Taking ESMoA and LA’s South Bay City of El Segundo as ostensible “campaign headquarters,” FREESTATE features new artworks by Cole Sternberg conceived as fabricated historical ephemeras and objects, sovereign documents, and fictional propaganda. The gallery space is split into three rooms, forcing the viewer to experience each as a separate moment along the path to the Free Republic.
Room one is an elaborate canvasing office, replete with posters, buttons, lawn signs and other public activation propaganda. Sternberg has even drafted a new Constitution for California, published in pocket form for easy mass dissemination. Room two is the brain of the concept. As “California Dreamin’” plays on repeat, the walls of this room are filled from floor to ceiling with works on paper chronicling the artist’s mind map of secession. They explain the historical heartache, the environmental elegance and the logistics of a peaceful and beneficial transition. The final stage is the largest and calmest. Feelings of escape and freedom permeate from Sternberg’s environmental sculpture and collage, which sit quietly against a traditional museum backdrop, demonstrating a future where one can breathe.
FREESTATE is on view through March 2021 at ESMoA 208 Main St, El Segundo, CA 90245. To learn more go to www.thefreerepublicofcalifornia.com