about the show
The West Nebraska Arts Center, with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and the National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to present The Presence of Absence: by Rich Houchin and David Lovekin. The reception is on Thursday, September 4th, 5pm – 7pm. This is a free event and open to the public. Come meet the artists!
Rick Houchin and David Lovekin are Central Nebraska artists who have published and exhibited in many galleries and books. Their photographic project “The Presence of Absence” is a two-year long collaborative
effort. The exhibit consists of up to 50 photographs depicting the societal condition of some of Nebraska’s small towns and unincorporated villages. They show a largely disappearing yet surviving culture of rural life.
Rick Houchin is the editor/photographer at the Blue Hill Leader newspaper in south-central Nebraska. He has been a photojournalist since 1976. He has been named writer/photographer of the year in Nebraska, and his fine art exhibits have hung in galleries across the state.
David Lovekin began to photograph in 1965 while pursuing an MA in Philosophy at Northern Illinois University. His photographs focused on life in the streets and his proximity to Chicago made that possible. He saw that there was no end of poverty, abuse, and political malfeasance to document, which he believed made a difference.[1] Lovekin was able to publish and be exhibited. But, his philosophical critique of technology as alienating and emptying was extending to the camera as a manifestation of technology as a mentality.[2] In 1987 Lovekin moved to Nebraska to teach philosophy at Hastings College where he had an epiphany about photography that he saw as the retrieval of absence.
[1] Senator Gaylord Nelson, America’s Last Chance (Waukesha, WI: Country Beautiful and Rand McNally, 1970).
[2] David Lovekin, “Jacques Ellul and the Logic of Technique, Man and World: An International Philosophical Review, 10 (1978), 251-272. “Looking and Seeing: The Play of Image and Word,--The Wager of Art in the Technological Society,” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 32 (4) Fall, 2012, 273-286.
Rich Houchin
In my life as a journalist and a compulsive (read, “impulsive”) photographer, I pass through a lot of small towns in the center of the country. Usually on my way elsewhere, I often marvel at the nuances of some of the smallest ones. Some of them are just a hint of a town. Maybe less. One of the common denominators with such towns is what we call “The Presence of Absence.” Hence, our title for this work. A few of these are little more than ghost towns. Buildings which, if they could tell their stories, would speak volumes. There’s an old hotel, an empty gas station, a broken-down church or a vacant school. But everywhere there are signs of life. Or life passed. When my friend and kindred spirit, David Lovekin, discussed with me the possibility of an art/documentary project about these disappearing wonders, there was little need for persuasion for either of us. After several safaris to a hearty cross-section of these communities, we had amassed a number of what we felt were significant images that capture at least a part of the spirit and aesthetic we discovered in the towns. Some of the images, admittedly, are whimsical and abstract, while others are more soul-baring portraits of the gradual decay of what was most likely a vibrant way of life. In addition to the humor and drama we found in these places, we also found an indomitable spirit of community. A city park sign, for example, in front of a lot which contains mostly only well-kept grass and a set of swings, still showing unmistakable pursuit of a finer life. Homes which had long-since given up the “ghost” still showed signs of the personal touch from those who lived there. A few of the villages featured homes that were modern or at least updated, underlining the pride of ownership and purpose. Most, however, were shells of their former selves – exoskeletons of a collective organism dying gradually before our eyes. The photographs are not intended to belittle or in any way detract from a town’s pride or history. Rather, they were made to remind us of change. They tell the heritage of our culture and directions we were, or were not intended to take in life. This photographic project is a journey not just to a handful of tiny communities, but a glimpse of where we’ve been, and perhaps where we’re ultimately headed.
David Lovekin
“A technological culture is awash in images. Politics is directed by 24-hour news, by photo-ops and media broadcasts in all directions. In some measure, all news is “fake” in that representations have co-opted what is represented. The true and the false, the representation and represented interchange. Whatever is said or shown becomes true in the saying and showing. A Time, April 3, 2017, magazine cover asked: Is The Truth Dead? Clearly, irony is very much alive. The logic of technology is evident in the very notion of the “news.”
The truth is never in the moment but is always of the next moment. Ted Turner, founder of CNN, originally thought a 24-hour news program would be too boring; he underestimated the paucity of an ever empty and never satisfied audience. The camera furthered this emptiness as an endless repetition of nothing; the photograph is an appearance and not the truth some hope it to be. But a photo may become a true appearance with the posing of questions that seek the absences that give meaning, like horizons, to a present.
I rarely made photographs of people in streets. Instead, my images were dominated by landscapes formed out of a lush emptiness by an horizon, which is not in space but which made space and meaning possible. Roads reminded me of the life that extends to where it is not, toward unanswered questions, and thus I photographed them. Who would continue to live if life at the moment was all that life could offer? And what would seeking be if it continued what was merely in the past?
Rick Houchin and I discussed the importance of emptiness both aesthetically and culturally, particularly as it was manifest in small and often unincorporated towns. We decided to search for meaning in unchartered places, for the presence of absence. To what does the hook on the wall connect? Are there words beneath the wood’s exterior? Words are marks in which meaning extends beyond materiality, as horizons are apt to do. We see a window of unbroken glass revealing broken steel and bricks. What is the nature of fragility and its relation to strength?
Technology abhors emptiness and unfilled horizons and unanswered questions, but the camera, held properly, can find meaning in what might seem emptiness and fulfillment in what some might take as failure and not as endurance. If meaning does not exceed the grasp, what else is meaning for?”
special thanks
Special thanks to volunteers Laura Clark, Vic Bentley and Vicki Schmit for their assistance in the gallery. Also thank you to the West Nebraska Arts Center Board for bringing food to the reception.
about WNAC
The West Nebraska Arts Center is a 501c3 cultural non-profit organization committed to education, awareness, and excellence in the arts, serving the North Platte Valley Region. WNAC is located at the corner of 1st Avenue and 18th Street in Scottsbluff, NE. Visit the gallery free of charge Tuesday through Friday 10 to 5, Saturdays from 1 to 5. You can also visit our website for upcoming attractions at www.thewnac.com. Also, find us on Facebook and Instagram.
show your support
WNAC is supported by local businesses and individuals who value having the Arts Center in our community. Do you support WNAC with an annual membership gift? If not, please consider joining our efforts. Members of West Nebraska Arts Center receive first notification of our events. Members also receive gallery postcards, a monthly newsletter, discounts gallery and gift shop purchases as well as classes, workshops, fundraiser tickets, and other special events. You will also receive the WNAC newsletter and invitations to special events. Activate or renew your membership online at www.thewnac.com, by visiting the Arts Center office, or call 308-632-2226.
