Forever

Forever comprises photographs taken in the downtown area of Los Angeles and the poorer neighbourhoods of Compton, Watts and South Central, made between 2007-2012. The work traces the movements of the homeless, in images which take up the point of view of the homeless person. So, rather than photographing the material trace - a chair or bed - Hernandez photographs what might be might seen and observed from the street itself. The title was drawn from a previous work Landscapes for the Homeless (1996), exhibited at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover. The catalogue included a conversation between Hernandez and Lewis Baltz titled Forever Homeless: A Dialogue. It was Baltz who chose the title, and Hernandez speaks of its prevailing significance, "The title is very important because, as I write this, fifteen years on, the homeless population of Los Angeles has only increased; I could technically keep photographing this subject, making these kinds of pictures, forever." Anthony Hernandez (b. 1947) served for two years as a medic in the US Army in the Vietnam War, before taking up photography in 1969. His projects include Landscapes for the Homeless (1988-91), Waiting for Los Angeles (1996-98), Pictures for Rome (2000), Everything (The Los Angeles River Basin) (2003-4) and Rodeo Drive, 1984 (MACK, 2012).