Kennedy Center Removes Joel Shapiro Sculpture Amid Trump-Led Cultural Purge
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
A 24-foot sculpture by Joel Shapiro was removed from the Kennedy Center as part of President Trump’s aggressive renovation agenda, raising alarms about political interference in the arts and the erasure of progressive voices.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has taken down a 24-foot tall sculpture titled "Blue," created by the late artist Joel Shapiro, on Sept. 2. This significant work, which had graced the center since 2019, was removed at the request of the Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation, which will now determine its future. The Kennedy Center stated that the foundation declined to comment, a silence that speaks volumes in the current climate of intimidation.
"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 PEOPLE, though such gratitude rings hollow as the institution bows to political pressure.
This removal is part of a sweeping overhaul of the center, orchestrated by President Donald Trump, who has stacked the institution’s board and leadership with loyalists intent on reshaping the cultural landscape to fit their reactionary agenda. Earlier this year, a court had to intervene to block a blatant attempt to rename the venue after Trump himself, and the administration has even threatened legal action to bulldoze the building in favor of a massive outdoor amphitheater if their regressive renovation proposals are not accepted.
Former Kennedy Center curator Josef Palermo, who was laid off in March in what many see as a purge of dissenting voices, told The New York Times that the sculpture was "targeted early on" and called for greater transparency in the handling of artworks. In a previous Atlantic article, Palermo revealed that acting director Ric Grenell allegedly ordered staff to remove existing pieces to make way for new, ideologically aligned art, though Grenell did not respond to these troubling allegations.
Shapiro had described "Blue" as "a celebration of possibility" in a video produced by the center at the time of its installation, inspired by his Peace Corps service in India—a vision now threatened by the current administration’s relentless assault on artistic freedom.