BY ERIN WHITE, SENIOR OPINION EDITOR
Repaint the wall, Annie Hall: Rethinking 
Ann Arbor’s bookstore mural

Wednesday, April 3. 2019 // The Statement
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Wednesday, April 3, 2019 // The Statement 
 

I 

have walked past the “Bookstore 
Mural” hundreds of times during my 
two years living in Ann Arbor. When-
ever my errands drag me across the Diag, 
my heels instinctively turn the corner and 
put me onto the perpetually busy street of 
East Liberty. I find myself momentarily dis-
tracted from whatever music I have blaring 
through my earphones, and I glance up to see 
it, exactly where it has been since 1984.
Situated kitty-cornered from the fluores-
cent glow of the State Theatre and just down 
the way from the light-bulb encrusted Michi-
gan Theater sign, it looms over downtown 
as one of the city’s most prominent pieces of 
public art. Beautiful and deliberate strokes of 
red, yellow and blue accentuate the features 
of the five portraits that are laid upon a con-
trasting black background, coming together 
to create what is colloquially known as the 
“Bookstore Mural.” The memorialized are 
writers Anaïs Nin, Franz Kafka, Hermann 
Hesse and Edgar Allan Poe — as well as 
screenwriter and filmmaker Woody Allen.
Painted in 1984 by artist Richard Wolk, 
a University of Michigan alum, the mural 
stands on the side of what was originally 
David’s Books and Discount Records. Later, 
Borders Books was located next to the mural. 
As reported by The Michigan Daily during 
the mural’s production, Wolk had previ-
ous experience creating public art, having 
painted a mural of famous figures on a record 
store on South University Avenue the year 
before. He then took his talents to the owner 
of David’s Books, Ed Koster, who commis-
sioned the piece in order to replace an exist-
ing mural that was deemed unsatisfactory by 
the State Street Area Association, a merchant 
group that aimed to increase business in the 
area.
After the mural’s completion, however, 
this same group of critics did not give the 
replacement much praise. As it was put by 
Ann Arbor News reporter Charles Child in a 
July 8, 1984 report, “Oftentimes, years must 
pass before great art is finally appreciated 
by the public. Perhaps the mural needs more 
time.”
It has been 34 years since its creation, and 
the “Bookstore Mural” remains one of Ann 
Arbor’s most symbolic images. Appearing on 
seemingly every promotional video, social 
media post or Ann Arbor must-see list, the 
mural has become visually synonymous with 
downtown and the Ann Arbor community. 
This recognizability has increased since its 
2010 restoration, when Wolk estimated it 
would not need to be re-touched for another 
10 years. Wolk claimed he would again do 
the restoration, but also noted that if Oxford 
Property Management — the owner of the 

building the mural is on — wanted to replace 
it with another mural in the future, he would 
pass the opportunity on to a new, younger 
artist.
It’s been nine years since this restoration, 
and maybe it is time for the Ann Arbor com-
munity to start thinking about the mural’s 
next touch-up. When looking at the authors 
included in the mural, Woody Allen stands 
out for more than his film career. Having been 
accused of sexually assaulting a minor, he 
was thrown into a controversy that involved 
his image, work and influence on the film 
industry. Is this something Ann Arbor wants 
to promote through its public art?
T

