IN SHORT:
UPRIGHT: Leadership, discipline, adventure. Chivalrous motives. Victory despite unlikely odds. Courage. Brotherhood and Fraternal forms of love.
REVERSED: Reckless forms of Idealism. Fixated on rank. Competition and construction of self through comparison to others. Foolhardy.
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IN DEPTH:
The King of Pentacles considers, he plans, he takes action. He understands that revolution is not for the faint of heart, and power must be ‘captured’ in order to be kept.
He regards himself as the direct result of his choices, and that it is in the character or his deeds that he cements his power and his legacy.
Our King of Pentacles features these two comrades of the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro (13 Aug 1926 – 25 Nov 2016) and Ernesto “Che” Guevara (14 Jun 1928– 9 Oct 1967). This complicated relationship has been the subject of much speculation and intrigue. Here these men are invoked to draw attention to a particular approach to political power.
At this moment their fates are not sealed, the CIA has a hefty bounty on both their heads.
The Flag behind them has been hard won and fought for, but the military fatigues indicate that the future of this political project is far from secured. They share a type of fraternal understanding, that one will leave his legacy as a grand political figure-head and the other a martyr and symbolic haunting of the revolution. The King of Pentacles points to a complicated moment of brotherly love, respect and competition and sacrifice.
“Many will call me an adventurer, and that I am…only one of a different sort: one who risks his skin to prove his truths.”
― Ernesto Che Guevara
“A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.”
― Fidel Castro
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