For the past two months, the enormous mural of a colorful, crouched figure (pictured above) in Dewey Square on the Rose Kennedy Greenway has been the subject of intense media and public attention.

Measuring 70 by 70 feet, the mural that the public has dubbed “The Giant of Boston” is the work of Os Gemeos, twin brothers and artistic collaborators Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo from Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Full disclosure: The mural was commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art as part of our Os Gemeos exhibition.)

In the two weeks it took Os Gemeos to create the work, thousands of people gathered to watch the larger-than-life figure emerge from spray-painted outlines and large areas of color. When the piece was complete, an iconic and recurrent feature of Os Gemeos’ artwork was revealed: a character with enormous eyes; bright yellow skin; vividly patterned, mismatched clothing; and a bright red cloth covering the head and lower portion of the figure’s face.

Public response to the ICA through on-site conversations, social media and telephone calls was overwhelmingly positive. Local and national press commented on Os Gemeos' exuberant contribution to the Boston skyline — from Sebastian Smee, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for The Boston Globe, who noted the mural was “by far the most successful piece of public art I’ve seen in Boston in the more than four years I’ve lived here,” to The Wall Street Journal, which called the artists “rock stars who have appeared everywhere from Miami to Scotland.”

Public commentary reported in a Boston Business Journal article ranged from “the color brightens things up, but it’s more avant garde than I would have chosen,” to "I like it because it's vibrant and it's colorful and the downtown needs a lot of that."

Things took a dramatic turn when local TV news station FOX-25 picked up the story. Their segment began with the anchor stating that the Os Gemeos mural was at “the center of a controversy … Some are comparing this image to the image of a terrorist.” The segment ended with the reporter noting that she was sure “we had not heard the end of the story yet.”