Landmurk

Trevor Hernandez

Hesse Press

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The fox knows many things, according to ancient Greek poet Archilochus, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. News flash: Trevor Hernandez is not a fox.

        Trevor Hernandez knows one big thing: that details are one of the lynchpins of photographic meaning. Also known by his Instagram handle @gangculture, Hernandez combs the urban landscape for its overlooked detritus: gum stretching in the sun, steps ending in a chain link fence, a tire half on half off a curb. More importantly, for hedgehog status, dysfunctional details are the ONLY subjects he photographs.

       Hernandez’s details work as metonymies, things that stand in for larger issues: like the minor disasters that accompany urban planning or the ways the human comedy verges towards breakdown. The @gangculture feed is a steady drip of evidence that builds a case for the slow-but-sure disintegration of civilization LA-style.

       His new book Landmurk published by @hessepress is a selection of this work, denser than the daily IG feed, and sequenced along more formal terms. The result is a rigorous, cantankerous, and funny group of little things that add up to one big thing—a frame-by-frame slo-mo of the glitch at the end of the rainbow. Like I said: Trevor Hernandez is a hedgehog, a really smart hedgehog.