Emails: A mural series meant to promote Detroit ended in controversy. Here’s how it happened

This story was copublished with BridgeDetroit .

Antoine Bryant, a top Detroit planning official, gushed last year about a series of murals organized by the New York nonprofit Street Art for Mankind to promote the NFL draft.

“We are excited to … deliver beauty for Detroiters, as well as for the thousands of visitors (to) our great city,” Bryant wrote in an Oct. 16 news release announcing the project. “Detroit is MOVING, and we’re glad that (our) creative class will play a pivotal role in its growth.”

Just one month later, Bryant wrote a letter to City Council apologizing for the project and mistakes he made in its execution.

“I take full responsibility for the missed processes and procedures,” he said.

How Bryant went from thrilled to chastened is revealed in emails obtained by BridgeDetroit and Outlier Media through public records requests. The messages show how representatives for the city, Street Art for Mankind and the Downtown Detroit Partnership rushed to select buildings and sign a contract to paint five massive murals in about two frenzied weeks. Six were ultimately painted.

Correspondence between the parties gives a clearer picture of how Street Art for Mankind got out ahead of the city’s processes for both contracts and messaging. The contract Bryant signed — after the murals were already painted — violated the city charter because it wasn’t approved by City Council. And a public outcry ensued after Detroit artists objected to their exclusion from planning and painting the murals.

Bryant nearly approved artists to paint on buildings in historic districts, also without approval. The Historic District Commission is staffed by the Planning and Development Department. Bryant is the department’s director.

Street Art for Mankind never got paid for the work the artists completed. City officials say the nonprofit has not initiated legal action to try to recoup funds, but the mayor’s attorney warned that they could.

‘You should not have begun working’

The emails from late September through early October last year show Rochelle Riley tried to bring the partners together to make the project happen. The director of Detroit’s Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship Office said she had been in talks with Street Art for Mankind since April 2023 regarding the project, called Detroit Be the Change.

The nonprofit works with international muralists to “raise awareness around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and child trafficking,” according to its promotional materials. It worked with Wayne County to create a mural at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in 2021 and wanted to return to Detroit. The NFL draft seemed like the perfect opportunity.

By late September, Street Art for Mankind had largely figured out the contours of the project: The city would reimburse the nonprofit, which would pay artists to paint the murals on privately owned buildings downtown. It selected the artists and determined it would cost $215,000. Other vendors didn’t have a chance to bid on the project.

Street Art for Mankind Co-Founder Thibault Decker signed the contract on Sept. 28. Just a few days later, on Oct. 2, Decker began asking when Bryant would sign the contract.

“Could you let me know if we could have this document signed back to us today please?” Decker wrote.

Riley said Bryant was in Houston and would look at the contract when he returned. Decker wrote nearly every day afterward for more than a week asking about the contract with the Planning and Development Department.

On Oct. 5, Riley learned the muralists had already begun painting.

“Your team is working without the contract between you and PDD??” she wrote.

“Yes… that was the point of my message,” Decker replied that day.

“Oh, Thibault,” Riley wrote back. “Then you should not have begun working. Antoine will look at it first thing in the morning, but at this point, you will have to live with the contract he signs.”

Thibault and Street Art for Mankind Co-Founder Audrey Decker did not respond to multiple requests for comment from BridgeDetroit and Outlier.

Events moved so fast that muralists nearly painted on historic buildings, which would have required approval from the Historic District Commission. Riley wrote to historic preservation specialists within the city, asking which buildings selected by the nonprofit could be approved without going through the commission.

Most of them could be. Two buildings, The Westin Book Cadillac Hotel and the Malcomson Building, could not. But the city couldn’t get a hearing with the commission before November.

On Oct. 4, Bryant suggested that the muralists paint on the historic structures anyway.

“Or…we could begin on the buildings, get the work (mostly) complete, while still filing for the November meeting. Worst that would happen is that we would get ‘cited,’ which I can address internally,” he wrote.

Riley later wrote that the owners of the Book Cadillac and Malcomson buildings didn’t want to proceed without going through the commission. Downtown Detroit Partnership CEO Eric Larson, who acted as an intermediary between the parties and building owners in the emails, said the Ilitch family agreed to have murals painted on their buildings.

