The Mayor of Washington, DC, Just Ordered a 35-Foot-Wide Black Lives Matter Mural to Be Painted Behind the White House

The two-block stretch of road
immediately north of the White House now bears a strong message to
Washington, DC’s most infamous resident. Employees of the city, with the help of some
demonstrators and local artists, deployed rollers and bright yellow
paint to create a 35-foot mural emblazoned with the words “BLACK
LIVES MATTER” on 16th Street NW. 

The city-sponsored mural, which
is being produced by the DC Department of Public Works, reads as a
monumental rejoinder to President Trump, who on Monday ordered the
National Guard to clear the protest-filled area by force as he
walked over to the neighboring St. John’s Episcopal Church for
a surreal
photo-op that drew
instant comparisons to fascist propaganda. It will also be plainly
visible to any police helicopters flying overhead.

The Department of Public Works
did not immediately respond to Artnet News’s request for
comment. 

The installation of the mural
began late Thursday night, without fanfare or even a public
announcement, according to DCist, which first reported the story. It’s expected
to be completed on Friday morning. 

“There was a dispute this week
about whose street this is,” John Falcicchio, the chief of staff
for DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, wrote in a tweet. “Mayor Bowser wanted
to make it abundantly clear that this is DC’s street and to honor
demonstrators who (were) peacefully protesting on Monday evening.”
Mayor Bowser also tweeted a video surveying the mural accompanied
by the hashtag “BlackLivesMatter.”

However, not everyone in the
activist community agreed with the tenor of the
message. 

“This is performative and a
distraction from her active counter organizing to our demands to
decrease the police budget and invest in the community,” the DC
chapter of Black Lives Matter wrote in response
to a tweet about the
mural from a Washington Post reporter. “Black Lives Matter
means Defund the police.” Activists have taken issue with
Bowser’s proposed 2021 budget, which increases police funding while
cutting other programs, including a violence prevention
initiative. 

Mayor Bowser and President Trump
have sparred this week over the control of DC’s streets as the two
exchanged tweets and words in public appearances. 

“We are all very concerned about
how the federal assets pushed out from the federal complex and we
worked with them to push back,” Bowser said in a press conference
Thursday. “We are subject to the whims of the federal government.
Sometimes they are benevolent and sometimes they are not. And so we
have to fix it.”

That same day, she sent a letter
to President Trump requesting that he remove “extraordinary federal
law enforcement and military presence from our city.”

The post The Mayor of Washington, DC, Just Ordered a
35-Foot-Wide Black Lives Matter Mural to Be Painted Behind the
White House appeared first on artnet News.