Che Guevara: Icon, Myth, and Message by David Kunzle

Chapter 1: Che’s ideal in the Cuban Poster

OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America) and Tricontinental Magazine were largely responsible for making Che posters internationally popular. Tricontinental posters were mostly meant to be a pictoral declaration of Cuban foreign policy and were staunchly anti-US imperialism. They were circulated in 87 different countries. They appealed to Third World countries individually because they were very vanguard-esque yet still maintained Third World culture and aesthetics. Since these posters began circulating after Che’s execution, there has been a steady yet significant decrease in the posters as political art, and an increase in Che in the private sector, namely art galleries. However, these posters remain internationalist, nationalist, and multi-cultural at the same time. For example, only small arms such as hand grenades and soviet-style handguns and rifles are shown because tanks and planes are more so a reference to US military might and imperialism. They also show a striking resemblance to US counter-culture art that was popular during the 1960’s. The posters are almost always done in bright colors, conveying a peaceful nature. This is another trend since the revolutionary events of Latin America: a decrease in Che posters showing weapons and an increase in posters promoting world peace through vibrant colors and symbols. Gomez Fresquet stands out as an exemplary artist: his Che posters were largely satyrical of US commercial advertisements as a critique of capitalism itself. One example is a poster showing a white, rich model contrasted by a repressed Vietnamese girl, the red blood on her face matching the red lipstick of the model. Other notable examples are the Cuban Film Institute Posters, which used the same style and were posted all over the Cuban streets proclaiming, “Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

Chapter 2: Che as Landscape

A popular conveyance of Che in all forms of expression has been showing him to be an emanation of the land. This consists of the typical Che silhouette filled with colorful jungle landscapes, the typical terrain he fought in as a guerilla. One of the most popular pieces of art of this style is Sergio Padilla Garcia’s large, 4x8 m poster depicting Che in this tone. These posters typical try to envision “imagined future utopias” reflecting Che’s socialistic vision. They also stand to represent Cuba’s new “ecological revolution” which is in direct opposition to the industrial farming used by wealthy nations today. One sub-genre of this style of poster that is still immensely attractive in Latin America is the “Che on Horseback” style. Painting Che as a bandit on horseback glorified him among the various bandit gangs in Latin America as a Robin Hood figure (which is exactly how he is portrayed in the paintings). This “Leftist Robinhood” image also had a very agrarian appeal toward the peasants in rural areas. Rene Mederos’ silkscreen painting is one of the most significant posters of this sub-genre.

Chapter 3: Collective Poetic Articulation

The opinion of the author David Kunzle is that Che inspired artists, poets, and writers more than any other 20th century personality. This represents a major creative phenomenon in the history of political art. There are 350 poems and 120 songs recorded from over 40 countries. In poetry, Che is usually revered in two major forms. The first is conveying Che the man. In these poems he is talked about as one with nature, usually characterized by water. He is also talked about as a “Companero” or a sort of transcendental comrade to all repressed peoples. Other poems talk about him as a Warrior/Poet and address the dichotomy: Che’s will to create peace through destruction. The other major type of poetry used to talk about Che is what many artists and poets dub, “The Che Project.” In this type of art/poetry artists use him as subject matter simply for the sake of keeping his image alive for “the progression of the self.” This means not so much glorifying the person, but instead using his life as an ideological map toward a new human dignity. This is why the star on Che’s beret is often referred to as a “guiding beacon.” This type of art is also used as a warning against over-glorifying Che the man, which would undermine the values he stood for which many artists feel are most important.

