Anthony Hernandez Photography Retrospective comes to the Milwaukee Art Museum this September

-Exhibition engages with contemporary social issues through photographs of Los Angeles-

 Milwaukee, Wis. – August 30, 2017 – The Milwaukee Art Museum will host the first retrospective of American photographer Anthony Hernandez, featuring over 150 photographs—many never shown before—from the artist’s more than 45-year career. Whether focusing on the human figure, the landscape or abstract details, the Los Angeles native has captured the desolate allure and sprawling expanses of his hometown in both black and white and color pictures.

The Milwaukee Art Museum presentation of the exhibition will debut Hernandez’s most recent series, Against LA. These photographs synthesize many of the themes present throughout Hernandez’s body of work, including the ways in which humans use the built environment, as well as demonstrate the artist’s longstanding interest in color, form and texture. Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Anthony Hernandez will be on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum from September 15, 2017, to January 1, 2018, in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts, a 10,000-square-foot exhibition space in the Museum’s renovated and expanded Collection Galleries.

As a largely self-taught photographer, Anthony Hernandez has brought a new perspective to the genre of street photography. His individual style springs from and is attuned to the particular aesthetic of his hometown, Los Angeles, a city famous both for the beauty of its natural setting and its miles of urban sprawl. For Hernandez, the city’s architecture and public spaces are subjects as well the setting for his pictures. Anthony Hernandez complements and updates the Museum’s ongoing engagement with Twentieth-century American street photography: Visitors may recall the 2010 exhibition Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940–1959 and the more recent exhibitions Helen Levitt: In the Street and James Nares: In the City (2017).

“Anthony Hernandez offers the opportunity for Museum visitors to discover how this artist’s distinctive street photography evolved over time,” said Lisa Sutcliffe, curator of photography and media arts. “Hernandez’s photography captures the unvarnished everyday life—in both beautiful and personal moments, in the ways people interact with the city, and in the tiny landscapes they leave behind. We hope his body of work will spur conversations on homelessness, those who are marginalized, and how the life and design of a city includes or excludes the people who live there—many of the same issues that we face in our own community.”

Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Sponsored by: Herzfeld Foundation and David C. & Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation

EXHIBITION-RELATED EVENTS

 IN CONVERSATION: ANTHONY HERNANDEZ WITH CURATOR LISA SUTCLIFFE
Thursday, October 19, 6 p.m.
Join Curator of Photography and Media Arts Lisa Sutcliffe as she sits down with artist Anthony Hernandez to talk about his career in photography and the recurring engagement with Los Angeles. Free for Members, free with admission.
Co-sponsored by: The Milwaukee Art Museum’s Photography Council and the Contemporary Art Society

GALLERY TALKS WITH CURATOR LISA SUTCLIFFE
Tuesdays, 1:30 p.m. October 10, November 28, December 5
Curator-led tours give extra insight into the exhibition. Free for Members, free with admission.

Image: Anthony Hernandez, Rodeo Drive #3, 1984, printed 2014. Courtesy of the artist. © Anthony Hernandez

SEPTEMBER CALENDAR OF EVENTS

MEIJER FREE FIRST THURSDAY
Thursday, September 7, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.
Admission to the Milwaukee Art Museum is free for individuals and families (excluding groups) on the first Thursday of each month, thanks to Meijer.

EX FABULA: POWER, DISSENT AND YOUTH EMPOWERMENT
Thurs, Sept 7, 6:15 p.m., 15-min. artwork talks: 5–6 p.m.
Experience the personal and the political in storytelling, through stories inspired by the nineteenth-century ceramics of David Drake and the work of Rashid Johnson and other artists of the African diaspora. Brief talks to familiarize guests with these works will be provided in the galleries in advance. This program is being held in conjunction with 200 Nights of Freedom, a citywide marking of the fiftieth anniversary of the “March on Milwaukee,” a walk in protest of housing segregation that began on August 28, 1967.
Co-sponsored by: The Chipstone Foundation

MAM AFTER DARK
Friday, September 15, 7–11 p.m.
Presented by Northwestern Mutual
Attracting Milwaukee’s young professionals and party people, MAM After Dark boasts not-to-be-missed art, music, food and activities. $10 in advance, $12 at the door and free for Milwaukee Art Museum Members. For more information, go to: mam.org/afterdark/

LECTURE: LEARNING FROM THE OLD MASTERS: THE FORENSIC ANALYSIS OF EASEL PAINTINGS
Thursday, September 28, 6:15 p.m.
How are panel paintings like the Museum’s Madonna and Child (ca. 1350) by Italian artist Nardo di Cione made? Welcome Brian Baade and Kristin deGhetaldi of the art conservation department at the University of Delaware, as they explain the painstaking technique of egg tempera painting.
Sponsored by: Milwaukee Art Museum’s Fine Arts Society

**Exhibition images available upon request

Media Contact:
Cindy Moran, 414-224-3282
cindy.moran@mam.org

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