he allegations against Woody Allen 
date back to Aug 5, 1992 when 
he was accused of molesting his 
7-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan Far-
row. The allegation came to light along with 
the revelation of his affair with the adopted 
daughter of his long-term partner Mia Far-
row, 21 year-old Soon-Yi Previn. This affair 
is claimed to have begun when Allen was 56 
years old. He confirmed the relationship in a 
press release on August 18, 1992 — the same 
day the Connecticut State Police announced 
an investigation regarding Dylan’s abuse 
allegations. Four days before, Allen had filed a 
lawsuit for custody of his and Farrow’s three 
children — the mutually adopted Moses and 
Dylan Farrow, as well as their biological son 
Ronan Farrow.
After seven months of inquiry, Allen’s 
lawyers announced on March 19, 1993 that 
he was cleared of the molestation charges, 
despite Farrow’s lawyer claiming the report, 
done by a team of child abuse investigators 
from Yale-New Haven Hospital that were 
brought in by Connecticut State Police, to be 
“incomplete and inaccurate.” The custody 
battle began the next day, which led to over 
two months of trial, until its verdict in Mia 
Farrow’s favor on June 7, 1993.
Acting Justice Elliott Wilk claimed Allen 
is “self-absorbed, untrustworthy and insensi-
tive,” also denying him visitation with Dylan. 
Frank Maco, a state’s attorney from Con-
necticut, announced he would not further 
try Allen for the abuse against Dylan despite 
probable cause, as he did not want to subject 
her to further trauma through the trial.
Over the next 26 years, these allegations 
continued to be supported by the Farrow 
family. Dylan went on the record for the first 
time in 2013.
“There’s a lot I don’t remember,” she told 
Vanity Fair, “but what happened in the attic 
I remember. I remember what I was wearing 
and what I wasn’t wearing.”
Since this interview, Dylan has consis-
tently and publicly supported her accusa-

tions through an open letter to The New York 
Times in 2014 and an op-ed for the Los Ange-
les Times in 2017. Both Mia and Ronan Far-
row have shown public support for Dylan’s 
story, questioning the lack of accountability 
toward Allen and writing their own pieces in 
defense of her, like Ronan’s 2016 guest col-
umn for The Hollywood Reporter asserting 
his belief in his sister and documenting her 
struggles.
T

he downtown mural featuring 
Allen and his controversy was 
an early part of the mental map I 
began building for myself when I first came 
to the University. As an amateur artist and 
someone who finds joy in the works of oth-
ers, this piece used to mean a quick smile and 
feeling of warmth. The stark contrast of light 
and dark, white and color would lift my mood 
and prompt my admiration before I was again 
bopping along, my music intact. But early this 
semester, my friend Sophie ReVeal, an LSA 
sophomore studying Film, Television and 
Media, began a conversation with me about 
the impact of having certain idealized images 
within our community — like this glorified 
portrait of Woody Allen.
The question of how to regard influential 
artists after allegations of sexual misconduct 
has become a difficult debate in recent years, 
especially when their body of work is signi-
fied as having notable cultural capital. At the 
time of the mural’s creation, Woody Allen 
was regarded as the hip, progressive and 
culturally relevant filmmaker — and even 
today, he maintains recognition in the film 
industry. His 1977 Academy-Award-winning 
“Annie Hall” is considered one of the earli-
est and most successful romantic comedies, 
and his emphasis on incorporating nervous 
humor into his films has made him one of the 
most well-known and appealing filmmakers 
of the modern era.
With these oustanding allegations against 
him, the question, Can you separate the art-
ist from the art? is more than warranted. 
And this question is doubled when referring 
to the mural, as it layers the issue by having 
to think not only of Wolk and his art, but the 
lives and artistic work of the five featured 
artists as well.
This question becomes difficult to answer 
when an artist has made notable cultural and 
academic influences. And this same argu-
ment stands for Woody Allen, whose cultural 
influence on American cinema seems to be 
unignorable. A 24-time Oscar nominee and 
a four-time winner, Allen has been charming 
audiences since his emergence in the 1970s. 
However, is there a way to acknowledge this 
historical importance without creating pub-
lic glorifications of him?

