WASHINGTON, DC — The National Park Service (NPS) deinstalled a towering 24-foot sculpture by the late artist Joel Shapiro from the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on September 2.
Crews began before sunrise to wrap, dismantle, and remove “Blue” (2019), one of the 10 inaugural visual artworks installed when the Kennedy Center’s 4.6-acre REACH campus opened in September 2019.
The Kennedy Center did not explain the removal or announce it in advance, though the NPS posted a street-closure notice earlier this week saying the work would be gone by Wednesday afternoon. The operation has led to significant delays on Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, a major route into the city.
According to the Washington Post, the Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation will determine where the sculpture is installed next. The painted aluminum work is made up of rectangular forms that suggest arms and legs, reflecting the artist’s familiar stick-figure style.
Shapiro died last year at 83. In a 2019 statement on its website, the Kennedy Center described “Blue” as “poised in mid-kick, turning the surrounding landscape into a giant stage as it prepares to pirouette across the grass.” Similar angular sculptures by Shapiro are included in several Washington, DC museum collections and are installed on their grounds, including the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where “Loss and Regeneration” (1993) stands outside the front entrance.
