Rauschenberg donates $100,000 to AIDS clinic

RAUSCHENBERG Artist Bob Rauschenberg is sitting on Captiva Island, and Dr. Bob Schwartz is sitting in central Fort Myers.

Rauschenberg is arguably the world's most renowned living artist, and Schwartz is arguably the state's most determined AIDS doctor, as director of the AIDS Treatment Center.

Until now, they had only one thing in common: both are passionate dogooders. This week the two married that passion, when Rauschenberg delivered a $100,000 check to Schwarz for the AIDS Treatment Center, a gift that will be formally announced on Saturday, Dec. 1, World AIDS Day.

The Center cares for bout 650 patients with HIV or AIDS at any one time, many of them indigent.

Deeply moved and "uplifted" (in his precisely chosen word, with its Talmudic resonance), Schwartz will now rename his financially beleaguered Center. The new name will fete the great artist and the greatest of causes in a single descriptive title, Schwarz said: The Bob Rauschenberg Center of Living.

"This extraordinarily generous gift has uplifted us. And it suggests that there exists an artistry of living, as well as an artistry of the canvas, defined by generosity and intention," said Schwartz. "Mr. Rauschenberg is a master of both."

SCHWARTZ Rauschenberg has given significantly to educational concerns and others over time, including more than $1 million to the American Foundation for AIDS Research, where he also served in an advisory capacity, Schwartz noted.

He's a master who defines the terms of his art, whether in philanthropy, or in painting.

"For him, it has been, 'Art is what I say it is!' Schwartz explained with a chuckle, deftly encapsulating Rauschenberg's significant rewrite of the standards of contemporary art since the 1960s, both in the United States and in the world.

Schwartz, himself, has rewritten the standards for treatment of AIDS and HIV in people without money and often uninsured, living in Southwest Florida - and in so doing has struggled, financially. It isn't the kind of medicine one practices to get rich, he has often observed, without hint of complaint.

"The Rauschenberg gift is monumental, but we still have another $70,000 or so to go, to catch up," Schwartz said.

Monies required to keep the non-profit Center solvent and the patients certain of the newest treatment regimens - a significant portion of them from the State and administered by the Lee County Health Department - have not been dependable.

Meanwhile, HIV and AIDS treatment done correctly has redefined the scourge. It is no longer a fatal sentence, said Schwartz, but a disease that can be controlled during the course of a long life. But lifelong treatment is expensive.

For almost three years, Schwarz has taken no salary at the Center, and that probably won't change in the near future, he says.

"Are we going to tell these patients, 'No, you don't get the best treatment, because we don't have the money' - in this society?" he asked, rhetorically. "No. We'll find it somewhere, even if I don't get paid."

By Schwartz's definition, perhaps - and by Rauschenberg's - that's the high art of living well.