The “Black Lives Matter” Mural in DC Is A Great Piece of Public Art
It is not a performative distraction. It is an American Guernica.
This piece has been updated to reflect the addition to the mural on June 6, 2020.
On Friday morning, June 5, 2020, the words “Black Lives Matter” were painted on 16th Street N.W., in Washington, D.C. The giant sans-serif capital letters reach from curb to curb, stretched over three blocks from H Street to K. The mural is visually arresting and compelling. To see a political slogan where we are accustomed to seeing only impersonal directions like “Left Turn Only” is jarring and even disorienting. It looks like a meme. It almost doesn’t look real.
Adding to the unreality is its official sanction: while the mural is literal “street art,” it is not graffiti. It was painted at the instruction of D.C.’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, and she also approved renaming a section of 16th Street “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” As an act of political defiance by a mayor towards a President, carried out in the nation’s capital by means of art, it may be unique in our history.
