Trump Kennedy Center to Tear Down Popular Sculpture

Ken Cedeno / REUTERS Donald Trump’s controversial MAGA makeover of the Kennedy Center has continued, with a contemporary statue being nixed.

The National Park Service will close an area around the performing arts hub on Wednesday and bring in a crane to yank Joel Shapiro’s Blue from the grounds.

The dancing figure becomes the latest casualty of Trump’s redesign of the center on the banks of the Potomac.

Internal documents obtained by The New York Times suggest that the sculpture was tapped early in Trump’s second term for removal.

Former curator of visual arts and special programming at the Kennedy Center, Josef Palermo, was laid off in March as Trump installed lackeys across the board.

He said on Tuesday that the lack of announcement about the removal was worrying.

“The Kennedy Center is in effect holding these pieces in trust for the American people, and there should be a lot more transparency,” he said.

The statue had been in situ outside the REACH theater expansion since 2019.

The trust that owns it will determine its next location.

Hands Off The Arts, an activism collective that aims to protect art threatened by Trump’s politicization of the center, reacted angrily to the news.

“First they came for the façade, now they come for the grounds.

Say your final goodbyes to Blue, Joel Shapiro’s beloved figure outside The REACH,” an Instagram statement from the group read.

It referenced Trump’s ill-fated efforts to have his name permanently fixed to the front of the center.

“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.