An exhibition by Bernandino Hernandez
Curated by Laurent Van der Stockt
“Acapulco, in the province of Guerrero in Mexico, was by far the favorite coastal city of American jet set of the 50s and 60s, it was still a holiday destination popular a few years ago. Proportion to the number of inhabitants, it is today the most dangerous city in the country with 1300 assassinations listed in 2015. Currently, there is an average of five to six murders a day. Some forty gangs fight to gain the uperhand in racketeering as well as controlling the barrios and neighborhoods. Drug lords culivate armies of hundreds of peasants in remote valleys of the Sierra Madre overlooking Acapulco in order to control the port city and bring in chemicals and sell the drugs manufactured in laboratories. With great difficulty the national army and police attempt to control the situation, with some parts of the city simply out of their control or prohibited. The photographs here which show a war that dare not speak its name are taken by Bernandino Hernandez, who arrived in Acapulco as an orphan at the age of 3. When Hernandez was 11 years old, the man who had adpoted him dies and leaves him all his possesions ; a moped and a camera. Since, Bernandino has continued to photograph the events of his town for local newspapers. Inherent to the Mexican tradition of the Nota Roja, a popular literary and journalistic genre of the early century, its origin linked to the Mexican Inquisition and transformed with the arrival of photography, he began at once to intimately document the transformation of his city and his own condition. Prior to this exhibition his photographs have never been recognized or exhibited. The result and aesthetic singularity of his work from recent years have no equivalents.” – Laurent Van der Stockt
A WARM Production
Partner: Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents
