FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 2026
The Lilley Museum of Art presents Home Truth: Image-Making in Absence,
a new solo exhibition from Steven Seidenberg on the afterlives of lived spaces
Untitled (The Opening of the Field), The Architecture of Silence
Reno, NV — The John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art presents Home Truth: Image-Making in Absence, a new solo exhibition from lens-based artist and writer Steven Seidenberg, on view January 27 – May 23, 2026. Spanning photography of abandoned agricultural landscapes in southern Italy, migrant encampments in Rome, and vacant houses and lots in Japan, the exhibition explores what remains when human presence recedes and what vestigial spaces reveal about history, migration, and belonging.
Across three photographic bodies of work, Seidenberg examines environments shaped by economic upheaval, displacement, and demographic change. In images made in Puglia, the artist documents remnants of Italy’s failed post-war land reform movement, where once-promised agrarian futures dissolved into abandonment. In Rome, Seidenberg turns his attention to a migrant tent city, tracing the provisional architectures of survival within an urban center. In Kanazawa, Japan, his photographs of akiya (vacant houses) and akichi (vacant lots) reflect the social and material consequences of population decline and aging communities.
Rather than approaching these sites as documentary subjects alone, Seidenberg renders them through meticulously composed, painterly photographs that emphasize material texture, spatial rhythm, and light. Houses, tents, outbuildings, and empty lots appear not as inert structures, but as quiet witnesses bearing the imprints of lives once lived and movements once in motion. Together, the works in Home Truth propose absence itself as a form of presence, inviting viewers to consider how environments retain memory long after their inhabitants have departed.
Home Truth: Image-Making in Absence is co-curated by Stephanie Gibson, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Lilley Museum of Art, and Carolyn L. White. The exhibition is presented as part of the museum’s Spring 2026 program.
An opening reception celebrating the exhibition will take place on Thursday, February 19, 2026, from 5:30–7:30 p.m. at the Lilley Museum of Art. Parking is free at the Brian J. Whalen Parking Complex.
Untitled, Kanazawa Vacancy
About Steven Seidenberg
Photographer and writer Steven Seidenberg’s collections of photographs include The Architecture of Silence (Contrasto, 2023) and Pipevalve: Berlin (Lodima Press, 2017), and he has had solo exhibitions of his work in Japan, Italy, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. He is the author of numerous collections of lyric, philosophical prose and poetry, including Coda (Omnidawn, 2025), Anon (Omnidawn, 2022), plain sight (Roof Books, 2020), and Situ (Black Sun Lit, 2018). His books have appeared in Swedish, Italian, and Portuguese translation.
Website: www.stevenseidenberg.com
Instagram: @steven.seidenberg
About The John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art
The John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art uses the power of art to enhance the cultural life of its diverse communities, positioning art as a vital tool for creativity, connection, and learning. The museum envisions a community with art at its center and strives to be a remarkable and invaluable space on campus, a leader in the museum field, and an excellent cultural institution serving students and the broader public at the University of Nevada, Reno, and beyond.
Founded in 1971 and renamed in 2019, the Lilley Museum of Art houses a permanent collection of approximately 3,000 works. Through exhibitions, public programs, and educational initiatives, the museum advances the University’s educational mission by fostering dialogue, experimentation, and critical inquiry through the visual arts.
Website: https://www.unr.edu/lilley
Instagram: @thelilleymuseum
Address: 1664 N Virginia St MS 0224, Reno, NV 89557