The vibrant mural “Flor de Piña” made by Solar Arts Building muralist and painter Gustavo Lira Arts with artists Xilam Balam and Tierra Diaz on Central Ave was painted over and destroyed on Wednesday, May 8. The mural was on the building at 1851 Central. Paid for by the city of Minneapolis Great Streets community grant created in October of 2022, over 200 hours were put into creating the mural.
A Yemeni coffee shop called Qahwah House will be moving in. Quoted on Minnesota Public Radio, Aslam Jamal, coffee shop owner, said he was not aware that it was a community mural; he thought it was specifically made for the former tenant, restaurant Half Fancy, which closed in December. Jamal says he had it painted black as the base for a new mural he wants tailored to the coffee house.
“I didn’t know it was part of a community project … and I was never told by the landlord that it’s part of the community.” Jamal says. “I was surprised that I didn’t know about all the details, otherwise I would have done it differently.”
From the MPR story: The building owner is Tryg Truelson, of the Truelson restaurant business family that used to run Porky’s. Truelson says the previous restaurant tenant had worked with Lira, not him. As a result, it didn’t occur to him to discuss it with Jamal. “If I ever had any contact with the artist himself, I would have remembered it, or called and told [Jamal] not to paint it,” he says. “To be honest with you, I completely forgot about it because the old tenant who was in there had given the OK to paint the mural.”
Truelson adds, “I really was kind of left out of the loop on the whole thing. I never met the artist, never talked to him. I probably should have remembered that it was there.”
It seems implausible that the owner of the building Tryg Truelson did not remember the mural, and we would like to analyze any contracts signed in the process of commissioning it. The Chamber of Commerce – the lead organization – and the Great Streets program have not responded to requests for comment. A question outstanding now is how in showing the property to the potential renter Aslam Jamal the mural topic would not come up. It seems unlikely a discussion would not have happened about possible adjustments to the property. It is questionable that the tenant would have had full discretion to just do whatever they want to the owner’s property without consent.
This is the third time in the past few months that the art of an Arts District artist has been destroyed.
Mary Johnson’s Lizard Lounge was hit by a car, a sculpture by John Hock at Franconia Sculpture Park sold to a scrapyard and was destroyed at Franconia and now Gustavo Lira’s mural is painted over.
All different circumstances but the result is the same: the artists did not know about the issue and were left with works destroyed and what to do next to get compensation or at a minimum an apology.
The Arts District wants to focus on how artists can have the best legal advice and contracts, to have recourse when random acts or deliberate destruction of art takes place. We have offered to work with the city of Minneapolis Arts and Cultural Affairs Department and/or others to put on a workshop to help artists get the best advice when doing public art.
A federal act called “VARA” Visual Artists Rights Acts of 1990 offers some copyright protections. Use these references and watch Arts District social media for updates.
This article by Josh Blanc