Although we planned the trip down from New York to coincide with the Epstein press conference at the Capitol, my goal was to get a photograph of one of the giant murals of Donald Trump that festooned two government buildings along the Mall. I’d seen photographs, but was frustrated that none of them captured the full authoritarian bombast I assumed was present when there in person. In that regard, the scene in front of the Labor Department building at the corner of Constitution Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue did not disappoint.
From there, we got lunch in the National Gallery cafeteria, and took the elevator to the roof terrace of I.M. Pei’s East Wing. The view of the Labor Department mural was a bit distant, but I got a nice shot of the blue rooster, or officially “Hahn/Cock” by Katherina Fritsch. It originally stood on the fourth plinth, the empty pedestal, in Trafalgar Square, London.
The rooster has roosted on the roof of the National Gallery since 2017 when the art critic Blake Gopnik suggested that Fritch’s sculpture had become a symbol of DC’s resistance to the newly installed president.
Artnet:
As it looks out over the city, Fritsch’s creature now seems on guard. I imagine it coming to life to sound the alarm if our nation and values look set to collapse. For Washingtonians, at least, a blue that might once have evoked summer evenings or the art of Yves Klein now stands for a full-fledged state of depression.