RODEO DRIVE 1984 by Anthony Hernandez

Mack, 2012 First edition, 96 pp., 12'X 12" Hardcover

Fine - Signed

Hernandez does not simply document the urban experience, but reveals in his images the complexity of social spaces, implying economic disparity and racial divide. Layers of socio-economic tension are exposed on a street in an overt symbol of civic success; as Lewis Baltz observes, “these are the victors...enjoying the spoils of their victory on Rodeo Drive”.

Working in the 1970s, Hernandez and his contemporaries, who included Lewis Baltz and Terry Wild, were interested in photographing the social landscape of Los Angeles. Hernandez work was included in a landmark exhibition, The Crowded Vacancy, at the Pasadena Art Museum, LA (now the Norton Simon Museum) in 1971, which introduced to the public a new type of American landscape photography – four years prior to New Topographics; both exhibitions inspired an aesthetic movement that continues to resonate today.