First, an anecdote. Back in 2006, I was visiting Amsterdam. A friend and I were wandering around downtown, and came across an exclusive cigar shop. Very fancy. They had some of their most eye-catching products in the shop window. I am no cigar afficionado, I don’t even smoke, so none of it meant much to me. Something caught my attention though. What was that we saw? A true prize item. A large, beautiful wooden box (humidor is the word, apparently) of real Cuban cigars … adorned with a picture – that picture – of Che Guevara.

The box even featured, in a handsome scrawl, the famous appeal: “Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

Price of said humidor: Euro 3,000.

It was designed, apparently, by the exclusive Parisian manufacturer Elie Bleu, which produces “some of the world’s finest humidors [..] handcrafted from natural or tinted mahogany and sycamore.” Each box features a “meticulously brilliant finish, a delicate process done by hand.” The Che Guevara range was, of course, a strictly limited edition.

The box in question is still on sale online: here, for example, for $5,000, or here for $4,785. Or you can order it here at the smart price of just 2,340 euro. Bizarrely, it comes accompanied by a Che-themed ashtray, available online for just $350.

Hasta la Victoria Siempre!

Hey, didn’t Jay-Z rap, “I’m like Che Guevara with bling on”? Now, Che is the bling. 

In the same spirit, I want to take you through some of the Che-related, Creative Commons-licensed photos on Flickr. I always trawl through Flickr to find illustrations for these blog posts. For the Che post from the other day, there was more than could fit with the post. Hence, this photo gallery. Oh, the humanity.

 

Taking the biscuit: Using Che to promote the stock exchange. Photo by patapat, used under CC license.

“Be realistic: demand the impossible”. Billboard for Swissquote, “the Swiss leader in online trading”. Discover the world of the stock exchange with the Swissquote Box for 29,90 Swiss Francs!

 

Mixed message? Photo by TobiasAC, under CC license.

How the Finnish market recycles the Che icon. The photographer keenly observes: “What I don’t understand is the political implications: does owning this mean “I love you, Che Guevara, so much that I want you to greet me every day as I come home” or “Up yours, Che Guevara — I wipe my feet on you!”? This, I do not know.””

 

Gay Che, donning the pink. photo by s.o.f.t. under CC license.

“Gay Chevara” with pink beret: Part of the Art Below exposition in the London tube.

 

Che at the ration card office. Photo by Alex Barth, under CC license.

“Ration card office, La Habana, 2000”
 

Le Che pour le Che. Photo by fabbio, under CC license.

But is it art? “Cliche Guevara”, Street art in London

 

Unselfconscious irony: Che and Apple as desktop wallpaper. Photo by Jacob Dockendorff, under CC license.

Che and Apple Macintosh as equivalent market brands to confirm one’s independent taste: “I’ve decided to use this picture as my desktop background.”

 

Reconstructing Che Guevara’s Death. Photo by bartpogoda, under CC license.

The team members of a 2006 project by Zbigniew Libera, better known for his “LEGO Concentration Camp Set”.

 

“Your Face Here”. Photo by satanslaundromat, under CC license.

Streetart in San Francisco: Che’s likeness, “Your Face Here”.

 

Speakers’ Corner for the mute. Photo by Mataparda, under CC license.

Over three months, a wordless debate rages in Santa Cruz de Tenerife – click for large size.

 

Living doll. Photo by TW Collins, under CC license.

In the series “Little Thinkers”: the Che Guevara stuffed doll …

 

Dreaming of a red Christmas? Photo by CorinthianGulf, under CC license.

In 1999, the British Churches Advertising Network first published the Christ-as-Che image, which came with the slogan: “MEEK MILD AS IF – Discover the real Jesus”. One of the group’s members explained: “Jesus was not crucified for being meek and mild. He challenged authority.”

 

Blessed by Christ and Che. Photo by orianomada, under CC license.

Teaching the poor of Caracas to read and write in the Chavez government’s “Mission Robinson”, under the approving eyes of Bolivar, Jesus Christ, Che Guevara and Chavez himself.

 

Che at the last supper. Photo by lamusa, under CC license.

