Sharon Lockhart
Sharon Lockhart
Just two images from Sharon Lockhart's 2009 video Podworka, vignettes of children at play in the urban landscape of Lodz, Poland, and her 2003 film No, a single 34-minute shot of two farmers in rural Japan spreading hay over a field. I watched both at SFMOMA last week while I was there saying goodbye to Lockhart's Lunch Break installation before it closed, and the moment No appeared on screen I suffered a severe shock of recognition: I had seen it at the Camden Arts Centre in London in 2005 as part of an amazing group show curated by Tacita Dean, An Aside. Dean had described Lockhart's film as "an autumn elegy about time, perspective and labour in a landscape that is changing colour." I was just as hypnotized seeing it now as I had been by it in London, and the work of the farmer couple was a beautiful contrast to the play of the children in Podworka too.
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