Owner of vacant storefront scrapes off artwork painted in 2020; ‘Message still stands,’ artist says

Knar Bedian Paola de la Calle’s “Entre Azul y Azul” at 596 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge’s Central Square as it was painted in 2020.

For five years the windows of a vacant storefront in Central Square exhibited hand-lettered compositions containing a powerful indictment of injustices such as police killings and displacement caused by high rents, barriers to immigration and forced settlement of Native Americans. One panel began: “Wish You Were Here. You who was forced out of this city. You who come back and do not recognize this city …” Another said: “Abolish Ice.”

No organization claimed ownership. A curious reporter wondered why the building, a mattress store before it closed, broadcast these opinions rather than the usual “For lease.” The president of the real estate company that owns the building, Thomas Cifrino of Cifrino Massachusetts Avenue Realty, said when asked that he had no idea such signs were in his windows or what they said.

Told the signs expressed political opinions, Cifrino seemed horrified. “I don’t want anything political,” he said, and promised to go to the store from his office in Dorchester and remove them immediately. Within hours, workers were scraping the artwork off the windows. A blank light tan shade inside covers the windows now.

It turns out that the signs were a work of art installed in 2020 as part of the Central Square Business Improvement District’s “Speak Your Piece” project, Bid president Michael Monestime said. The program, envisioned early in the pandemic, “turned every available storefront in Central into a canvas, inviting young voices to comment on the current historic moment,” as the Bid described it. The artworks “can be found as you walk throughout the district, on big walls and in unexpected nooks, each one encouraging us to stop and think.”

Artist’s statement

Paola de la Calle, 33, a Columbian-American artist who grew up in Cambridge, created the exhibit that was scraped off the windows at 596 Massachusetts Ave. She named the work “Entre Azul y Azul” (Between Blues). Contacted in San Francisco, where she lives now, de la Calle said she made the artwork ”during a period of time where we were all stuck inside and looking for connection, but it was inspired by my upbringing in Cambridge and the people in this city who were being forced out, my family included.”

“Over the course of the last five years I received countless photos from strangers on the Internet who were moved by the work, from friends who were visiting Boston and Cambridge for the first time and used it as a landmark and from family who caught strangers taking a closer look. It was a point of pride for me to have public artwork on display in my hometown, and while I’m saddened that it’s been taken down, I’m more concerned that it points to a larger issue of self-censorship for fear of retaliation,” de la Calle said.

“The move to remove the artwork from the windows is a sign of the times we’re living in. Nina Simone once said that it is an artist’s duty to reflect the times they live in, and it’s this idea that guides all my work. ‘Entre Azul y Azul’ was created during Trump’s first term, it reflects those times, but it reflects the present as well,” de la Calle said.

“So while the artwork was taken down, the message still stands,” she said – offering it as a free download for free from her website “for folks who are moved by the message and feel compelled to display the artwork on their windows or in their homes.”

Remains of an exhibit

“Azul y Azul” was one of 15 works of art exhibited in “Speak Your Piece” at locations that included walls, electric boxes, telephone booths and windows. Seven could still be seen on a walk through Central Square on Thursday. The surviving artworks are painted on surfaces and can’t be easily removed; they would need to be covered with more paint. Two are huge murals on a wall of the building at 875 Main St.; there is another sizable mural on a wall of McDonald’s restaurant.

A plan approved by the city in 2021 would have added several floors of housing to the storefront at 596 Massachusetts Ave. where de la Calle’s art work was displayed. Cifrino said the project couldn’t be built during the pandemic, and rising construction costs made it unrealistic afterward.

He now plans to upgrade the retail space and rent it out, he said.