A Thousand Words

ArtForum, Feb, 2000 by Yilmaz Dziewior

As simple as it is seductive, the final product--Teatro Amazonas, 1999-barely indicates the extent of Lockhart's effort. The LA-based artist exhaustively researched the Brazilian metropolis of Manaus, interviewing and selecting every individual she would eventually include in the audience. The goal: to fill the turn-of-the-century opera house where the film was shot with a representative cross section of the city's one-million-plus population. Lockhart's interest in ethnographic methodology and its critique, hinted at in her 1997 film Goshogaoka, which tracked a team of Japanese high-school girls on the basketball court, emerges full-blown in Teatro Amazonas.

I talked with Lockhart about her film the morning after its premiere in Rotterdam, where the first comprehensive survey of her work is on view at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (the exhibition will travel to the Kunsthalle Zurich and the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg). After a long opening night with many drinks and much discussion, we met for brunch in the hotel restaurant across from the museum.