis


"I wanted to create a sculpture almost anyone, regardless of their background, could look at and instantly recognise that it is about the idea of struggling to break free. This sculpture is about the struggle for achievement of freedom through the creative process." - Zenos Frudakis


Freedom (2000) is located in front of the GSK World Headquarters in Philadelphia, US.

When I first saw Freedom I immediately felt uplifted, and it made me happy, it had been so long since a sculpture had had this kind of impression on me. What I love about it is the gradual evolution toward the figures final state of freedom, arms out, leaping with joy away from their former restricted self. I think there's something quite primitive about the way Frudakis has moulded these figures, they emerge in a way that actually reminds me of the pods in the Matrix. Frudakis describes the four figures in detail on his website:  

"Although there are four figures represented, the work is really one figure moving from left to right. The composition develops from left to right beginning with a kind of mummy/death like captive figure locked into its background. In the second frame, the figure, reminiscent of Michaelangelo’s Rebellious Slave, begins to stir and struggle to escape. The figure in the third frame has torn himself from the wall that held him captive and is stepping out, reaching for freedom. In the fourth frame, the figure is entirely free, victorious, arms outstretched, completely away from the wall and from the grave space he left behind. He evokes an escape from his own mortality."



There's just something so applicable about this sculpture, it just feels like (as in tended by Frudakis) there's a part of everybody within this sculpture, like you could see yourself as any of the four stages.

Images: My Modern Met

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