All posts tagged: Robert Wyland

Muralist Wyland Files  M. VARA Lawsuit Over Mural Destroyed by FIFA

Muralist Wyland Files $25 M. VARA Lawsuit Over Mural Destroyed by FIFA

When soccer fans converge on Dallas this month for World Cup games, the aesthetically inclined ones will encounter a city home to art museums, galleries, and public art. And yet, the city will be missing a major and longstanding public artwork, after conservationist artist’s beloved mural was painted over in May. Florida-based artist Robert Wyland has filed a $25 million federal lawsuit against FIFA and the owners of the building where his mural had appeared for a quarter-century, who, he says, painted over Ocean Life (1999), one of a hundred murals he painted around the world to raise consciousness about marine pollution and conservation efforts. The eight-story-high, 17,000-square-foot mural showed endangered humpback whales and dolphins and other marine life.  Related Articles The suit, filed on June 1 in the District Court’s Dallas division, claims that the destruction of the mural, designated as Whaling Wall 82, violates the artist’s rights under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA). It names as defendants FIFA, the Canadian company Slate Asset Management, which owns the building at 505 N …

Muralist Wyland Files  M. VARA Lawsuit Over Mural Destroyed by FIFA

Artist Outraged After Conservationist Mural Painted Over by FIFA

A giant mural by conservationist artist Robert Wyland has been painted over in Dallas to make way for a mural promoting FIFA, the international soccer federation.  The destroyed piece was one of 100 “whaling wall” murals that the artist has painted from Osaka to Detroit, and from Sydney to New York. Whaling Wall 1 appears alongside the Pacific Coast Highway and was dedicated in 1981; number 100 was painted outside Wyland’s own studio building in 1996. The Dallas mural, Ocean Life (1999), is number 82, and it covered two sides of the Texas Utilities Building. The larger portion, measuring 164 by 82 feet, depicted endangered whales and dolphins swimming in the ocean. Crews started painting over that section of the mural last week, and CBS News shot photos of the larger side of the mural, almost completely painted over. A smaller panel on an adjacent side, measuring 50 by 78 feet, remains visible, says CBS. Related Articles “This mural was created as a message of hope, conservation, and respect for our oceans,”  Wyland said in …