Photograph, c-print on paper
Tate Collection
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-burri-22358" aria-label="More by René Burri" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">René Burri</a>
Poster Che Guevara 1993
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
adults
Burri, René, photograph, ‘Che Guevara’, 1963
cigar
clothing and personal items
decay
emotions, concepts and ideas
fine art and design, named works
formal qualities
Guevara, Che
history
individuals: male
inscriptions
leisure and pastimes
man
named individuals
objects
people
photographic
politics and society
portraits
poster
printed text
reading, writing, printed matter
recreational activities
revolution: Cuban Revolution, 1959
smoking
symbols and personifications
universal concepts
<p><span>Poster of Che Guevara, 1993 </span>1993, printed 2014,<span> </span>is a colour photograph documenting a peeling street poster celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cuban revolution. The poster uses a famous portrait of Che Guevara smoking a cigar which Burri himself had originally taken in 1963. The original portrait was captured when Burri accompanied an American journalist working for<span> Look</span> magazine to a three-hour-long interview at the Ministry of Industry in Havana, Cuba. The image went on to become an iconic symbol of the leader and has been appropriated many times for a wide range of political and commercial uses. When remembering the encounter, Burri commented that the lighting in the room was very dark as Che did not want to open the blinds; he also remembered that during the long meeting Guevara did not once acknowledge the presence of the camera, never making direct eye contact with Burri’s lens. The inclusion of this photograph in the portfolio – an image of one of Burri’s earlier pictures in a different context – highlights the photographer’s self-reflexive engagement with his work and his subjects throughout his career.</p>
paper print photograph c-print
Poster of Che Guevara, 1993
image: 511 × 342 mm
Presented by Pierre Brahm 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Poster of Che Guevara, 1993 </i>1993, printed 2014,<i> </i>is a colour photograph documenting a peeling street poster celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cuban revolution. The poster uses a famous portrait of Che Guevara smoking a cigar which Burri himself had originally taken in 1963. The original portrait was captured when Burri accompanied an American journalist working for<i> Look</i> magazine to a three-hour-long interview at the Ministry of Industry in Havana, Cuba. The image went on to become an iconic symbol of the leader and has been appropriated many times for a wide range of political and commercial uses. When remembering the encounter, Burri commented that the lighting in the room was very dark as Che did not want to open the blinds; he also remembered that during the long meeting Guevara did not once acknowledge the presence of the camera, never making direct eye contact with Burri’s lens. The inclusion of this photograph in the portfolio – an image of one of Burri’s earlier pictures in a different context – highlights the photographer’s self-reflexive engagement with his work and his subjects throughout his career.</p>
<p>This image is part of a portfolio of twenty-seven prints (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-inauguration-of-the-chapel-of-notre-dame-du-haut-france-1955-p14301" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14301</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/burri-poster-of-che-guevara-1993-p14327" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P14327</span></a>), selected and compiled by Burri as a cohesive group shortly before his death in 2014. The selection spans his sixty-year career and includes a number of his best known black and white works, as well as a group of lesser-known colour works. The portfolio was printed by Burri in 2014 and this copy is number three in an edition of five plus one artist’s proof. It contains fourteen black and white gelatin silver prints and thirteen colour C-prints, highlighting Burri’s diverse use of light and shadow alongside his experimental use of colour. Although predominantly known for shooting in black and white, Burri often travelled with two cameras, switching between them to capture images in both colour and black and white. This was a progressive approach at the time, when colour photography was generally only used in advertising or for commercial practices. Burri revisited his archive of colour images later in his career and published the monograph <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i> in 2013 as a decisive examination of this work.</p>
<p>Burri is most famous for his work as a member of the photojournalism agency Magnum Photos and the portfolio includes images produced in this context from projects in Brazil, Egypt, Lebanon, East Germany, China and South Korea, as well as an iconic image of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara taken in Havana in 1963. The young Burri was introduced to Magnum by fellow Swiss photographer Werner Bischof and began working with the agency first as an associate in 1955, before becoming a full member in 1959. His extensive career encompassed a wide variety of photographic practices, including documentary, reportage, street photography and the photo-essay, as well as portraiture, architecture and landscape. He often worked on press assignments and personal projects simultaneously, building a varied portfolio of work in both black and white and colour. Burri’s use of both bird’s eye and worm’s eye views and his attention to the effects of light and shadow created by architectural forms are reminiscent of techniques used by modernist photographers in the early twentieth century.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri Photographs</i>, London 2003.<br/>Hans-Michael Koetzle, <i>René Burri: Impossible Reminiscences</i>, London 2013.</p>
<p>Shoair Mavlian<br/>January 2015<br/>Arthur Goodwin<br/>October 2018</p>
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Summary
2019-01-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
adults Burri, René, photograph, ‘Che Guevara’, 1963 cigar clothing and personal items decay emotions, concepts and ideas fine art and design, named works formal qualities Guevara, Che history individuals: male inscriptions leisure and pastimes man named individuals objects people photographic politics and society portraits poster printed text reading, writing, printed matter recreational activities revolution: Cuban Revolution, 1959 smoking symbols and personifications universal concepts