A spokesperson for the Downtown Detroit Partnership did not respond to a request for comment.

Larson passed along a finalized contract on Oct. 20 for Bryant to sign after all the murals had been painted. The city charter requires that the council approve any contract above $25,000 .

Bryant approved the request for the no-bid contract on Nov. 1. A purchase order seeking “payment for services already rendered” was created on Nov. 20.

A day later, just as the council went into recess for the winter holidays, Bryant sent a memo to members apologizing for failing to follow purchasing protocols. In January, the full council unanimously voted to reject the contract . By then it was too late for the agreement to be legally terminated without being obligated to pay Street Art for Mankind.

“I guess he thought he would go to City Council to approve this retroactively,” Riley said in an interview this week. “Which is crazy, because then you’d have a million people wanting to do something like that.”

Damage control

Back in early October, with brand new murals suddenly and prominently spanning the sides of large buildings, Detroit artists began to take notice.

“The murals are getting quite the attention, so we need to go ahead and announce them,” Riley wrote to Bryant, Larson and the Deckers on Oct. 10.

But as first reported by Outlier, the city couldn’t quite get ahead of the growing discontent among Detroit artists .

Sydney G. James was particularly incensed. The prominent Detroit muralist wanted to know why no Detroit artists were hired, why the pay was so low and why the murals went up without notice. She began reaching out to other artists with her concerns.

In messages shared with Outlier and BridgeDetroit, Riley asked James on Oct. 10 if she wanted to be part of a second phase of murals, featuring all Detroit artists and offering better pay.

“Folks are raving,” Riley wrote to Bryant, Larson and the Deckers on Oct. 11. “We have tamped down Sydney James effort to discredit.”

City officials initially planned to unveil the murals at a public event on Oct. 14 with Mayor Mike Duggan, Riley, Bryant, Larson, the Deckers and the artists. But with public outcry ratcheting up, the city sent out a news release instead.

Reached this week, Riley didn’t think it was a good idea. “I said, ‘We can’t put out a press release about an illegal contract.’”

James continued to organize other Detroit artists and has helped put together a list of demands for publicly commissioned art.

“This whole saga has demonstrated the city does not have a process in place for situations like this,” she said in response to the findings. “That’s why we need one.”

Detroit’s Media Relations Director John Roach said the city’s protocols for approving contracts don’t need to change.

“The process has always been in place, but incorrectly was not followed in this instance,” he said by email.

Brad Dick, the city’s chief operating officer, said officials made good-faith mistakes. He also chalked the errors up to Bryant’s inexperience. Bryant was appointed as department director in 2021.

“I don’t think anybody had any bad intentions,” he said. “People were trying to bring artwork to the city. There are some people that handled it that weren’t as familiar with the processes, whereas they should have. Antoine Bryant took a lot of hits for that and he took them well.”

Dick said the second phase of the project is unlikely to come to fruition, but there will still be plenty of opportunities for Detroit artists.

“We have enough talent in this city to do our own (murals),” Dick said. “The City Walls program is extremely successful, created in-house by city employees, bid through the purchasing department.”

Detroit’s artists organize

In the wake of the blunders, artists have organized to try to get standards in place for public art.

Artist Halima Cassells said about 50 of her colleagues have been actively working on the guidelines, which outline things like pay rates and an artist selection process for art commissioned by the city. They also want to create a fund for public art that larger developments have to contribute to — a model many other cities and states have adopted .

Cassells said the artists have been working with a few City Councilmembers to ensure the proposal is legal and has enough support to pass. They hope to have a final draft by the end of the year.

The artists also want to create a 15-member Council of the Arts , as called for by the city charter. The city’s General Services Department director said in an email this week that the process is in the “early stages” and is moving forward.

“We have a charter mandate for it, but it doesn’t exist. Why?” Cassells said. “It just speaks to disrespect. We have an administration that just disrespects the charter like a president who disrespects the Constitution.”

The mural saga has frustrated Detroit artists, but it’s also brought them closer together and led them to clarify their shared goals.

“One silver lining to this whole situation is that so many artists came together and were able to identify problems and possible solutions,” Cassells said.

Emails: A mural series meant to promote Detroit ended in controversy. Here’s how it happened · Outlier Media