Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break

Published by Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum 2010
American artist Sharon Lockhart is well known for her formally strict and conceptually precise films and photographs. Lunch Break, her newest solo exhibition, is the product of more than a year spent at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine, observing and engaging with shipbuilders during breaks from their daily routines. The resultant two film installations and three series of photographs present images that are devoid of sentiment yet deeply humane, intimate in their focus on everyday situations while reflective of broader global conditions through their historically grounded approach. To accompany the exhibition, this catalog from the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum includes over one hundred images in full color, essays by exhibition curator Sabine Eckmann and art historian Matthias Michalka, and an interview with Lockhart conducted by filmmaker James Benning.

Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break II

Published by Vereinigung Bildender KünstlerInnen Wiener 2011
This book evolved from an archive of images collected by artist Sharon Lockhart while researching her project Lunch Break—a series of films and photographs she produced from a long-term collaboration with the workers of Bath Iron Works in Maine, whom she portrayed as they took their lunch break, a classic workday ritual. A companion volume to that project, this publication offers a stunning array of images drawn from a variety of sources, including WPA documentary photographs, Old Master oil paintings, contemporary art, and photographs by Lockhart herself. The result is a rich visual narrative that explores the pursuit of leisure in the context of work.

Sharon Lockhart LUNCH BREAK lll

Published by Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum 2013

Edited by Jane Neidhardt with contributions by Sabine Eckmann, Elizabeth Finch, Neus Miro, Katy Siegel

Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break III is the third volume in a series examining the work of acclaimed video artist and photographer Sharon Lockhart. Known for collaborating with remote or marginal communities such as blue collar workers of the twenty-first century, as she did in Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break I, the artist also blurs the line between photography, video art, and documentary. The results are simultaneously staged and artificial, yet at the same time intimate and deeply human. Her newest museum installations also incorporate artworks and utilitarian objects made by others, expanding upon earlier forms of institutional critique. This book includes essays by curators and scholars who provide an international perspective on the artist’s evolving series. Stunningly illustrated, Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break III serves as a reminder of the power and beauty of Lockhart’s art.