Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol

LACMA presents Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol, the North American premiere of Sharon Lockhart’s latest body of work. In this exhibition, co-organized by LACMA and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Lockhart considers the legacy of Noa Eshkol, the noted Israeli dance composer, theorist, and textile artist who created an innovative notation system capable of describing virtually every perceptible movement of the body. Conceived as a two-person exhibition, Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol presents Eshkol’s largely unknown achievements through a new five-channel film installation, a series of photographs, and a selection of Eshkol’s carpets, scores, and archival drawings. This exhibition opened at the Israel Museum in December 2011 and will travel after its presentation at LACMA to the Jewish Museum in New York.

"We feel privileged to have this opportunity to present a unique project bringing together the visions of two notable artists, each working in different aspects of contemporary creativity," says Stephanie Barron, senior curator of modern art and exhibition co-curator.

Britt Salvesen, exhibition co-curator and curator of photography, adds, "Through film and photography, Lockhart evokes and interprets Eshkol's brilliant practice, ultimately celebrating the collaborative spirit of cross-cultural artistic relationships."

About the Artists
Through her work with photography and film, Los Angeles–based artist Sharon Lockhart (b. 1964) captures intimate quotidian moments from a wide range of communities. Lockhart’s in-depth exploration of her subjects allows her to discern patterns and rhythms that she distills through her art. It was during a research trip to Israel in 2008 that she first encountered the work of Israeli artist Noa Eshkol (1924-2007). In the 1950s, together with architect Avraham Wachman, Eshkol developed a wholly original movement notation system known as Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation (EWMN), which uses symbols and numbers to express the spatial relationships between the parts of the body, both in stasis and in motion. Eshkol devoted her life to perfecting the system, which has been applied in dance as well as in many scientific fields. Because she preferred to work in isolation, Eshkol’s work in modern dance is little known outside of Israel. In an effort to share this pivotal work with a larger audience, Lockhart captured Eshkol’s aging students and a new generation of dancers performing the artist’s original choreography.

Image credits:

Sharon Lockhart, A Film Still from Five Dances and Nine Wall Carpets by Noa Eshkol, 2011, Courtesty of the artist; Blue & Poe, Los Angeles; Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; and neugerriemschneider, Berlin © Sharon Lockhart, 2012 

Sharon Lockhart, A Film Still from Five Dances and Nine Wall Carpets by Noa Eshkol, 2011, Courtesty of the artist; Blue & Poe, Los Angeles; Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; and neugerriemschneider, Berlin © Sharon Lockhart, 2012 

Noa Eshkol, Celebrating Circle (Wedding), 1980s, Noa Eshkol Foundation for Movement Notation, Holon, Israel. 

Noa Eshkol, Umbrella Flower, 1970s, Noa Eshkol Foundation for Movement Notation, Holon, Israel.