It can be seen from both Belgrano and Entre Ríos. It is on the corner, on one of the walls of the Foundation building. It is a tribute to René Favaloro, in the place of the City that the doctor made his own.
The muralist Maxi Bagnasco, in just one week, captured the imposing image of the cardiologist who developed the coronary bypass technique. And the work was inaugurated this Monday, a few months before the day on which René Favaloro would have turned 100 years old.
The portrait of Favaloro, who is seen wearing a white apron and neat hair, backwards, looms over the side of the Foundation that bears his name.
Maxi Bagnasco told Clarín that the proposal to portray the cardiologist came by "pure connection and destiny." And he added that he always thought about portraying the doctor on some wall in Buenos Aires, but never, until now, had the possibility been given.
They inaugurated a mural in homage to René Favaloro in Entre Ríos and Belgrano. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
In fact, when the message arrived with the proposal to do so, he was in Miami, at Art Basel week, painting the creator of the Bypass in Wynwood, the neighborhood that became an open-air art museum.
"When the World Cup started, I went to Miami and everyone expected me to paint Messi or Maradona. But every time I published something from a mural of the two of them, people told me to paint Favaloro. Then I read that and it always stayed in my head, and at the moment that I had already painted Maradona everywhere, I said 'there is someone who deserves to also make a mural for him,'" said the artist.
"I started painting it and I didn't put anything about what I was doing. Journalist Connie Ansaldi sent me a message and told me that she had been contacted by the Favaloro Foundation, that they wanted to make a mural and that she had given them my name to do it," Bagnasco said. Soon after, he contacted Laura Favaloro, the doctor's grandniece.
They inaugurated a mural in homage to René Favaloro in Entre Ríos and Belgrano. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
"When Laura calls me, she tells me she wanted to do a mural. I tell her the same thing as Connie, that it was a fluke because I was doing one in Miami and nobody knew about it. She responds that it is a connection and that clearly I had to paint Favaloro in the Foundation," he added.
A few days after finishing his work in Miami, the muralist shared the image with his followers, who were surprised and admired his art. "Playing football, because it was in the middle of the World Cup, I published that we have the best players in the world, and one of them is René Favaloro," he said.
There are many images of Favaloro, however Bagnasco, along with the doctor's grandniece, chose one they had taken for a book. However, the muralist saw something else in the photo: "Although I always look at the technical part, about what is best for a mural, this time I had chosen one in Miami, which was also the same one that Laura sent me. And I chose it again because René's look, in that image, expresses a lot."
When asked what feelings he had when painting the mural of 12 meters wide by 22 meters high, the artist did not hesitate to highlight Favaloro's humanitarian legacy. "It's not only everything he created, but also what he taught, the amount of values unwavering by his example. He didn't sell his securities for nothing. He said that medicine without humanity could not be practiced. He sided with the people, and he was human first," he said.
"He was the last great Argentine hero. I believe that by reclaiming their values we can lead to a more just and supportive society," said Laura Favaloro.
Bagnasco is still surprised to have become a muralist, something he did not imagine when he was a child. He didn't think he was "going to end up painting huge walls in the country, or in the world."
His murals of Messi, Maradona and other works are the reflection of an art that gives him popularity. However, he returns to Favaloro and the experience of painting it in the middle of the City, where the doctor chose to leave his legacy. "But to paint such an important figure, that you come by car down an avenue and see that painting of mine, for me it represents a lot on a professional level," he said.
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