‘TURNING the/into TOOLS’ on display through September at Springfield City Hall
SPRINGFIELD — With no shortage of topics to address through art, Springfield artist Ralf Huber’s artwork can be seen displayed throughout the Willamette Valley, and most recently, this month at Springfield City Hall.
Now through Sept. 27, the Springfield City Hall Gallery has “TURNING the/into TOOLS” on display – an exhibit of mixed media artwork that explores societal issues, assemblages featuring old photographs of children combined with industrial elements.
The exhibit reception is set to take place during the Second Friday Art Walk on Sept. 13. The reception will be held at the exhibit located across the hallway from the Springfield Library, and will feature Dakota Harris on guitar.
TURNING the/into TOOLS exhibit artist Ralf Huber creates mixed media assemblages about social justice and environmental issues.
The title of the show is a bit of a word play,” Huber said. “The title addresses child labor, or industrial labor in general: here are the tools, the machines. There are the ones turning those tools, operating them, getting them in motion, all in a monotonous and ever-repeating way that numbs brain and soul – effectively turning those tool operators into mechanical components, into tools.”
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Huber spent 25 years designing commemorative coins before turning his attention to art. He got his start on his own projects after finding himself with leftover mismade keys from a customer’s project. The customer wanted replicas of keys to Guantanamo Bay as tokens of his military service during a year at that location. Rather than throw away these pieces, Huber created an assemblage in the form of a triptych – three pieces of art that are to be displayed together – entitled, “Liberation.”
Panel 1 from Ralf Huber’s “Liberation”
“The keys you see on this triptych are small size replicas of an actual key to a prison cell lock at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” Huber said of the piece. “These replicas are handed to the military men and women serving in different functions at Guantanamo Bay to commemorate their duty time on the island.”
Huber is introspective and compassionate toward those awarded these tokens.
“These military men and women and their line of duty should not be put in context with political decisions or agendas,” he said “Their work is exposing them directly to the right and wrong of imprisonment, to freedom and to lack thereof. Which sparked the inspiration to create this triptych.”
The triptych that contains key replicas from Guantanamo Bay will be on display at New Zone in November.
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Huber is no stranger to social issues. Ralf Huber moved to the United States in 2003 and Eugene in 2010.
He was born in Switzerland and grew up in Germany. In 1978 and 1979, he won two second place awards in Germany’s Federal President’s Competition of Historic Studies for a book he wrote. The topics explored in his book related to working conditions in a textile mill in his hometown from 1858 to World War I.
Ralf Huber
“These studies and what I found, child labor issues in particular, captured me to an extent I cannot describe – but that I can finally talk about via art,” Huber said.
Art has given Huber an outlet to continue to explore child-labor issues. One example of this is “Fake News,” one of his favorite pieces. It is purposefully arranged upside down to represent that fake news is the truth that is upside down.
“Fake News” by Ralf Huber
“Those children without shoes, in the cold, selling newspapers early in the morning and at night, weren’t their lives put upside down?,” he said.
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Huber is active in the local art scene. He started with this triptych at New Zone in 2020, moving on to shows at Bring Recycling, the Emerald Art Center, the Eugene Airport, the Emerald Art Center and the Eugene Windermere, among other places. Huber’s first juried show was in 2021. This was the same year he became a member of EAC.
“This experience of creating art and hearing and seeing the viewers’ reactions to it and their engagement with it was highly rewarding,” Huber said.
At one of Huber’s art shows last year, two ladies were staring at this piece for over a minute, and they were so moved they started crying.
“This is why I create art. Not in it for the money. I like to evoke emotions and start thinking processes,” Huber said.
Sarina Dorie is the arts writer for The Chronicle.
Ralf Huber’s “Inside”
