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Opening Reception: Pictures at an Exhibition

Eli Hollander
Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Porter Faculty Gallery
Presented by: 
History of Art and Visual Culture

A series of digital photographs that Professor Emeritus Eli Hollander has collected from museums around the United States. The images show people relating to each other and people relating to the art or themselves. The environment becomes a character in the story. Hollander captures many quiet, decisive moments. 

Pictures at an Exhibition is inspired by the musical work of that name by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. It is a collection of images from several exhibitions in the Bay Area, Chicago, Washington D.C., and New York City since 2014. Hollander said, “the camera in a museum makes me experience art in a very different way and I find connections with the people interacting in the composition." 

Alumnus Zach Buck describes one of these photographs from the de Young Museum: “In the center of a white room hangs Edward Ruscha’s Standard Station. It is a screen-print of an American gas station. On the left of Hollander’s photograph, near a white column, stands a museum attendant in a black suit. His eyes are closed. His shoulders are bent. He wears a wedding ring on a finger of his crossed hands. A man in a wheelchair sits near the screen-print, contemplating the image. Hollander’s photograph is formally balanced. The white space is punctuated by dark forms. There is also a logical balance between the experience of mobility on the one hand and that of stillness on the other.”

Eli Hollander is Professor Emeritus of UCSC's Film and Digital Media Department. In 1974, he came to Santa Cruz as a founding member of the Film and Digital Media Department. He served as acting provost of Porter College, then called College V, from 1980–81 and was chair of Aesthetic Studies from 1977–1980. He retired in 2013. He no longer makes films and prefers seeking moments of order in modern chaos through his still photography. 

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Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 6, 5:00-7:00PM
Artist Walk-Through: Wednesday, February 20, 5:00PM 
Exhibition: Wednesday, February 6 – Saturday, March 9, 2019 
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12:00-5:00PM (open until 8:00PM on Wednesdays)

FREE and open to the public.
Parking permits required; available for purchase on site for reception event.
Limited metered parking is available at Porter College.