{"id":104195,"date":"2026-07-06T08:15:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=104195"},"modified":"2026-07-07T11:43:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T18:43:22","slug":"the-life-expectancy-of-murals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-life-expectancy-of-murals\/","title":{"rendered":"The Life Expectancy of Murals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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.<\/p><\/div>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/span> In Utah, meanwhile, public art has a wide range of life expectancies as communities grapple with when to preserve murals.<\/p>\n

For Midvale, impermanence isn’t a flaw; it’s baked into the design.<\/p>\n

The City of Midvale\u2019s annual mural project, known as Los Muros on Main<\/a>, 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,\u00a0 Midvale decided early on that some murals would be painted over on a three-year cycle. \u201cFrom 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,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p><\/div>\n

The popularity of murals in Utah isn\u2019t limited to the outdoors. The Utah Museum of Fine Arts\u2019 2020: From Here on Out<\/em> 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. \u201cThey’re just under some layers of paint, but they didn’t go anywhere,\u201d Lawhead said. \u201cTheir ghosts are still there.\u201d Before they were painted over, the murals at UMFA were captured on video, giving them a kind of permanence that outdoor murals aren\u2019t guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Lawhead said the upside of rotating murals is the ability to give other artists a chance to create. \u201cAnd 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For Renato Olmedo-Gonzalez, Public Art Program Manager with the City of Salt Lake, stewardship of public art requires a mixed approach. \u201cUnlike artworks in controlled institutional settings, public artworks exist within living communities and evolving urban landscapes,\u201d said Olmedo-Gonzalez. \u201cStewardship, conservation, adaptation, and, in some cases, replacement are all part of managing a public art collection over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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?<\/p><\/div>\n