NEED TO KNOW
A sculpture at the Kennedy Center is the latest casualty of President Donald Trump’s controversial renovations
The 24-foot-tall sculpture of a human-esque stick figure, titled “Blue” and created by renowned artist Joel Shapiro, was removed from the grounds on Wednesday, Sept. 2
Shapiro died in June 2025 at age 83
As part of President Donald Trump‘s overhaul of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, a sculpture one former official alleged was “targeted early on” was removed from the grounds on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
The 24-foot-tall sculpture of a human-esque stick figure, titled “Blue” and created by renowned artist Joel Shapiro, was installed outside the performing arts center in 2019. Shapiro died in June 2025 at age 83.
“We are deeply grateful to Joel Shapiro for the years Blue has spent animating our campus and connecting visitors to his vision,” a Kennedy Center spokesperson wrote to PEOPLE in an email. “We are honored to have been stewards of his vibrant work and a part of his enduring legacy.”
Joel Shapiro’s “Blue” is seen on a snowy night at The Reach; part of The Kennedy Center on a snowy night in Washington, DC on February 11, 2025.
Credit: Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty
The sculpture is being deinstalled at the request of The Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation, which will determine its next home, the Kennedy Center said.
The Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation declined to comment when contacted by PEOPLE on Wednesday.
The Washington Post reported that workers began removing the sculpture early on Wednesday morning. The Kennedy Center did not announce the removal publicly.
It’s the latest alteration to the Kennedy Center on Trump’s watch after he installed his allies on the institution’s board and in leadership roles. An attempt to rename the “living memorial” honoring Kennedy to the “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” was undone by a court order in May.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Now, the Trump administration is threatening in court to tear down the entire building and replace it with “a large outdoor amphitheater” if Trump’s proposed renovations are blocked.
“Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years,” the administration said in a court filing in August.
President Donald Trump; The Kennedy Center.
Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty; AP Photo/J. David Ake
A former curator at the Kennedy Center who was laid off in March told The New York Times on Tuesday, Sept. 1, that “Blue” had been “targeted early on.”
“The Kennedy Center,” he told the Times, “is in effect holding these pieces in trust for the American people, and there should be a lot more transparency.”
Josef Palermo, the former visual arts and special programming curator, wrote in The Atlantic in April that Trump ally Ric Grenell, who was installed as the center’s acting director for over a year, “told me to ‘get rid of everything’ ” so that Trump could bring in new art.
Grenell did not respond to the allegations when reached by the magazine at the time.
Shapiro called the sculpture “a celebration of possibility” in a video produced by the Kennedy Center when the work was first installed in 2019. According to the Kennedy Center’s description, Shapiro’s creation was inspired by the two years he spent in India in the Peace Corps, an international development agency established by JFK.
Read the original article on People