Introduction | Korda's Che Moves Out into the World

The portrait of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara', Guerrillo Heroico, photographed by Alberto D’az Korda on March 5, 1960, is considered to be the most reproduced image in the history of photography. Whether this claim can be substantiated or not, Korda's Che is nonetheless a unique image. It has come to symbolize anti-establishment thought and action. Its political power has maintained its currency from the Prague Spring of 1968, through Chiapas, Mexico of 2000, to the present conflicts in the Middle East. It has reverberated from the cold war to our post-colonial reality. It is an image which has inspired sophisticated art and multiple renditions yet its iconic silhouette is immediately recognizable even in the most simple of children's shadow toys.

That Che Guevara himself was young and charismatic and brutally murdered with the support of the CIA while only thirty-nine years old inevitably contributes to the mystique. Guerrillo Heroico is a statuesque image taken from below. It derives from a visual language of mythologized heroes harking back to an era of socialist realism, yet it also references a classical Christ-like demeanor. More than this Che's enigmatic gaze encompasses both determination and desire and evokes Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, possibly the most reproduced painting in the history of western art.

Revolution and Commerce: The Legacy of Korda's Portrait of Che Guevara brings together photography, posters, film, fine art, audio, clothing and artifacts from more than thirty countries as well as images presented globally on the web and traces the photograph from its conception to its contemporary appearances. Korda's Che is an image which moves from heroic guerrilla through pop celebrity to radical chic, spoof and kitsch. The vast majority of the aesthetic treatments of Korda's image derive from the Pop idiom of the 60s. While traditional art relishes ambiguity, introspection and chance, the aesthetic of Pop art was by definition a rejection of traditional art and figuration. Pop's egalitarian, in-your-face presentations are a perfect corollary for Che's anti-establishment values. Korda's Che is an ideal abstraction transformed into a symbol that both resists subtle interpretation and is infinitely malleable. It has moved into the realm of caricature and parody at the same time it is used as political commentary on issues as diverse as the world debt, anti-Americanism, Latin-American identity, and the rights of gays and indigenous peoples. From Madonna's album American Life, through Vik Muniz's Che Frijol to Pedro Meyer's American Five Dollar Bill-where Che replaces the face of Abraham Lincoln-Korda's Che is both populist and counter culture.

The history of this image from the moment it was taken to that of its current global dissemination, is a complex mesh of conflicting narratives involving in its persistent retelling intrigue, the bizarre, claims of murder, lawsuits and erroneous financial gain. Its continual apotheosis constitutes a novella in its own right. Rashamonesque in its multiple appearances, Guerrillo Heroico has remained fluid and buoyant. Yet its meaning is always clear even to those who know little about the man himself.

Trisha Ziff
Curator