A crane will occupy the northbound lane of Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway NW from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday so crews can remove Joel Shapiro's 24-foot blue-painted aluminum sculpture, Blue, from the lawn of the Kennedy Center's REACH campus. The National Park Service says the closures were requested by the Kennedy Center specifically to accommodate the statue's removal, and the agency determined that occupying the northbound lanes was necessary for safety given the sculpture's location right next to the parkway.
According to the National Park Service's temporary closure order, blockades will go up at the E Street on-ramp, at the intersection of Parkway Drive NW and Ohio Drive SW, and at F Street NW to keep the roadway clear for the heavy equipment. The disruption was first reported by WJLA, which noted the Kennedy Center has not publicly announced why the sculpture is being taken down. Commuters who rely on the parkway during the closure window should expect to reroute around the affected stretch near the REACH.
A Late Sculptor's Gift to the REACH
Blue depicts an abstract, stick-figure human form frozen mid-kick, and the Kennedy Center itself once described the piece as poised in mid-kick and preparing to pirouette across the grass when it was unveiled in 2019. Shapiro gifted the work to the Kennedy Center for the opening of the REACH, a 4.6-acre campus expansion designed by Steven Holl Architects that debuted that September to link the Kennedy Center to the Potomac River waterfront, according to the Kennedy Center. The REACH grounds include outdoor performance lawns, open studios, and a pedestrian bridge over Rock Creek Parkway, the venue notes.
Shapiro, an American postminimalist sculptor, died in June 2025 in Manhattan from acute myeloid leukemia at age 83, leaving behind a body of work held in collections including MoMA and the Tate Gallery, as reported by The Washington Post. His artistic career was shaped in part by a two-year Peace Corps deployment to India in the 1960s. Blue was not his only mark on the capital: in 1993, Shapiro installed the two-part metal sculpture Loss and Regeneration outside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, pairing a house-shaped bronze symbolizing lost families with a towering figure representing new growth.
Questions Over Why the Statue Is Leaving
In an official statement, the Kennedy Center said a foundation representing Shapiro's estate will determine the sculpture's next location, characterizing the move as standard practice for handling donated or loaned works. Representatives for Shapiro's estate had not issued a public statement on the move, according to The New York Times. That official framing sits alongside internal Kennedy Center documents obtained by news outlets indicating Blue was flagged for removal following leadership changes and programming overhauls at the institution, with records showing the artwork was identified early during broader collection reviews.
Former Kennedy Center Visual Arts Curator Josef Palermo, who served as the institution's inaugural visual arts curator before being laid off during restructuring, reported earlier this year that staff had been instructed to clear items from the permanent collection to make room for new leadership initiatives, per The Atlantic. Local advocacy group Hands Off the Arts, formed by local artists and patrons who have organized regular vigils outside the performing arts venue, publicly criticized the removal on social media, framing it as part of an ongoing politicization of the Kennedy Center's grounds.
Part of a Turbulent Year for the Venue
The sculpture's removal follows a stretch of high-profile disputes over the Kennedy Center's physical footprint. In mid-2026, a federal court ordered the removal of President Donald Trump's name from the building's facade, and protective tarps covered the structure while crews carried out the change, according to NPR Illinois. Hoodline has previously covered programming shifts tied to leadership changes at the venue, part of a broader pattern of administrative overhaul playing out across the campus this year.
For now, the practical impact for D.C. drivers is Wednesday's lane closure, timed to the roughly seven-hour window crews need to lift Blue off the REACH lawn. WJLA says it will continue reporting on updates about where the sculpture ultimately ends up. Until Shapiro's estate foundation names a new home for the piece, its next stop remains unresolved.
