Pizza restaurant’s controversial new mural sparks outrage: ‘An act of cultural erasure’

Things are getting saucy at a New Jersey pizza joint.

Artist Jen Flaum was commissioned to paint a new mural on the exterior wall of Brick & Dough, a pizzeria in Montclair, New Jersey.

Flaum posted a video to TikTok on April 12 of her working on the new mural while people walked by and shared their reactions — and while nearly all were positive, one passerby expressed their immediate disappointment.

“Right when I started, someone was upset about the restaurant updating their mural,” Flaum wrote.

In the video, which has garnered 26.2 million views, watchers can hear someone asking, “You painted over those murals? Why did they do that? What’s going up there?”

The artist shared that she was painting pizzas, and the person simply responded, “OK, thank you.”

Throughout the rest of the video, neighborhood residents walked by praising Flaum’s pizza paintings, and one even asked if she was a famous artist.

“I’m sure you’ll be famous soon,” they added before taking her picture.

But that one out-of-place interaction was enough to get people to do some sleuthing and find out what the artist painted over.

One eagle-eyed person used Google Street View to take a look at the original mural, noting that they “just had to see this for myself.”

The internet quickly discovered that the original artwork was titled “The Curse of Socrates” and was done by artist Jayemaich.

The painting, commissioned by Brick & Dough owner Jason Rosenthal in 2021, depicted two elderly women with notable wrinkles and longing faces.

“That wall was blank forever, so we really wanted to put something cool up,” Rosenthal told TODAY.com of the original mural. “We started talking, and I commissioned him to paint what was up there.”

Jayemaich previously told Montclair Local in 2021 that this work of art was inspired by Socrates’ philosophy of teaching morality, which ultimately led to his execution.

Now, people are discussing the stark contrast between the two murals.

“Big downgrade but not the artists fault she was hired to do HER art. it’s the owner of the restaurants fault for PAYING to have that masterpiece covered,” someone said.

“The first one looked so clean with the building color though, and made it look fancy. The second one makes it look like a kids pizza place. It looks so derpy,” one critic noted.

“I literally gasped out loud, the original was so beautiful,” an exasperated viewer said.

“Yeah but it’s not like the artist designed it she was commissioned and i still think the pizzas look really good she seems talented!!! it is just a shame they covered up another pretty mural,” another stated.

However, some pointed out that the new mural is more fitting with the restaurant and urged others not to be unkind to the artist.

“I think we can miss the old mural without being rude to the new mural’s artist!” one person declared.

“The old mural looks like something completely separate the restaurant. I love the new mural,” someone commented.

“It’s beautiful but it doesn’t work with a pizza restaurant,” another wrote.

“The new art makes the pizza place stand out as a pizza place. Judging by the fact they also changed the sign they probably had customers say they were confused or had no idea,” one assumed.

“Is it rly that crazy to y’all that a pizza place maybe just wanted to have pizzas on it…,” someone snarked.

For her part, Flaum explained in the comments of one TikTok that she didn’t know about the first mural and was doing what she was hired to do.

“I get it, it was so so beautiful!! I wasn’t aware of the original or the meaning behind it – was just doing my job and I know the restaurant wanted a change!” she wrote.

“It was a really cool mural,” Rosenthal told TODAY. “We approved and still approve the message — that has nothing to do with it.”

He added that since the new mural went up, people have been review-bombing the restaurant on Yelp and Google with one-star reviews mentioning it.

“I think that art is always subjective, but the people who seem to have loved it, they’re not seeing it all the time, and we were. So for almost five years, we’re seeing it every day and I think that after a little while, we just wanted some change.”

The Post has reached out to Flaum and Brick & Dough for comment.