This is how Wyland’s wall has looked for almost two weeks, as a cease-and-desist has kept it blue and blank.
Robert Wilonsky/Staff writer
Wyland’s whales will get their day in court.
The artist – and his local attorneys – made good Monday on his threat to file a federal suit over the extinction of Whaling Wall 82, his eight-story mural featuring lifesized humpback whales painted on a downtown parking garage. That 1999 mural, also known as Ocean Life, was drowned in pool-blue paint three weeks ago to make room for a mural tied to the FIFA World Cup.
That made a lot of folks angry. Including Texas-born singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves, who looked down at Dallas from her Nashville home and, like a true native, said, “We suck the soul out of everything.” Put it on a throw pillow and throw it in a lawsuit in which Wyland is seeking “no less than $25 million” in damages.
Article continues below this ad
I hope that’s just a starting point in a negotiation that winds up with a new whaling wall. Otherwise, that feels pretty fishy – though Wyland’s local attorney, who handles cases involving high-end art, said Monday evening they arrived at that figure based on the work’s history and scale.
“And the fact is it’s something that can’t be replaced,” said Andrea Perez, who heads the Art Law section at Carrington Coleman, whose offices in Bank of America Plaza are just a couple of blocks away from the mural. “We weren’t just throwing out numbers.”
The complaint, filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Dallas, names as the defendants Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the building’s managers and owners, including Toronto-based Slate Asset Management. The lawsuit does not name the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee nor Downtown Dallas Inc., which selected the site on behalf of the local committee.
Article continues below this ad
Perez said they wrestled with naming the committee, and could still in an amended complaint. But she said she and Monica Latin, a managing partner at Carrington Coleman, believe the locals “were acting as an agent on behalf of FIFA,” which Perez said “required the committee to be formed.”
The North Texas organizing committee declined to comment Monday evening on the freshly filed litigation. And Slate’s representatives could not be reached.
This photo was taken at the official dedication of Wyland’s giant mural of humpback whales in downtown Dallas in 1999.
File photo/Dallas Morning News
According to a statement the Wyland Foundation sent to The Dallas Morning News Monday evening, this federal lawsuit “is believed to be one of the largest lawsuits ever brought regarding the protection of works of recognized visual art. … The scale of the case reflects not a desire for litigation, but the scale of what was lost without warning: a major public artwork, a decades-long conservation message and a beloved Dallas landmark.”
The lawsuit alleges that the mural’s destruction violates the federal Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which was passed to prevent the “destruction, distortion, mutilation or other modification” of an artist’s work. VARA doesn’t necessarily prohibit removing murals from buildings. But Section 4 does require that the owner of a building make a “diligent, good faith attempt to send notice” to the artist before removing the work.
Article continues below this ad
That didn’t happen in this case.
When we spoke on May 14, the 69-year-old Wyland said he had no idea his work was being erased until someone in Dallas sent his assistant photos one day earlier. Steve Creech, the Wyland Foundation’s CEO and president, said they were “blindsided” by Whaling Wall 82’s disappearance, and that they were contacted by officials with the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee only after crews with cherry pickers, blue paint and rollers were nearly done vanishing the whales.
Wyland has always suggested invoking VARA was a likelihood: “They purposely destroyed it,” he told me last month. “This was a gift to the city. I painted 103 of these murals, and to see it destroyed by FIFA doesn’t make any sense to me, and we’re not going to stand for it.”
Latin told The News via email that the destruction of the mural was “a straightforward violation of federal law.”
“If a well-known public artwork can be destroyed without notice or accountability, what does that mean for every lesser-known artist and every community that relies on public art to define its identity?” Perez said in a statement. “This lawsuit is about drawing a line so that artists, communities, and property owners take these works seriously before they are gone. We are honored to represent Wyland as he takes a stand and takes on this fight on behalf of all artists who have been ignored.”
Article continues below this ad
Wyland as he started his giant mural on the west side of the Texas Utilities Building at 505 Akard St. in downtown Dallas on April 7, 1999.
File photo/Dallas Morning News
The new World Cup mural, which was to have been painted by a Dallas artist, was already sidelined by a cease-and-desist sent to Slate, the North Texas organizing committee, the city of Dallas and others days after the whales were painted over. That May 18 demand letter invoked VARA and noted that “the destruction of this work of recognized stature is not merely an affront to Mr. Wyland personally and the Dallas community, but a serious and actionable violation of federal law.”
So many groups made so many mistakes leading to the mural’s disappearance that it almost turned into the Spider-Man meme, with everyone pointing fingers at everyone else.
The first misstep happened about 18 months ago, when the local organizing committee asked nonprofit Downtown Dallas Inc. to help them find suitable walls upon which it could commemorate the World Cup. DDI suggested the Whaling Wall because it was nearly 30 years old, fading and “past its useful life.”
City officials tasked with protecting public art shrugged when asked to weigh in, noting only that the mural wasn’t part of Dallas’ official collection. Slate consented because they were under the impression DDI or the organizing committee had broken the news to Wyland, and donated the wall’s use so they could be “a good partner.”
Article continues below this ad
Slate said it wasn’t getting paid for the replacement mural. But it is getting sued over it.
Monday’s filing means World Cup visitors will be greeted in coming days by a blank blue wall. The rest of us get to live with it indefinitely.