As Dallas prepares for the 2026 World Cup, crews have started covering a long-standing downtown whale mural with World Cup-related art, triggering a public backlash and criticism from the mural’s creator.
Katy Rose Cusick described spotting the change after years of passing the artwork as part of her routine. “I see that mural almost every day on my way to school and then one day they were painting it over,” Cusick said. “And it was just so incredibly shocking to me that that could happen so quickly.”
Wyland, the artist who created the mural, said in a statement that he was saddened by what he described as the mural’s disappearance. He said the destruction left him “deeply disheartened,” and he questioned the process after he said the work was erased “without dialogue.” Wyland also argued that the mural had carried meaning for generations, saying the situation “raises serious questions about how we value public art, artists, and the communities these works were created to serve.”
The mural had covered two walls of a downtown parking garage, and work to repaint over it began in the same period as the World Cup preparations. The mural, titled “Whaling Wall 82,” was dedicated in 1999, according to the reporting. Wyland has painted more than 100 murals known as “Whaling Walls” around the world as part of a mission he links to ocean-life conservation.
Cusick and Joshua Hurston, both seniors at a local performing and visual arts high school, launched a Change.org petition after they saw the mural replaced. The petition, according to the report, drew hundreds of signatures, including people who said they remembered seeing the mural as children. Hurston said they were trying to prevent a repeat even if the mural itself could not be saved. “If we couldn’t save necessarily the mural, making sure that something like this doesn’t happen again,” he said.
In response to the backlash, a spokesperson for the World Cup organizing committee said the tournament organizers were looking ahead to unveiling new artwork connected to the event. In a statement, the committee said it was “looking forward to ‘unveiling a new piece that captures this current historical moment and reflects the energy, unity, and global spirit surrounding the World Cup 2026,’” and added that “a portion” of Wyland’s mural would be preserved “as a tribute to its lasting impact on the city.”
Dallas is hosting more World Cup matches than any other host location in the tournament co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, with nine matches scheduled at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the area’s venue that will be called Dallas Stadium for the World Cup, according to the reporting. The World Cup backdrop has included a series of visible changes, and the mural became one flashpoint for residents who said it represented local history.
Downtown Dallas Inc. said it had been involved early in the discussions about the mural and the parking-garage wall. The group said in a statement that it was not part of the city’s public art collection before it introduced the World Cup organizing committee to the building’s owners. A spokesperson for the building owners, Slate Asset Management, said the company was approached earlier this year about donating the wall for a new public art installation by a local artist.
For Wyland, the mural’s purpose extended beyond its imagery, he said, describing the work as something created with an ocean-conservation mission and intended to bring people together. In his statement, he said, “This was more than paint on a wall — it was part of my work, alongside the Wyland Foundation, to bring people together to protect our oceans and clean water,” as the city’s World Cup preparations continue.