Chapter 4: Symbolism

Hair/Beard: The author’s opinion is that Che’s wild, flowing hair and beard is what so distinguishes him among other historical heroes and personalities. The beard is often portrayed in various paintings like wild flames, in order to show it as a “torch of defiance.” His beard was a big factor in his physical appeal, which lies in congruence with youth fashion-trends in Cuba in the 1960’s. Another factor is that the beard contradicts with the clean-cut look of America and at the same time appeals to the counter-culture movement of Vietnam. It is also a badge of honor for guerilla fighters, and signifies an untamed, militaristic component of Che.
Cigar: The cigar remains important symbolically because it is a symbol of Cuba’s national identity. While in the Western World the cigar is seen as an attribute of a wealthy, bloated capitalist, it is seen quite different in Cuba. In Cuba the cigar represents something that is very affordable to the working class, and is prized especially in Cuba for the superior quality of Cuban cigars. What many people do not know is that Che did not even smoke until he got to Cuba. It was then that the cigar became a normal part of the guerilla uniform. The cigar also reinforces Che as an intellectual in Cuba. Because of today’s health concerns with smoking, posters and images of Che without a cigar in-mouth are more prominent.
Guerilla Uniform: The loose-fitting way Che wore his olive guerilla uniform also ran in direct opposition to the US image of a soldier. The US hated having its representatives enter the United Nations wearing military dress, as Che did constantly. Because of that, the guerilla uniform is also part of the Cuban revolutionary ideal.
Beret: The black beret Che wears is a symbol of the active man who is at the same time, not upper-class. In posters and other images, it forms a “halo-like” clear line over the forehead, as not to shadow or cover Che’s eyes.
Star: The star on Che’s beret is the symbol of the comandante, a prestigious rank in guerilla armies. It is an aesthetic magnet because of the power and socialism it symbolizes. One poster that stands out exemplifying this is Raul Martinez’s 1968 silkscreen image, in which the star on Che’s beret is rising toward a colorful image of the world. The star is also said to be a symbol of universal human intelligence.
Name: The nickname “Che” does not personalize him, but does generalize quite a bit. It is used by Latin Americans to refer to people who are from Argentina. The “Che” on Cuban banknotes shows an ironic opposition to the florid signatures capitalism cherishes on such items.


Chapter 5: Photography

Although photographs were dangerous in his revolutionary campaigns, they were key in mystifying his image. Roberto Salas, who along with his father took more pictures of Che than any other photographer, claimed he had taken at least 20 “incredibly majestic photos” of Che. In contrast, he was only able to get 4-5 pictures of the same quality of Fidel Castro despite taking millions of photographs. One aspect of Che photographs that could attribute to his appeal is that unlike other historical figures, he is seen smiling or laughing in most of his photos.
Alberto Korda is credited with taking the picture of Che featuring the famous silhouette which has been reproduced in countless numbers of images and posters. It was taken while Che was attending a funeral in Cuba and was in a particularly furious mood. The picture was not originally published but was circulated some years later, right after Che’s execution, and sold millions. The photograph is so prolific that a documentary, “Una Foto Recorre el Mundo” was based upon the photo alone and won a Latin American film award. The photograph is also considered to be one of the most enduring pictures of the 20th century, along with several famous pictures of Vietnam brutality. The picture is said to be popular because of the degree of profiling of shadows along Che’s face, as well as the fact that it perfectly highlights his pupils, showing shades of feeling and meaning. The photograph is exaggerating of the man without being a painting or other creative reproduction.

Chapter 6: Mederos Life of Che

These are a series of 25 paintings by Rene Mederos. They are important because of how Che is distinctly idealized: bright colors are used, and no enemies or battles are shown. Che is shown to be more of an adventurer, explorer, or dreamer in the jungle mountains than as a battle-hardened soldier. The particular painting showing Che hacking through sugarcane appeals mostly to the Cuban ideals of the “working man.” It was meant to show Che as a true member of the proletariat. It is also worth noting in this series that Che’s imagined social and natural utopias are artistically realized. The beautiful, exotic plants sprouting into Che’s head are meant to be allegorical to his agrarian ideals. In the last painting, Che’s touching hands are meant to convey that his ideals still live on (his hands were cut off after his execution). On the outside of the Ministry of the Interior in Cuba, an 8 ft. tall steel silhouette of the Korda image also stands as a testament to Che’s timelessness.

