The photographic work of Anthony Hernandez is hard and unsentimental. For the past three decades a prevalent question has troubled the photographer: how to picture the contemporary ruins of the city and the harsh impact of urban life on its less advantaged citizens? Hernandez has approached this question by focusing on what the photographer Lewis Baltz has called “the landscapes of the defeated” – homeless camps, unemployment offices, auto-wrecking yards, bus shelters, and other neglected spaces found at the outskirts of the city. Neither romantic nor nostalgic, Hernandez’s work has detailed the sites and spaces where capitalism’s promise of happiness has soured.
