DALLAS (AP) — As Dallas pulls out the stops for the World Cup this summer, one makeover is causing an uproar: the sudden disappearance of a beloved, giant mural downtown of swimming whales.“I see that mural almost every day on my way to school and then one day they were painting it over,” Katy Rose Cusick said. “And it was just so incredibly shocking to me that that could happen so quickly.”Work has been underway this month to paint over the mural that’s graced two entire walls of a parking garage for nearly 30 years to make way for art related to the upcoming World Cup matches. Wyland, the artist who created the mural, said in a statement that its destruction has left him “deeply disheartened.”“When a piece that has carried meaning for generations can be erased without dialogue, it raises serious questions about how we value public art, artists, and the communities these works were created to serve,” Wyland said.
Cusick and Joshua Hurston, seniors at a local performing and visual arts high school, started a Change.org petition hoping to raise awareness to protect history and art. The petition has gotten hundreds of signatures so far, including from those with fond memories of spotting the mural as children.
