CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/25/2016

Anthony Hernandez

From 1988-1991, Anthony Hernandez photographed unpopulated homeless encampments for the little-known yet seminal series, Landscapes for the Homeless. From 2007-2012, he returned to the camps to capture the inhabitants' view from the perspective of their beds. "While the earlier pictures look in on the camps, those in Forever look out, away from the debris left behind, and were taken as if Hernandez were living there himself," curator Erin O'Toole writes in the revelatory new SFMOMA exhibition catalogue. "These works tend to be more tightly framed than the earlier ones, with simple, direct, and graphic compositions: 'Forever #74' (2011, pictured here) depicts the peacock hues
of a stoplight’s glow bouncing off the tiled interior of a traffic tunnel; in "Forever #20" (2007) a constellation of spider webs articulate a cement ceiling stained with soot from a homeless person’s cook fire; and "Forever #13" (2010), with its pastel pinks and greens, recalls Claude Monet’s Giverny as reflected in a shallow pool of rainwater."