Between 1981 and 2008, Wyland completed 100 official Whaling Walls on buildings in North America, Asia, Australia, and elsewhere, including the one in Dallas painted over during the 2026 World Cup. He created this Whaling Wall on the side of RC Willey in South Salt Lake.

When FIFA painted over one of Wyland’s whale murals in Dallas after it had been there for nearly 30 years, the artist sued. He cited the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, which gives artists certain “moral rights” even after they no longer own the work.  In Utah, meanwhile, public art has a wide range of life expectancies as communities grapple with when to preserve murals.

For Midvale, impermanence isn’t a flaw; it’s baked into the design.

The City of Midvale’s annual mural project, known as Los Muros on Main, began in 2022 as part of a revitalization initiative. Since its Main Street is only a third of a mile long, space is at a premium. While other municipalities keep looking for new walls to paint,  Midvale decided early on that some murals would be painted over on a three-year cycle. “From the beginning, Los Muros on Main was envisioned as an evolving public art program that would continue bringing new artists, new stories, and new perspectives to Midvale Main,” said Laura Magness, Communications Director for the City of Midvale. Artists are informed beforehand in the agreement they sign with Midvale that the murals are temporary, outdoor creations that may be altered or removed.

Gregory Shilling’s mural, painted on the rear of The Pearl on Main in Midvale in 2026, replaced a mural by James Smith, painted in 2022.

The popularity of murals in Utah isn’t limited to the outdoors. The Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ 2020: From Here on Out exhibition featured four murals inside the Great Hall that were there for three years before being painted over. Dr. Emily Lawhead, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the UMFA, said painting over the murals was a sad but necessary process because the space was needed for other exhibitions. “They’re just under some layers of paint, but they didn’t go anywhere,” Lawhead said. “Their ghosts are still there.” Before they were painted over, the murals at UMFA were captured on video, giving them a kind of permanence that outdoor murals aren’t guaranteed.

Lawhead said the upside of rotating murals is the ability to give other artists a chance to create. “And there is something really lovely to be able to support artists over a long period of time and not just one artist once and then it’s just there,” she said.

For Renato Olmedo-Gonzalez, Public Art Program Manager with the City of Salt Lake, stewardship of public art requires a mixed approach. “Unlike artworks in controlled institutional settings, public artworks exist within living communities and evolving urban landscapes,” said Olmedo-Gonzalez. “Stewardship, conservation, adaptation, and, in some cases, replacement are all part of managing a public art collection over time.”

Salt Lake City is in the midst of repainting a 23-foot whale sculpture called Out of the Blue so that a new mural can be painted onto it. It was commissioned specifically with the understanding that it would receive a new mural every few years, according to Olmedo-Gonzalez.

When Salt Lake City installed Stephen Kesler’s sculpture “Out of the Blue” in a Sugar House roundabout in 2022, they commissioned Michael Murdock to paint the sculpture. The piece has since become a local landmark and emblem of the city. How will the city’s residents react when it is repainted later this summer?

Artist Sophy Tuttle, who created a mural for Los Muros on Main this year, believes communities should help decide which murals endure. “I believe communities are constantly changing, and the art around them should reflect that,” she said. “Not everyone is going to like what you paint.”

Melanie Posner, a Los Angeles-based artist, believes the value of a mural may lie less in how long it remains than in what it creates while it exists. Posner recently saw her mural honoring Renee Nicole Good painted over, but said the experience of creating it proved more enduring than the artwork itself. “Sometimes the most meaningful part isn’t even the finished mural, but in the experience during its creation,” she said. “When I painted my tribute to Renee, I had several people every day come up to hug me, cry with me, or simply sit near the mural and be with her memory. In many ways, that felt just as impactful (if not more) than the mural itself.”

With enough time, a mural can become part of a community’s identity. At the Urban Indian Center, interior murals have become symbols of the Center, according to Executive Director Matt Poss. “The artwork remains the same and has become a symbol for our program and building,” Poss said.

Poss said that the newer murals on the exterior of the building, which were painted over existing murals, represent a different kind of renewal. Following the pandemic and a change in leadership, the Center wanted to “breathe life back in the building” by bringing new public art to its exterior.

As murals continue to transform neighborhoods across Utah, communities are increasingly confronting a new question: Which murals should be preserved, and when is it time to make room for something new?

The original name of the Urban Indian Center, the “Indian Walk-In Center,” can still be seen on the front of the center’s staircase. It was part of the original murals that were painted over in 2025 by Roots Art Kollective.

Paint the Town at Edison House, July 15, 5:30-7 PM.

Join local muralists Josh Scheuerman and Shannon White for an evening exploring the creativity, collaboration, and community behind public art. From large-scale murals and creative partnerships to the stories that bring our city’s walls to life, you’ll get an inside look at the process from two artists helping define Salt Lake’s visual identity.

Then, the conversation becomes hands-on. Guests are invited to contribute to a collaborative mural activation and experience the creative process firsthand!

21+ | Free Admission
Open to Members & Non-Members

Zach Abend

Zach Abend is a Utah-based freelance journalist whose work focuses on the American Southwest, public memory, religion, culture, and overlooked regional histories. His reporting and features have appeared in Salt Lake City Weekly, Religion Unplugged, and other publications.