The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

In this billboard and magazine advertising campaign, Korda’s photograph had been
overlayed with a hammer sickle motif, in which the sickle was turned into a chilli
pepper. The advertisers and photographic agency argued that nobody held copyright
to the picture “because it has been used so extensively and, in effect, is in the public
domain”. Expressing his offence at this use, and his decision to “reassert his
intellectual rights”, Korda said that “to use the image of Che Guevara to sell vodka
[was] a slur on his name and memory”. Che “was not a drunk and drink should not be
associated with his immortal memory”. 136
Che Guevara: Icon, Myth, and Message went on to explore Guevara’s own relationship
with photography, and to ask questions about the processes of visual imaging and
biographic production during his life, especially since photographic images were so
significant in the creation of the Che image and biography. While his childhood had
been the subject of excessive documentation by his “shutterbug” father, the young
adult Guevara earned a living as a portrait and family photographer on the streets of
Mexico, and went on to become a news agency photographer. Even though he became
aware of the “acute political and propaganda value of news photographs”, Guevara
also understood that, as visual evidence, they could also “be used to sign death
warrants”. According to Kunzle, Che showed an “impatience with news
photographers and their tendency to foster cults of personality”. Yet, Che himself
made use of a camera, with photography representing a “dangerous habit” that
accompanied him “the whole length of his life”. While many of these images remained
confined to the Guevara family archive, they resonated with what Kunzle identified as
“Che’s unremitting need for self‐reflection and self‐construction” as reflected in his
diaries. Immersed in a world documented by photographers, Guevara participated in
the creation of an image of him as a romantic revolutionary. As biographical project,
thus, the exhibition Che Guevara: Icon, Myth and Message began to explore complex
136 David Kunzle, Che Guevara: Icon, Myth, and Message, p 59; Matt Wells, ‘Revolutionary spirit not
spirits’, Mail and Guardian 11‐17 August 2000.
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