La Descendimiento de Che Guevara

La Descendimiento de Che Guevara

2013
50.5” x 25”
Archival print

The slain body of Ernesto "Che" Guevara is put on public display in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta hospital, Vallengrande, Bolivia on October 9, 1967. The left panel shows the town of La Higuera where Guevara was taken after his captured by CIA led Bolivian troops and ordered executed by President René Barrientos. The helicopter sequence carrying his corpse to Vallengrande, extends beyond the frame and references van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross. Art critic, John Berger, upon seeing the original postmortem photographs remarked upon their similarities to Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson and Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ.

The chiaroscuro narrative is constructed from world press films and photographs.The distortion of Guevara’s corpse is the result of a camera pan and mirrors Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb.