CHE'S AFTERLIFE: THE LEGACY OF AN IMAGE

By Ada Hutchinson

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MICHAEL CASEY

VINTAGE

4.7.09

I love books that make me think: "I wish I could have written that." Casey, the Dow Jones' Buenos Aires bureau chief, takes off on a quest to find the heart of the definition-of-seminal Che Guevera image. What he comes away with is a fascinating tale of the photographer, the history of the print itself and a global account of the countless places and people that exact image has touched. It's quite inarguable that the Che image is the most reproduced and reappropriated visual of our modern time, and the story behind it is nearly as compelling. The biography of Alberto Korda, the photographer of Guerrillero Heroico, takes up almost the entire first half of the book. It's a fascinating account, and in the post-Warhol age of Shepard Fairey, about as timely as a book gets. By nearly eschewing most political overtones and focusing on the image itself, Casey comes away with as many enthralling tales of simulacrum as he can find people to tell them.