Title: Coca Che
Photographer(s): Luc Chessex
Writer(s): Luc Chessex
Designer(s): Ramon Pez
Publisher(s): Editorial RM, Barcelona, Spain
Year: 2016
Print run:
Language(s): Spanish
Pages: 96
Size: 25 x 35 cm
Binding: Hardcover
Edition:
Print: Brizzolis, Pinto, Spain
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Cuba, 1960
ISBN: 978-84-16282-38-8
https://www.editorialrm.com/en/producto/coca-che/
Reprint of the original published in 1982, a rare book under the French title Quand il n’y a plus d’Eldorado (When There is No More El Dorado).
This version is reduced to 58 photo in a slim book that let us to know the work fo Chessex that was in Cuba from 1960 since 1975 when he was declared ‘persona non grata’ and returned to Switzerland.
In “Coca Che”, images of the revolutionary Che Guevara, created from a photograph by Alberto Korda, dialogue with photos used to advertised Coca-Cola, the soft drink invented by a pharmacist in Atlanta in 1886.
El Che and Coca-Cola are two icons that contend for presence in the landscape of the Americas. The former in an emblem of revolutionary ideology, whereas the latter represents the “American way of life”. It is the confrontation of these two images that gives meaning to this photobook.