The subjects of the “Bookstore Mural” are 
understandably linked to the piece, as each is 
a prominent author. However, Woody Allen 
has more of an industrial connection to the 
mural, which is placed within sight of both 
the Michigan and State theaters. But is his 
image truly the best representation of what 
the film industry is? And if this image were 
to be changed, would that be erasing history, 
or simply avoiding a personal glorification of 
him?
LSA senior Sophia Georginis is studying 
both communication studies and Film, Tele-
vision and Media. She is currently one of the 
general managers of WOLV TV, a student-
produced television network on campus, and 
works with Sisters in Cinema, an organiza-
tion intending to give female and non-binary 
filmmakers a chance to tell their stories. She 
said she is in favor of erasing Allen from the 
mural due to the abundance of other film 
icons without assault allegations.
“I don’t think it’s erasing him from his-
tory as much as it is putting people up on 
that mural who haven’t sexually assaulted 
somebody. There’s so many people that have 
impacted film — there’s so many women, so 
many people of color that have impacted film 
and have made changes. Greta Gerwig, Spike 
Lee, so many people that I can just name 
here.”
She also spoke on Allen’s existing influence 
on the film industry, stating that his position 
in academia is secure regardless of his place 
on a piece of public art.
“Yes, he has made impacts to the film 
industry,” Georginis said. “But it’s also like 
so many people have who haven’t done these 
disgusting things. And we’re not erasing him 
by taking him off that mural, he’s very much 
so in people’s memory. But it’s like putting 
somebody up on that mural that shows what 
the film industry is and where we’re moving.”
This attitude toward academic acknowl-
edgement is echoed by another LSA senior 
studying Film, Television and Media, Maria 
Mikhailova, who works as outreach coordi-
nator for Sisters in Cinema. In terms of the 
academic uses of film, Mikhailova said there 
is a way to keep relevant directors in the con-
versation without glorifying them and keep-
ing them in positions of power.
“It’s just a matter of being transparent 
and saying, ‘This is why I want to show this 
film,’” Mikhailova said. “It’s not because this 
person in particular did it, it’s because this 
particular scene is relevant to what we’re 
studying right now. If we eliminate everyone 
who’s ever had allegations against them or 
anything like that, then we don’t have any-
thing to study.”
This academic debate around the relevance 

and usability of Allen’s work remains justifi-
able, but this doesn’t seem to reflect directly 
on the use of his imagery and personal brand 
as a cultural symbol. To that point, Mikhailo-
va also spoke in support of the idea of more 
worthy subjects for the community.
“It’s not erasure of history, it’s just making 
way of better history, for celebration of better 
history,” Mikhailova said.
These questions of erasure versus glorifi-
cation were touched upon in a conversation 
I had with Tara Ward, a lecturer in the His-
tory of Art Department, who also has vested 
interest in gender issues. Ward said the battle 
between these combating ideas is a compli-
cated conversation that should be dealt with 
seriously.
“(This) essentially (is) the debate. Is this 
about history, or is this about our contempo-
rary values?” Ward said. “And it’s a hard call, 
and you know, it’s unclear what’s broadly the 
right thing to do politically. White-washing 
history doesn’t stop it from happening it 
again, but allowing for a celebration of prob-
lematic figures is equally an issue. And so it 
does become, I think, a case-by-case choice.”
And in terms of a case-by-case decision, 
Ward said it is important to look at both the 
historical and modern context surrounding a 
piece of discussion in order to come to mea-
sured choices.
I

n the fall of 2017, #MeToo was pushed 
to the forefront of societal conversa-
tion as the hashtag gained a strong 
following on Twitter, revitalizing the move-
ment that activist Tarana Burke began in 
2006. This then spurred the Time’s Up move-
ment, which was created with the intention 
of stopping widespread abuse by men in the 
workplace. The growth of these movements 
has increased social awareness of sexual 
assault and harassment, publicly challenging 
powerful, influential men who exploit their 
positions of power, and sometimes are still 
able to retain strong levels of cultural weight 
after allegations become public. 
Also during the fall of 2017, strong inves-
tigative reporting uncovered suppressed sto-
ries of abuse and brought survivors of assault 
to the public eye, playing a crucial role in 
increasing public awareness of institution-
al issues like sexual assault. One of these 
reporters is Ronan Farrow, Woody Allen’s 
son, who broke the Harvey Weinstein scan-
dal in October 2017 in a piece for The New 
Yorker. His reporting opened the floodgates 
for a series of journalistic pieces regarding 
similar systems of abuse.
Farrow and Ken Auletta visited the Uni-
versity on March 19 for a Wallace House 
event. Auletta, another reporter for The New 
Yorker, took a moment during the event to 

briefly comment on Farrow’s connection to 
Woody Allen, citing it as his initial concern 
over Farrow’s motivations to pursue these 
stories. Farrow’s response to these claims, 
then and now, is that his sister’s abuse func-
tioned as a contribution to his passion, not a 
conflict of interest.
Farrow used the event to speak to the big 
strides that were made in these movements, 
but referenced the remaining changes that 
need to occur.
“I don’t think we’ve achieved accountabil-
ity … I don’t think we’ve extended the tenta-
tive steps towards accountability to all the 
segments of society that desperately need it,” 
Farrow said.
And in order to promote that much-needed 
accountability, Farrow claimed we need to 
“keep holding their feet to the fire.”
A

