January 8, 2007

Artwork by Elliot Anderson

Niagara by Elliot Anderson

Art professor has solo exhibition at de Young Museum

By Scott Rappaport

Assistant professor of art and electronic media Elliot Anderson will have a solo exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, opening on January 13 and running to May 15. Titled "Average Landscapes," the show is part of the de Young’s Connections Gallery series.

Anderson's work examines the relationship between 19th-century American landscape painting and contemporary tourist photography. “Using custom software I search the Internet for images based on titles of paintings by Hudson River School painters -- people such as Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, and Thomas Moran,” said Anderson. “The software returns everyday snapshots of the places represented in the paintings. I then average these images together using additional custom software to create a merged image that contains ghosts of all the images collected.”

The exhibition will contain 13 large-scale digital transparencies mounted on ligthboxes, a series of "souvenir" plates with digital transfers of the landscapes, and video.

The de Young is located at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Email this story
Printer-friendly version
Return to Front Page