Chapter 7: Che, Chicanos, and Cubans

Mario Torero’s mural of Che shows the inspiration he bestowed upon the US mural movements of the 1960’s. The mural resides in Los Angeles, a satyrical inverse of the WWI Uncle Sam propaganda poster except Che is featured saying, “We are not a minority.” It was inspired by Chicago youth movements at the time. It also stands as a monument against police brutality in eastern LA. In the mural, Che is wearing a brown beret with no star instead of his usual black beret, as homage to the militant Brown Berets of Chicago. In 1981 the mural was reproduced in Newsweek, US News and World Reports, The Herald Examiner, and Newsline. The mural then became very controversial in the US, as many Cuban exiles try to destroy or vandalize it several times.
Chapter 8: Christification of Che

Che supported Christians, exclaiming that Cubans are free to believe in whatever they wish to, refuting the “godless communist” image that was often tacked onto him. Che is compared to Jesus Christ in large part to the fact that his demise was very analogous to Christ. In many images of Che, he is seen barring a machine gun in the same fashion that Christ carried his cross. In Catholic Latin America, Che is an accretion tributary, but not substitute, to Christ. A very contributory factor to this is Freddy Alborta’s “Christ-like” photo of Che’s body after his execution. Bolivian literature also glorified Che’s humanitarianism, largely because it tends to view Latin American revolutions in biblical terms. Che is mentioned saving and protecting small animals, as well as tending to fellow guerilla fighters and enemy soldiers as a doctor. In many images Che is seen with a halo over his head, riddled with bullets. In the opinion of the author, Che will become more “Christ-like” as revolutionary violence subsides over time and his passionate nature and ideals become more prominent. To this day his most famous quote is, “The true revolutionary is guided by feelings of great love.”

Chapter 9: Che Dead, Che Vive

Revealing Che’s body after his execution was ill advised because of the sympathy it induced. Arnold Belkin’s variations on Rembrandt’s “Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp,” is an example of this. It replaces the lifeless cadaver in Rembrandt’s painting with Che’s lifeless body from the execution photograph, showing a humanist/machinist dichotomy. The paintings themselves can be summed up as “a human sacrifice in an inhuman world.” The men surrounding Che in the painting are not just as men, but also robotic-sentient beings, intending to assert that history still stands divided on Che Guevara. Another attribute of Che’s execution that backfired on the US and Bolivia was that in the photograph they opened his eyes to prove that it was indeed Che Guevara. Because of this, it appears to make him seem alive, so as to make the image comparable to Holdbein’s “Christ in the Tomb” painting. This is what sparked so much religious interest in him. Rius, Mexico’s best known Leftist Cartoonist, did a comic book with Che being portrayed as, “A monk on a mission.”

Chapter 10: Twentieth Century Fox Che!

The utter failure of this Hollywood endeavor could shed some light as to the true economic nature of Che nostalgia. Film directors initially pursued the idea because of an envy for Che’s popularity as well as the success of the poster artists who admired him. Sy Bartlett wrote the original script for the movie, which was intent on obliterating sympathy for Che. In this first version he is shown as maniacal, violent, and his eventual death comes as a relief to the audience. Michael Wilson came along and wanted to make a more historically accurate version of the revolutionary. The end result was a script that was much more controversial, letting the audience decide on whether Che was a “Marxist saint” or a violent monster. This new script was still not entirely accurate, showing Che to be deeply disturbed and irrational. During the first days of filming, numerous directors from the board at Twentieth Century Fox complained and fired Michael Wilson. Sy Bartlett was rehired and allowed to change the script as he felt necessary, which in the end meant a deeply anti-Che movie. Because of these decisions, the film was an abomination of the real man and sunk almost instantaneously at the box office and among critics.