El día que me quieras is a meditation on the last photograph of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, taken by Freddie Alborta in Bolivia in 1967: the photo of him lying dead on a table, surrounded by excited soldiers. The well-known art historian John Berger once compared this photo with Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ and with Rembrandt’s Doctor Tulp’s Anatomy Lesson. The world-wide distribution of the picture on 10 October 1967 was the culmination of the legendary quest for Guevara that had lasted more than two years.The film is not a political documentary in the usual sense, but presents itself as an investigation into the death and the power of photography, veering between evocation and straightforward reporting. Leandro Katz: ‘A few years ago, I decided to obtain a print of the photograph from a photo agency and to begin a series of photographic works based upon it. My approach in these works was that of an archaeologist who sifts historical remnants to reveal their hidden powers. Using close-up photography and a masking device to highlight details in the picture, I re-photographed it to raise questions about its formal and narrative content, in an attempt to expose the indeterminate powers of photographic and cinematic representation.’
