WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) – A crane removed the 24-foot (7-meter) sculpture “Blue” from the Kennedy Center grounds on Wednesday in the latest move to redesign \u200cWashington’s public spaces under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The sculpture, made of rectangular blue aluminum \u200cblocks, had sat near where a tarp obscures the center’s facade, as Trump allies continue court battles \u200bto try to keep his name on the front of the complex, created by an act of Congress to memorialize slain President John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n
Created by artist Joel Shapiro, “Blue” resembles a soaring stick figure with arms outstretched and one leg kicked up \u200cin the air. Since 2019, \u2060it was located on a grassy area between the main Kennedy Center building and a separate venue called “The Reach” used for \u2060arts education.<\/p>\n
The Kennedy Center confirmed in a statement that the statue would be removed and said artwork deinstallations were common practice.<\/p>\n
“We are deeply grateful to Joel Shapiro for \u200bthe years \u200bBlue has spent animating our campus and \u200bconnecting visitors to his vision,” a \u200cKennedy Center spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Trump is pursuing an ambitious remaking of Washington, with plans for projects ranging from a new White House ballroom, which he calls a national security priority, to a 250-foot (76-meter) arch. Administration lawyers argued in a court filing last week that the Kennedy Center could eventually face demolition without major repairs.<\/p>\n
Since taking \u200coffice in 2025, Trump has removed the center’s \u200bleadership, changed its programming and appointed a board \u200bthat has closed the center \u200bfor renovations. A U.S. district court judge ordered in May that \u200cTrump’s name be removed from the \u200bfacade.<\/p>\n
The Kennedy Center board, \u200bcontrolled by Trump appointees, subsequently voted on August 13 to put Trump’s name back on the building, calling it “The John F. Kennedy Center for the \u200bPerforming Arts Restored and \u200cRenovated by President Donald J. Trump.” This move has set up a \u200bpotential clash with the judge.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Bo Erickson; \u200bEditing by Scott Malone and Rod Nickel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) – A crane removed the 24-foot (7-meter) sculpture “Blue” from the Kennedy Center grounds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,17590,229,1072,12,88,353391,28030,185446,51879,353422,3479,2002],"class_list":["post-835017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-center","tag-design","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-joel-shapiro","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-john-f-kennedy-center","tag-kennedy-center","tag-sculpture-blue","tag-trump","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}