Photo by Kevin H.

As the temporary collection they created notched its 5,000th visitor, Mike Blasenstein and Michael Dax Iacovone — the pair who were “banned” from the Smithsonian museums last December after protesting the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” from the National Portrait Gallery — are now allowed to return to the the Institution’s museums.

“As soon as you tell people they can’t see something, they’ll want to see it for themselves,” said the pair in a joint statement released to the press this afternoon. Blasenstein and Iacovone’s Smithsonian ban was lifted on February 3, when representatives from the Smithsonian, Blasenstein and Iacovone, and a reporter from the Washington Blade took a private tour of the Portrait Gallery. David Ward, co-curator of the “Hide/Seek” exhibit which had hosted “A Fire in My Belly,” told the Blade that the “ban” was not the idea of the museum.