US artist sues FIFA over destruction of Dallas whale mural for World Cup

Wyland’s mural stood for nearly three decades before workers began painting over it last month to promote the World Cup.

A United States artist who painted a mural on a building in downtown Dallas of life-sized swimming whales has filed a $25m lawsuit against FIFA and other defendants, saying they illegally painted over his work to promote the city’s World Cup 2026 matches.

Robert Wyland, who generally goes by only his last name, says he hand-painted the sprawling mural that covered roughly 1,580sq metres (17,000sq ft) across two walls of a building.

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Wyland filed suit on Monday in US District Court in Dallas, saying World Cup organisers, the building’s owner and management company painted over his mural without his consent or even notifying him.

He said their actions violated a 1990 federal law passed to protect visual artists from destruction of publicly displayed works.

Wyland is seeking at least $25m in damages. His lawsuit said world football’s governing body, FIFA, and other defendants “hastily and irrevocably destroyed a civic landmark” to promote the World Cup.

“Though FIFA claims they were working to develop art for the host city, in truth, they defaced an historic fixture of the host city,” the artist’s lawsuit said.

A section of a mural, known as the “Whaling Wall 82,” created by artist Wyland, is visible as part of it on the right side of the building was painted over [Julio Cortez/AP]

The mural stood for nearly three decades before workers began painting over it last month, causing an uproar among residents who admired the mural’s grand scale and message of ocean conservation.

The area’s World Cup organising committee said in a statement that in place of Wyland’s mural, new artwork is planned “that captures this current historical moment and reflects the energy, unity, and global spirit surrounding the World Cup 2026”.

It said a portion of Wyland’s mural would be preserved.

A FIFA spokesperson told The Associated Press news agency on Tuesday that the federation “has no involvement in this whatsoever” and referred a reporter to the tournament’s local organising committee.

A spokesperson for Slate Asset Management, which manages the building where the mural was painted over, said in a statement that local World Cup organisers asked Slate in March to donate the mural space for “a new public art installation”.

“Slate is not being compensated in any way for the use of the wall space and was told by the local groups that Mr. Wyland had been notified,” the management company’s spokesperson said in an email.

Wyland uses a small brush to put the finishing touches to his rendition of a humpback whale in a seven-story-high mural depicting marine mammals in the ocean in downtown Miami [File: Roberto Schmidt/AFP]

Dallas is hosting more World Cup matches than any of the other sites in the event cohosted by the US, Canada and Mexico with nine matches set to be played at AT&T Stadium in suburban Arlington, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

Wyland’s Dallas mural, titled Whaling Wall 82, was finished in 1999 and is among more than 100 similar murals known as Whaling Walls that the artist painted around the world to promote the conservation of ocean life.

An online petition protesting the mural’s destruction and calling for the protection of public artwork in Dallas has received more than 2,600 signatures.

Wyland’s lawsuit alleged violations of the Visual Artists Rights Act, a 1990 federal law that protects artwork of “recognised stature” even if someone else owns the physical artwork.

A judge cited that law in 2018 when he ordered a property owner to pay a group of New York graffiti artists for whitewashing dozens of their spray-painted murals on buildings that once housed a factory in Queens. The ruling was upheld on appeal.

(Al Jazeera)