'Going Back: Midwestern Farm Places' exhibit at Great Plains Art Museum

Released on 02/20/2008, at 2:00 AM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln

WHERE: Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q Street, Hewit Place

Lincoln, Neb., February 20th, 2008 —
Black-and-white JPEG image of a print in
Black-and-white JPEG image of a print in "Going Back." The image is "Old Moeller Place, No. 10," 2004, gelatin silver print.

The Great Plains Art Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will present "Going Back: Midwestern Farm Places," an exhibition of gelatin silver prints and color prints by San Francisco photographer Nancy Warner, March 12 through April 27.

Warner grew up in Omaha and spent much of her youth on the farms of aunts and uncles near West Point. When revisiting the family homestead in 2001, long-unused parts of the house, now decaying, struck her as rich with photographic possibilities. This began a long-term photographic study of vacant and abandoned farm buildings in Nebraska and Iowa.

"I've been attracted again and again to human arrangements that have been left to the forces of nature. I've found such subjects in San Francisco Chinatown and in abundance on these farm places," Warner said. "As this project has developed, the imagery has expanded to include doors, windows, personal objects, furniture, disintegrating wallpaper and interior walls, interior spaces, exterior walls, farm buildings and nearby cemeteries. Relatives and friends have helped me discover other places in eastern Nebraska and across the river in Iowa, and I keep adding new images every year."

The exhibition runs in conjunction with the Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium, "Death, Murder and Mayhem: Stories of Violence and Healing on the Plains," April 16-19, which includes Warner as a presenter. "These images are rich with evidence of past lives exhibited by beautiful decay," said Amber Mohr, curator of the Great Plains Art Museum. "Whether physical death or some other passing led to their abandonment, each site Warner selects is given a worthy tribute."

A First Friday reception for the exhibit is 5-7 p.m. April 4.

The Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St., Hewit Place, is open to the public 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1:30-5 p.m. Sundays (closed Mondays, holiday weekends and between exhibitions). There is no admission charge. For more information, telephone (402) 472-6220, e-mail gpac2@unl.edu or visit www.unl.edu/plains/gallery/gallery.shtml.

CONTACT: Amber Mohr, Curator, Great Plains Art Museum, (402) 472-0599

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