Well, almost all of you have certainly seen Detroit’s iconic whale mural on the south side of Broderick Tower in Downtown Detroit, particularly if you’ve gone to a Tigers game at Comerica Park, but do you know its story or what the future holds for this iconic piece of local street art?
Origin of the Broderick Tower Whale Mural
The Broderick Tower’s 108-foot Whale Mural often called the “Detroit Whale”, was painted by Michigan-native artist Robert Wyland in 1997 as a statement about marine conservation and Detroit’s unique historical impact on environmental sustainability. At the time the building was vacant and permission for the mural was given by the city of Detroit.
The mural has been adored by Detroiters and visitors alike for years. Still, because advertising billboards often cover the mural, it’s recently become the centerpiece for discourse regarding the respect and appreciation for street art in Detroit.
Why does the Broderick Tower cover the Whale Mural with advertising?
The whale mural was covered for the first time by an advertisement in 2006 during the World Series, the owners of the building used the funds generated by selling the ‘advertising space’ directly on top of the whale mural to pay off costs associated with the building’s massive reconstruction around that time.
Advertisements remained there, covering the whales, on and off since then with various legal changes being made between forcing them to uncover the mural and remove the billboards, and then allowing the billboards to return later.
What does the artist think?
The artist, Robert Wyland, has been outspoken about his frustration with the way that his mural has been treated, not simply as a matter of pride, but rather with concern with how other artists with similar pieces might have their works covered with advertisements, allowing the building owner to profit at the artist’s expense.
The long-fought legal battle that Wyland and many of his supporters believe, which recently appeared before the Michigan Supreme Court, is that covering the mural with art violates ‘The Visual Artists Rights Act’ of 1990 which granted artists a certain amount of rights, meaning that ‘established’ pieces couldn’t legally be removed or destroyed without following some due process.
What’s going to happen to the whales?
Sadly, the owners of Broderick Tower have publicly stated that they do not plan to restore the whale mural at all, in fact, they intentionally want to let it fade away, which means that they will not be considered responsible for ‘destroying’ a legacy work of public art.
Unfortunately for Wyland, who has been very outspoken about his desire to restore and revitalize his fading mural, there has been little progress in the pursuit to “Save the whales”, a chilling sentiment that can also be carried over to the real world of conservation.