Black-boxing: Che Guevara

Excerpt: Jim Fitzpatrick’s image of Che communicates appeal to the inner idea of rebellion at the heart of every human being, universally shared. The year of its inception, 1968, had rebellion and freedom fighting for first place and this image fell in its lap, instantly nurtured. Seeking an idol where capitalism fell short, Che provided a reason and a context to define this desperate belief, regardless of the truth behind it. But, what did Che really stand for? In a modern context of what ‘revolution’ looks like today, he’d sport a t-shirt of someone he believed in, knowingly and in support of, if not leading, a large rebellious group: a modern day Al Qaeda perhaps?

Diving into the history of the famous Argentinian, we see that the rhetoric embedded in the image of Che Guevara is false. Designed by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick in 1968, the image was designed with intent. As an advocate of the revolution, Fitzpatrick released the image copyright free with the intent of tattooing the memory of Che within our universal psyche for time eternal. Fitzpatrick dealt with historical ambiguities in a seductive way with the aim to project the status of Che he himself believed in. Teo A Babun and Victor Andres Triay in their 2005 publication, ‘The Cuban Revolution: Years of promise’ quote Che: ‘To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate’ (Babun and Triay, 2005. p. 57). The image of Che conveys a heroic, god-like, bold simplicity to his role as leader of the Cuban revolution. The depiction, used initially as the symbol of the Vietnam War, stood for revolution, freedom and rebellion (Wikipedia.org). Despite the temporal shifts that have occurred over time since then, his image retains this symbolism. The image of Che closes a black box.

Fitzpatrick’s image of Che communicates appeal to the inner idea of rebellion at the heart of every human being, universally shared. The year of its inception, 1968, had rebellion and freedom fighting for first place and this image fell in its lap, instantly nurtured. Seeking an idol where capitalism fell short, Che provided a reason and a context to define this desperate belief, regardless of the truth behind it. This is the ‘realism’ of the image; the ‘reality’ it has in this spatio-temporal context – even though it closes a black box, and is famous for exactly that, it is so woven to false notions of Che and ‘what he stood for’, it is rendered a matter-of-fact. The matter-of-fact of what it means to define a ‘revolutionary’ is in itself a black box, perpetuated by cultural symbols like Fitzpatrick’s ‘Che’: they are defined by what they represent and the relationship between them. These ‘facts’ are implausible with the smallest amount of historical analysis, but yet they remain matters-of-fact when they are actually matters-of-concern. The very nature of this investigation exposed the truth to me about Che: what he stood for versus what his image represents. Owning a Che t-shirt myself, I traversed my own history to a time when wearing this image provided me with a certain leftist demeanour I hadn’t earned in any other way; that by wearing his face, I too was a rebel. As a Designer, I understand why black boxes are needed to protect ideas of heroism, which give people hope and allow them to go on with their day-to-day lives despite its illusory truths.

Fitzpatrick’s image of Che undoubtedly plays an ongoing role in black boxing. The image retains its closure of the black box and I think this will continue on its current trajectory; the last forty years is testimony to that. The poster I created is an attempt to re-contextualise the trajectory of the image; a disincentive to trust blindly what you think you know as true, or matter-of-fact. The poster works to open this black box by exposing what Che really stood for in a modern context of what ‘revolution’ looks like today whilst also posing the question of his futile fame. If he were alive, he’d potentially sport a t-shirt of someone he believed in, knowingly and in support of, if not leading, a large rebellious group: a modern day Al Qaeda perhaps?

References

Babun, Teo A. and Triay, Victor Andres. 2005. The Cuban Revolution: Years of Promise. Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Arizona.

Fitzpatrick, Jim. 2014. Retrieved 5 June, 2014, from: http://www.jimfitzpatrick.com/che/

Totten, Michael J. 2014. Retrieved 5 June, 2014, from: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/truth-about-che-guevara

Wikipedia.org. Retrieved 5 June, 2014, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara_in_popular_culture