Pixel Guevara

Colored pencil and ink on paper

33×24 cm / 13×9.4 in, 2020

Not available

Pixel Guevara began with the challenge of representing an image already exhausted by its own overexposure.

Che Guevara’s face became an icon that ended up living beyond his personal and political history. His image has been reproduced everywhere, entering the world of fashion, consumer culture, and everyday objects, often detached from what he had represented in life. That contradiction interested me: a revolutionary symbol transformed into a pop image.

I did not want to work directly from the most famous version, the one now printed on T-shirts, posters, and flags. That image has already been reduced to its bare essentials, built on a few stark contrasts. I wanted to find another photograph that could preserve a similar visual force, recognizable enough to immediately evoke El Che, without repeating once again the icon everyone already knows.