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The Kennedy Center took down a sculpture known as \u201cBlue\u201d Wednesday, the latest change to the cultural and performing arts center that stirred some pushback in President Donald Trump’s second term. <\/p>\n
The sculpture, a tall, blue stick figure poised in action \u2014 as if to kick a ball or, from a different angle, having just kicked one \u2014 was designed by sculptor Joel Shapiro and installed in 2019.<\/p>\n
The removal follows a longer-running saga with the Kennedy Center, where the Trump-aligned board is fighting in court for the right to plaster the president’s name on the historic institution. It falls within a broader effort to reshape Washington to Trump’s liking, including demolishing the White House’s East Wing<\/a> to build a ballroom, a proposed triumphal arch<\/a> near Arlington National Cemetery and a renovated golf course.<\/p>\n Shapiro, known for breathing life into otherwise minimalist stick figures, described \u201cBlue\u201d in a video posted to the Kennedy Center\u2019s YouTube years ago as being \u201cabout action and risk and performance and energy. It\u2019s a celebration of possibility.\u201d <\/p>\n Shapiro died in 2025, and \u201cBlue\u201d will no longer celebrate possibility at the Kennedy Center, though it may be reinstalled elsewhere through the Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation. <\/p>\n A crane could be seen Wednesday taking down the sculpture\u2019s appendages, the arms and legs wrapped protectively, as people in hi-vis vests worked around it in the sun.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are deeply grateful to Joel Shapiro for the years Blue has spent animating our campus and connecting visitors to his vision,\u201d the Kennedy Center said in an emailed statement. \u201cWe are honored to have been stewards of his vibrant work and a part of his enduring legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Sebastiani stood nearby as \u201cBlue\u201d was disassembled or, as he put it, \u201cdismembered.\u201d Sebastiani is part of the group Hands off the Arts, partly formed to push back against the Trump administration’s changes to the Kennedy Center. <\/p>\n \u201cArt is what makes you think, and that\u2019s its role in life,\u201d he said, saying the sculpture was \u201ca very welcoming fixture, if you will, for folks coming into the city, and we\u2019re just really sad to see her gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Sebastiani said \u201cBlue\u201d was the mascot for National Dance Day on Sept. 19, with events held near it on a 2019 addition to the Kennedy Center campus called The REACH. \u201cBlue,\u201d said Sebastiani, \u201cbrings the joy and happiness that is part of that celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n