2019HernandezZ
2019HernandezZ
Contact Information
Max Hernandez-Zapata
Maximiliano Hernandez-Zapata
Alhambra, California
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi – We Are Until We Aren’t Anymore
My senior thesis is influenced by mid-century vernacular photographers, whose images harken the viewer to a period when the United States was racially divisive, economically emergent, and a global superpower. While this body of work mirrors many themes implicit in mid-century vernacular photography, my images also bastardize these themes by conveying situations of shifting demographics, late-stage commodity fetishism, and dilapidated infrastructure, all of which point to a United States that is past the phase of global dominance.
The imperfections in these analog images embody a material understanding of my experience–a departure from the facade of silicon board memories. Yet, vernacular photography today is perhaps best embodied by the cell phone camera: an instrument that clouds any distinction between production, reception, and communication of images. Their capacity for global dissemination results in a different understanding of photographic experience than in the past.
I would like to thank the Steven Daniel Smallen Memorial Fund for their generous support.