The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes, a mural by Tony Burciaga in Stern Hall’s Casa Zapata, the Chicano-theme student residence at Stanford University. Burciaga conducted a survey of 100 Stanford Chicano students and 100 Chicano community activists, who were each asked to list their thirteen heroes. The top thirteen vote getters got to sit at the supper table; runners-up are standing behind. On Che’s right are Emiliano Zapata and César Chávez; over his left shoulder, with the guitar, is Carlos Santana.

 

Barcelona hearts Ganja, Ganesha and Che. Photo by desiretofire : music is the shape of silence, under CC license.

Streetart in Barcelona. Not entirely without logic, I suppose: Ganesha is the creator and remover of obstacles, and Che had his own ways of getting rid of “obstacles”… The placement of Ganesha’s axe (or paraśu) doesn’t seem entirely misplaced in that regard.

 

More chutzpah: the always polarised Italians get their choice of Che or Mussolini lighters. Photo by Daniele Muscetta, under CC license.

El Che vs Il Duce. “How can you possibly THINK of placing these two characters side by side with each other?”, the photographer asks. 

 

Che wants you to wear your jimmy hat. Photo by Libertinus, under CC license.

For love, use condoms. Title of the photo: “If Ernesto says so …” 

 

Che wears Che. Photo by @tone, under CC license.

What would Che wear? Streetart by “Dolk” in Bergen, Norway.
 

Bien étonnés de se trouver ensemble. Photo by puroticorico, under CC license.

“Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!” 

 

Pointing out the paradox. Photo by airefresco, under CC license.

“Gandhi vs. Che Guevara”.

 

Manga Che. Photo by Scout Seventeen, under CC license.

Captured in Tokyo – “Los Dias Revolucionarios de Chieko Guevara”.

 
What Che really stands for today? Photo by urca, under CC license.

Romance, adventure, passion. An artistic Cosmo story for the counterculture?

 

Circus act. Photo by Farruska, under CC license.

Hawking his trade on las Ramblas, Barcelona, “Che” remains frozen while Catalans shop.

 

From beyond Flickr …

“Top model Gisele Bundchen wears a bikini with the image of revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara in Sao Paulo Fashion Week”. Guevara’s family was underwhelmed.

 

Marketed in Australia: the Magnum “Cherry Guevara”:

 

This magazine cover, meant to highlight a report on graphic design in Cuba, came courtesy of Cuban graphic artist Edel Rodriguez, who explains that “A wired Cuban generation seeks the status of our logo culture as we seek the rebel status of theirs.” He also wrote that the iconic Che image is “everywhere, so it’s what I drew, along with tanks, guns, and missiles, cause that’s what was on T.V. there. American kids draw superheroes and cartoons instead. Che was my Mickey Mouse.”

Rodriguez added, “My family that is still in Cuba just got access to the internet, e-mail, etc. They are just learning about these i-pods, tech gear, brands, etc. So I’ve started gettting e-mails from them requesting things like memory sticks, i-pods, things with brand names, etc. Years ago I would get letters from them asking for medicine or food. So, the idea that Cuba is slowly changing into a capitalist society is what came of this communication with my family back on the island. And this image was the result.” 

“Another thing that has bugged me over the years is all these people with Che t-shirts and the whole Che cult. People that have no clue what a cold blooded killer Che was and how many people’s lives were ruined by the Cuban revolution (Not well to do folks, but artists, musicians, poets, homosexuals, or anyone that had individual ideas and expressed them.)

“So, people here in the U.S. that are all underground and hipster and “original” with the Che gear and that all wear the same brands and listen to their iPods annoy me. They try to act all rebel and counterculture but they’re all fitting in in their own way. I think this image worked for me as a criticism of such an attitude as well. I am very well aware that doing anything with ‘Che’ is the biggest cli-‘Che’ ever.”

Gentlemen of the jury, your verdict? “The wider the cult spreads, the further it strays from the man. Rather than a Christian romantic, Guevara was a ruthless and dogmatic Marxist, who stood not for liberation but for a new tyranny. … Che’s lingering influence has retarded the emergence of a modern, democratic left in parts of Latin America,” The Economist argued passionately. In the LA Times, Ben Ehrenreich was more laconic: “I bought my 3-year-old niece a plush Che doll one Christmas. She abandoned him for Dora the Explorer.”