Alberto Korda’s famous work

Famous portrait of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara entitled: Guerrillero Heroico (translates to: “Heroic Guerrilla”), was taken on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba, at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion. The photo was published after seven years later. At the moment of capture, Korda has stated that he was drawn to Guevara’s facial expression at the time, which was one of absolute implacability, anger, and pain. Years later Korda would reminisce that in his view, the photo encapsulated Che’s “character, firmness, stoicism, and resoluteness.”Guevara was 31 at the time the photo was taken.

“Despite the spectacularization of the image of Che, what remains compelling are the many instances worldwide which the photograph persists as a rallying point for political struggles. To articulate resistance, to define local rebellions, to announce solidarity with others, activist artists will undoubtedly continue to remake, reclaim and recontextualize Korda’s photograph, and in this way create what the English critic John Berger calls an ‘alternative photography.”

Brian Wallis, International Center of Photography