Public Art Mural facing community challenge in the Bloomindale neighborhood

Reprinted in its entirety (including photo) from bloomingdale (for now):

Tonight's bloomingdale civic association meeting will include discussion about the boxer girl mural. There seems to be a lot of pressure on the city to destroy the mural and the mayor's office is considering it. If you are in support of this mural, or at least in support of the artist and property owner, please come to the meeting.

In general it seems that dccah has taken a lot of heat this year, especially with public art. I imagine this is a pretty important discussion. More info and images in these links:

- bloomingdale (for now)
- adventures of hoogrrl!
- washington city paper: housing complex

You do not need to be a member of the civic association or a neighbor to attend.

Monday night: 7:00 pm, 160 u street nw, st. george's episcopal church

I'm very clearly in support of art that challenges, art that makes you think, and art that helps give us a sense of unique place. The conservative, almost reactionary, response from some quarters to this art installation worries me. I feel successful destruction of this art will lead to further attempts to quash creative growth in the city.

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In a similar vein, check out this past cover story from the Washington City Paper on a very interesting public art sitting bench project in Columbia Heights that I never got around to writing about, "Bench Warfare."

Bench image from the entry "Protest Benches at 14th and Oak Streets, NW" from the from Prince of Petworth blog.

Of course, there are many other examples of this kind of behavior, going back to the destruction of murals by Diego Rivera in the Rockefeller Center in the 1930s (although he was deliberately supra-provocative).