The General Services Administration commissioned the 21 foot (6.4 m) high steel construction that is painted blue in 1974 for its Art in Public Places program.

Access to the work was made easier after it was restored in 2008–2009, and reinstalled on the other side of the Perkins Building, on a grassy plaza close to the intersection of Third and C Streets NW.

The construction is also an anomaly in the artist's career: instead of being painted black like most of Smith's other works, or even yellow, like a select few, it is bright blue.

[2] In comparison to the artworks published in the pages of the Museum of Modern Art catalogue that accompanied the retrospective curated by Robert Storr in 1998, it is reproduced in black and white, not color.

[4] Because Tony Smith's early structures, works like Die and The Elevens Are Up, were monochromatic, smooth-surfaced, and straight-edged, the older artist was referred to, during this phase of his career, as a Minimalist.