Art About Dr. Anthony Fauci

Andy Andersen. Dr. Anthony Fauci as Saint Pantaleon the healer

Hakim Bishara in Hyperallergic reports that "Artists Across the Internet Make Tributes to Dr. Anthony Fauci' (4/13/20)

Pamela Allara: In the April 20, 2020 issue of The New Yorker magazine, a feature article by Michael Specter is titled, “The Good Doctor: How Anthony Fauci became the face of a nation’s crisis response.” Dr. Fauci has not simply become the face of the response to the pandemic, but, to many, he has become its hero, an individual of knowledge and integrity who courageously speaks the truth, even while in the presence of a President spouting bald-faced lies. Fauci claims to be apolitical and non-ideological, a physician interested only in scientific truth, but in a time of crisis the American citizenry has become dependent on him for a factual analysis of the ongoing situation. The grateful response from the public has included artworks, a sample of which we are re-posting from Hyperallergic’s blog. The images range from ambitious paintings of Fauci as a saint, to an amusing sock puppet.  All are heartfelt. We do owe him a debt of gratitude.

Susan Platt:  Dr. Fauci is our hero! He is providing thoughtful, factual information as a safe harbor for all of us in the storm of political motives, intellectual deficiencies and evil motives. It is no wonder that Trump wants him to disappear. It is clear that Dr. Fauci is the one we are looking to for information. Thank you to these artists. I particularly like the religious overtones, as what Dr. Fauci is doing is to give us a way forward that is above and beyond just information. The Saint Fauci is exactly how we all feel about him, as he has attacks from the right. He calmly stated that the attacks are hard on his family, but he is just "doing his job." The Tarot cards also are right on the mark, another spiritual path. And of course the drawing of the famous gesture of holding his head by Brad Albright, (the way we all feel, as the artist declared), referenced  the event that was the basis for attacks by the ideologues. Such an attack lays bare what we are up against with the virus in the very fibers of our own bodies as well as penetrating our entire social structure.


Mark Auslander:  The images are clearly modeled on votive images offered to saints for many centuries, in a way that is humorous but also with an underlying seriousness of purpose.  In addition to expressing gratitude, my sense is that these work have a mildly talismanic function, aimed at "protecting" not only  the makers or those who acquire them (as in conventional votive offerings), but also, in a comic and heart-felt way, meant to protect the good doctor himself, whom people around the world believe serves at the pleasure of a deeply insecure, narcissistic, and mercurial president. Millions of Americans (and so many others globally) fear each day that his tenure is imperiled, simply for being a fearless truth-teller and unparalleled expert, coping with an administration that, in the eyes of many, seems to be at war with the very concepts of science and expertise themselves. 

I particularly like the sticker of the Doctor famously slapping his palm to his face when President Trump referenced "The Deep State Department" at one of his daily briefings on the Covid-19 crisis, as well as Andy Andersen’s rendering of the doctor as Saint Pantaleon the healer.