By Stephanie Holmes
BBC News
It is perhaps the most reproduced, recycled and ripped off image of the
20th Century.
Che Guevara, his eyes framed by heavy brows, a single-starred beret
pulled over his unruly hair, stares out of the shot with glowering
intensity.
It's now 40 years since the Argentine-born rebel was shot dead, so any
young radicals who cheered on his revolutionary struggles in Cuba and
Bolivia are well into middle age.
But the image has been infinitely repeated - emblazoned on T-shirts and
sprayed on to walls, transformed into pop art and used to wrap
ice-creams and sell cigarettes - and its appeal has not faded.
"There is no other image like it. What other image has been sustained in
this way?" asks Trisha Ziff, the curator of a touring exhibition on the
iconography of Che.
"Che Guevara has become a brand. And the brand's logo is the image,
which represents change. It has becomes the icon of the outside thinker,
at whatever level - whether it is anti-war, pro-green or
anti-globalisation," she says.
Its presence - everywhere from walls in the Palestinian territories to
Parisian boutiques - makes it an image that is "out of control", she adds.
"It has become a corporation, an empire, at this point."
The unchecked proliferation of the picture - based on a photograph by
Alberto Korda in 1960 - is partly due to a political choice by Korda and
others not to demand payment for non-commercial use of the image.
Birth of an icon
Jim Fitzpatrick, who produced the ubiquitous high-contrast drawing in
the late 1960s as a young graphic artist, told the BBC News website he
actively wanted his art to be disseminated.
The birth of the image happens at the death of Che in October 1967 - he
was good-looking, he was young, but more than that, he died for his ideals
Trisha Ziff, curator
"I deliberately designed it to breed like rabbits," he says of his
image, which removes the original photograph's shadows and volume to
create a stark and emblematic graphic portrait.
"The way they killed him, there was to be no memorial, no place of
pilgrimage, nothing. I was determined that the image should receive the
broadest possible circulation," he adds.
"His image will never die, his name will never die."
For Ms Ziff, Che Guevara's murder also marks the beginning of the
mythical image.
"The birth of the image happens at the death of Che in October 1967,"
she says.
KEY FACTS ON CHE GUEVARA
1928: Born in Argentina
Studies medicine in Buenos Aires
Witnesses poverty travelling around South America
1954: Joins Fidel Castro's 26 July movement
1959: Helps overthrow Cuba's Batista
1959-61: Heads Cuba's National Bank
Leads rebels in Bolivia
1967: Executed 9 October in Bolivian village
1997: Corpse discovered, exhumed and reburied in Cuba
"He was good-looking, he was young, but more than that, he died for his
ideals, so he automatically becomes an icon."
The story of the original photograph, of how it left Cuba and was
carried by admirers to Europe before being reinterpreted in Mr
Fitzpatrick's iconic drawing, is a fascinating journey in its own right.
Alberto Korda captured his famous frame on 5 March 1960 during a mass
funeral in Havana.
A day earlier, a French cargo ship loaded with ammunition had exploded
in the city's harbour, killing some 80 Cubans - an act Fidel Castro
blamed on the US.
Korda, Fidel Castro's official photographer, describes Che's expression
in the picture, which he labelled "Guerrillero Heroico" (the heroic
fighter), as "encabronadao y dolente" - angry and sad.
The picture was one of only two frames taken. The original shot includes
palm fronds and a man facing Che, both subsequently cropped out.
Unpublished for a year, the picture was seen only by those who passed
through Korda's studio, where it hung on a wall.
Poster boy
One man who brought the image to Europe was the leftist Italian
publisher and intellectual, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who distributed
posters across Italy in 1967.
After that, Korda's photograph made an appearance in several European
magazines. Mr Fitzpatrick first came across it in the German weekly, Stern.
"One of the images was Korda's but it was so tiny that when I blew it up
all I got was a dot matrix pattern. From this I did a quasi-psychedelic,
sea-weedy version of Che," he said.
Only months later, when he finally got his hands on a larger version of
the photograph, was he able to produce the image that has such universal
appeal.
"I'd got an original copy of the image sent to me by a guy involved with
a group of Dutch anarchists, called the Provo."
This underground movement was in turn rumoured to have been given the
image by French philosopher and radical Jean-Paul Sartre, who was
present at the Havana funeral when it was taken.
Capitalism and Catholicism
After Che Guevara's death, an outraged Mr Fitzpatrick furiously
reprinted originals of the poster and sent it to left-wing political
activist groups across Europe.
Part of his anger stemmed from vivid memories working behind a bar in
Ireland as a teenager, and seeing Che walk in.
The revolutionary was briefly exploring the homeland of his Irish
ancestors - the full family name was Guevara-Lynch - during a stopover
on a flight to Moscow.
"I must have been around 16 or 17," Mr Fitzpatrick remembers. "It was a
bright, sunny morning and light was streaming into the windows of the
bar. I knew immediately who he was. He was an immensely charming man -
likeable, roguish, good fun and very proud of being Irish."
Mr Fitzpatrick's version of Che arrived on the continent as many
countries were in a state of flux, says Ms Ziff.
"His death was followed by demonstrations, first in Milan and then
elsewhere. Very soon afterwards there was the Prague Spring and May '68
in France. Europe was in turmoil. People wanted change, disruption and
rebellion and he became a symbol of that change."
As time went on, the meaning and the man represented by the image became
separated in the western context, Ms Ziff explains.
It began to be used as a decoration for products from tissues to
underwear. Unilever even brought out a Che version of the Magnum ice
cream in Australia - flavoured with cherry and guava.
"There is a theory that an image can only exist for a certain amount of
time before capitalism appropriates it. But capitalism only wants to
appropriate images if they retain some sense of danger," Ms Ziff says.
But in Latin America, she points out, Che Guevara's face remains a
symbol of armed revolution and indigenous struggle.
Indeed, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez often appears wearing a Che T-shirt and
visitors to the offices of Bolivia's leader, Evo Morales, are reportedly
greeted with a version of the iconic image fashioned from coca leaves.
Combining capitalism and commerce, religion and revolution, the icon
remains unchallenged, Ms Ziff says.
"There is no other image that remotely takes us to all these different
places."
A film produced by Trisha Ziff on the iconography of Che Guevara,
Chevolution, is expected to be released in early 2008. Her exhibition is
due to open at Barcelona's Palacio Virreina museum on 25 October 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/7028598.stm
Published: 2007/10/05 15:45:23 GMT
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