A giant penis mural once located in the Lower East Side of New York City has been painted over just a few days after it was erected, WABC-TV reports. Created by Swedish artist Carolina Falkholt, the painting randomly appeared on the side of a four-story apartment building on Christmas Eve. However, as per the request of the building's landlord, the mural has been wiped following some mixed reactions from people in the neighborhood.
While some people admired the artistic nature of the mural, others were appalled by the sight of a giant penis. Falkholt defended her work, telling the Guardian that it fell in line with her overall goal of "not feeling ashamed of your body and who you are as a sexual being."
"I usually paint giant vaginas, pussies and cunts," Falkholt said. "And since I had just finished one on the side of a five-storey building, I felt like a dick was needed. The wall space on Broome was a perfect fit for it. To paraphrase [the artist] Judith Bernstein, if a dick can go into a woman, it can go up on a wall."
As opposed to her much more abstract approach to her work on the vagina, Falkholt's penis mural was classified as "visual sexual harassment" by a tourist visiting from Toronto named Avery Plewis, The Guardianreports. "It’s weird, because it’s so phallic that it’s beyond sexual harassment," Plewis said. "Harassment is often secretive but this is totally in-your-face." It's definitely in-your-face, but that's the typical goal whenever creating art.
