New York-based photographer Gillian Laub graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in comparative literature. Laub is well-known for her documentary portraits of families, friends and strangers, which the artist describes as a “search for a deeper understanding of family and tribe in all its forms.” Her exhibition Common Ground (Israelis and Palestinians) placed Palestinian and Israeli children, families, and even soldiers next to each other, leaving the viewer to ponder which person belongs to which culture. An American Life intimately documents Laub’s own family, portraying intimate moments in various members of her extended family from Florida to New York City, as well as the Westchester suburbs.
Laub’s Dateline Israel was shown at the Jewish Museum in New York City in 2007. That same year her monograph Testimony, which includes fifty portraits of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, displaced Lebanese families, and Palestinians, was published by Aperture, which also presented her with an Emerging Artist’s Award. “The bravery of the photos in this series is that they show what even funerals do not show: the true horror of war and terrorism,” David Rieff wrote in the New York Times: “To consider these images is to be reminded not just of human cruelty and human stupidity but also of human tenacity.”
Laub’s work is contained in the collection of many museums, including the International Center of Photography, New York, NY, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, TX, the Terrana Collection, Boston, MA, and the Jewish Museum, New York, NY, among others. She regularly photographs for Time and the New York Times Magazine, among many other publications.
