(JTA) — Samy Mahfar, a Jewish real estate developer from New York, had removed from a Lower East Side building he owns a large painting of a penis left there without permission by a Swedish artist.
The colorful and anatomically detailed Broome Street mural made without permission by Carolina Falkholt drew stares until workers dispatched by Mafhar painted over it Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported Thursday. Falkholt, who also painted a mural of a vagina nearby, has said that the explicit painting was meant to send a message about body acceptance, the Daily News reported.
The painting appears to have been of a circumcised member. It extended along four of the building’s five stories.
“We’re discussing with the owner of that building if they want to go forward with a complaint against that individual, who has identified herself through social media,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told reporters Thursday.
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