New Nebraska photography exhibition will showcase "presence of absence"

Photo Credit: Two photographs by Rick Houchin
Tue, 06/20/2017 - 08:12

The Great Plains Art Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will continue to celebrate the state's 150th birthday with a new photography exhibition by David Lovekin and Rick Houchin.

Lovekin and Houchin spent two years traveling throughout more than a dozen small towns in Nebraska to capture quiet streets void of inhabitants, but full of the signs of human presence.

“You get the feeling that someone is watching you as you stroll the streets of these places. It’s a haunting sense that the empty buildings and quiet streets have voices that you can’t quite hear. Everywhere there are signs of life. But usually only signs of it,” Houchin said, speaking about the exhibition’s title. “That ‘presence’ is always there. It’s the presence of absence.”

  • Opening reception with food and drink during Lincoln’s First Friday Art Walk, July 7, from 5-7 p.m.
  • Exhibition runs through October 28.
  • Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St., is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday with free admission.