United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted a video on social media showing off a new tequila bottle, but the backdrop featured a painting from Rashid Johnson's "Anxious Red" series. The artwork, confirmed by Hauser & Wirth as an authentic Johnson piece purchased on the secondary market, sparked criticism online due to the irony of Lutnick—a Trump appointee whose administration has cut public health funding—owning a work born from pandemic-era anxiety. The series originally supported the WHO's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund through a 2020 charity auction, the same organization Trump withdrew the U.S. from on his first day in office.
The controversy matters because it highlights the tension between art-world values and political figures who acquire culturally significant works while advancing policies that contradict the art's original context. Johnson's "Anxious Red" paintings, which sell for $1–$2 million at auction and are held by major institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago, were created to express the dread of the pandemic—a crisis the current administration has undermined by slashing CDC and NIH budgets by nearly 40% and withdrawing from the WHO. The incident underscores how art ownership can become a flashpoint for broader political and ethical debates.