A beloved piece of public art is the latest thing getting the boot at the Kennedy Center.
Workers began removing Blue, Joel Shapiro’s towering electric-blue stick figure, from the grounds Wednesday as the Trump-controlled board pushes ahead with a sweeping renovation and rebranding of the performing arts center.
The sculpture, installed in 2019, depicts a bright blue figure frozen in mid-kick. Shapiro described it as a “celebration of possibility.”
Shapiro died last year.
The Kennedy Center did not announce the sculpture’s removal in advance. Instead, the National Park Service posted a street-closure notice earlier this week indicating that the teardown would begin before dawn and wrap up by 1 p.m.
The Kennedy Center offered a decidedly less dramatic description of what was happening.
“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 told The Independent. “We are honored to have been stewards of his vibrant work and a part of his enduring legacy.”
According to the Kennedy Center, the sculpture is being removed at the request of both the Kennedy Center and the Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation. The foundation will decide where the artwork goes next.
But critics aren’t buying the idea that Blue’s removal is just another routine change at a venue undergoing renovations.
Hands Off the Arts, an advocacy group fighting Trump’s changes to the institution, urged fans to “say your final goodbyes to Blue, Joel Shapiro’s beloved figure.”
“Wednesday, September 2, 2026 will forever be known as the day the United States government tore down a piece of public art at the behest of a petulant crybaby,” the group wrote on Instagram. “But it won’t be the last.”
The group also pointed out that Blue wasn’t some random sculpture sitting around waiting to be moved. It was installed as a site-specific work, specifically designed to be a “joyful and welcoming feature” on the grounds.
The Kennedy Center, meanwhile, has pointed to another sculpture that was removed last year: Roy Lichtenstein’s Brushstroke , which left in December 2025 after its loan from the Hirshhorn Museum expired. That piece is now outside the Portland Art Museum.
But Blue is disappearing amid a much bigger transformation of the Kennedy Center—one that has Trump’s name all over it. Literally.
Last month, the Kennedy Center board voted again to put Trump’s name on the building’s white marble facade, despite court orders that have blocked efforts to formally rename the landmark after him.
Under the board’s resolution, the words “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” would appear beneath President John F. Kennedy’s name.
Another phrase, “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund,” would be added if an endowment bearing Trump’s name reaches $100 million.
Put it all together, and the building could eventually carry the rather extraordinary name:
“The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump endowed by The Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
Because apparently one name wasn’t enough.
The board also voted to rename the grounds surrounding the building “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
Trump’s name had been removed from the building earlier this summer after U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled that Congress had made it “crystal clear” that the memorial was to be named only for the assassinated former president—and could not bear another formal name or public memorial based on Trump’s “unilateral say-so.”
The evidence of that fight is still sitting outside the building.
Scaffolding and a massive white tarp remain in place as crews work to strip the metal lettering from the facade. For now, visitors can see only “The John F.” and part of the letter “K.”
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who is leading the legal challenge to Trump’s takeover of the institution, isn’t letting the board’s latest moves go unchallenged.
Last month, she filed an emergency motion asking Cooper to block the board’s latest vote. Her lawyers described it as a “breathtaking act of defiance” of the court’s order.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, has argued that the Kennedy Center could rapidly deteriorate without Trump’s support. Government lawyers have even described the president as the center’s “sole hope” for its financial and structural survival.
They have also warned that the building could eventually be demolished if the court blocks the Kennedy Center’s planned two-year closure, renovation and rebranding.
Beatty’s lawyers had a blunt response.
“In plain English,” they wrote in court filings last week, the defendants were effectively saying: “What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it.”
They called it a “breathtaking assault on the rule of law.”
