josef chladek

on photobooks and books

Anthony Hernandez - Landscapes for the Homeless, Sprengel Museum, 1995, Hannover

Hardcover, cloth bound with dustjacket. Text in English and German. With a biography, exhibition history and bibliography. Issued in conjunction with a 1995 Sprengel Museum exhibition in recognition of his award of the DG Bank Forderpreis Fotografie. The catalogue opens with a photo-illustrated transcript of "Forever Homeless : A Dialogue" (between Lewis Baltz and Anthony Hernandez).

By the 1980s, Hernadez was working with large format cameras, which necessitated a slower and more deliberate shooting style. His 1979 series, Public Transit Areas , involved using a 5 x 7 inch camera on a tripod, and his subjects seem clearly aware of his presence. Rather than the off-kilter backgrounds of his earlier portraits, streets and buildings recede calmly into deep space. By the 1990s, Hernandez's style shifted again, as he concentrated on color and close-up details. Most of his pictures since the mid-1980s are devoid of human subjects--although their presence is felt. Projects such as Landscapes for the Homeless (1988-91), Waiting for Los Angeles(1996-98), and Everything (The Los Angeles River Basin) (2003-4) documented how the city's human presence has been reduced to the traces and debris left by destructive social forces. (from the J. Paul Getty Museum)

Pages: 88
Place: Hannover
Year: 1995
Publisher: Sprengel Museum
Size: 24 x 24 cm (approx.)