nd how do we do that? A clear place 
to start seems to be one’s own com-
munity. It’s easy enough to broadly 
and indirectly recognize the existence of 
power structures and imbalances that give 
certain people greater authority. It’s more 
difficult to look internally and see the ways 
one’s own city is supporting problematic 
people, like Ann Arbor’s inclusion of Woody 
Allen in the “Bookstore Mural.” But this type 
of identification takes self-reflective work 
that is often strenuous to community memo-
ries and values.
While speaking with Ysabel Bautista, an 
Ann Arborite and LSA sophomore studying 
biopsychology, cognition and neuroscience, 
she reflected on her experiences seeing the 
mural as a staple piece of public art in Ann 
Arbor.
“My mom and I used to go (to Borders 
bookstore) every weekend to get books, and 
then we’d walk down to Ben and Jerry’s and 
get ice cream, so when you’d turn that corner 
you’d see that mural,” Bautista said. “Every 
time I think of that mural I think of … going 
to Borders to buy books with my mom.”
This 
type 
of 
emotional 
attachment 
enhances the need for productive communi-
ty dialogue about questionable public works 
in order to understand dissenting opinions. 
Bautista did, however, note her understand-
ing of community concerns after reflecting 
on her new perspective as a student rather 
than a local Ann Arbor resident.
“I feel like everyone who’s lived in Ann 
Arbor who goes to the University of Michi-
gan, you just see Ann Arbor in a different 
light when you’re living on campus because 
now you see perspectives of people who 
aren’t from Ann Arbor,” Bautista said. “And 
you’re like, ‘Oh wow, maybe Ann Arbor’s not 
as picture-perfect as I thought it was before.’”
Public art can act as a representation of 

a community, blending together an artist’s 
intention and the values of the place where 
their art resides, seemingly bringing the resi-
dents of an area together in acceptance of an 
image. But this does not necessarily need to 
be a permanent assertion of personal or com-
munity value. As perceived by Art and Design 
freshman Gabe Consiglio, art is allowed to 
change with the times given our new cultural 
landscape.
“With learning of allegations like the ones 
against Woody Allen, I don’t think an art-
ist should be obligated to keep that stance 
that they had when they originally made 
the piece,” Consiglio said. “So I think if they 
wanted to, they definitely should be able to 
go in and change it based on new informa-
tion that they learned. Because opinions on 
that should be ever-changing, you know, you 
shouldn’t ever need to hold the same stance 
on one issue. So I think definitely art is some-
thing that can be revisited and tweaked.”
Making a point of calling out damaging 
imagery or perpetuations of unfair power 
structures, like those that allow for the exal-
tation of prominent men like Woody Allen, is 
how community perceptions can be adjust-
ed to champion more conscientious values. 
Being able to rally behind a change, or at the 
very least, generate a greater conversation 
about what our art says about our commu-
nity, is how a community is able to challenge 
its own internalization of social hierarchies.
By continuing to talk to ReVeal, it has 
become clear that a conversation needs to be 
had about the art that is so prominently dis-
played in Ann Arbor.
“If we’re allowing someone who has hor-
rible allegations against them in this public 
space, we’re perpetuating this idea that men 
who have done things like this can remain 
in power because of (professional) things 
that they’ve done, and we’re not taking into 
account the whole picture,” ReVeal said.
ReVeal and I are now in the early stages of 
reaching out to property owners and affili-
ates with the mural to start a broader con-
versation within the Ann Arbor community 
about the type of imagery that we promote. 
Woody Allen’s history of abuse exists clearly 
in downtown, but remains ignored in favor 
of an artistic glorification of his cultural 
impact. What exactly should happen to the 
mural is unclear, and requires the engage-
ment and perspectives of the entire Ann 
Arbor community. But the city must take 
some agency over what is being displayed in 
their own backyard, because, in the words 
of lecturer Ward, “No painting, no film, no 
technical ability should let you get out of the 
ethical rules of humanity.”

