After debate about aesthetics and politics, Anacostia artwork is removed

At 1205 Good Hope Rd. SE, piles of beat-up, old tires fill the vacant buildings display window. Bits of dead leaves and broken glass carpet the floor. The disembodied limbs of a science-class skeleton poke eerily out from the mess, the plastic fingers grasping at nothing.

Is it brilliant social commentary? Or is it just junk?

According to the Districts Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, it doesnt matter: The display, which is one half of a controversial public art installation, is a safety hazard. It will be removed Monday.

The announcement, which came this past Wednesday, is the latest chapter in the weeks-long saga of The New Migration, a pair of storefront works designed by Bronx-born and Yale-educated artist Abigail DeVille. Installed as part of the citywide 5x5 public art project and orchestrated by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DeVilles piece is intended to represent the dual challenges of gentrification and urban decay.

But to Anacostia residents walking past the installation Saturday afternoon, the collection of debris sends an entirely different message.

Its making Southeast look bad, says Andrea Teku, a Ward 8 native. Theyre trying to fix up this block, and this is just making it worse.

The debate has ping-ponged back and forth for nearly a month: DeVilles work was installed with fanfare and a community parade organized by the artist but soon drew criticism in the form of telephone complaints, messages scrawled on a protest sheet posted on the window and several outraged proclamations from Ward8 council member Marion Barry, who called the work despicable.

In a neighborhood that has long been a byword for urban neglect, the debris-filled storefronts seem to many like an affront. That stretch of Good Hope Road is pocked with a number of cracked and boarded-up windows even the two Department of Housing and Community Development-owned buildings where The New Migration was installed usually are empty. Only in Anacostia, residents thought, would the city fill a window with trash and call it art.

I dont see something like that up in Georgetown, says Kim Brown, shaking her head.

On Sept.12, the Commission on Arts and Humanities announced that it would uninstall the piece, but by the next week the commission reversed course. After hearing more messages of support, the commission decided that it would be inconsistent with our mission to take down the work, Lionell Thomas, the commissions executive director, wrote in a statement at the time.

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After debate about aesthetics and politics, Anacostia artwork is removed