Seriously though, there are plutocrats and robber barons of all kinds who can't sleep at night (and not just because of their coke habit) who wish they could cram their memes as deep into the culture as this snapshot of a communist by Alberto Korda. I see Che t-shirts all over Vancouver, often layered with Calvin Klein, and the irony fairly makes me quiver.Oh, and in case you're a plutocrat and a robber baron yourself, the story has a happy capitalist ending. Señor Korda shot his most famous image (some have called it the most famous image of the 20th century) for the Cuban newspaper Revolucion and never received a penny in royalties for it; entitled Guerrillero Heroico, it was taken in March 1960 at a memorial in Havana for the victims of the La Coubre explosion and not published internationally until seven years later.
A great many people have gotten rich with this image, just not the author or the subject... Vive la marketplace!
Born on this day in 1928, Guevara was executed by Mario Terán in October 1967, a day after his capture in Bolivia by CIA operative Félix Rodríguez.
*
Something very similar happen to Mikhail T. Kalashnikov and his invention...Regardless of the loyalties both Korda's picture and the Ak-47 will go down in History as contemporary icons identified with the "revolution".
ReplyDeleteLets not put a price to that.
Javier.