Gillian Laub

Gillian Laub is an artist who uses the camera to investigate how society’s biggest questions are often writ large in our most intimate relationships. Laub has spent the past two decades exploring political conflicts, complex family and community relationships, and challenging assumptions about cultural identity. Laub’s first monograph, Testimony (Aperture), began as a response to the second intifada in the Middle East. This work is comprised of portraits and testimonies from Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Lebanese, and Palestinians all directly and indirectly affected by the conflict. Laub spent over a decade examining issues of racism in the American South. This work became Laub’s first feature length, directed and produced, documentary film, Southern Rites that premiered on HBO. John Legend executive produced and wrote an original score for the film. Her monograph, Southern Rites (Damiani, 2015) and traveling exhibition by the same title came out in conjunction with the film and are currently being used for an educational outreach campaign, in schools and institutions across the country (Currently being shown at George Eastman Museum). In her newest monograph Family Matters (Aperture), spanning over twenty years, Laub’s own family becomes a microcosm of a fractured America when the artist and her parents find themselves on opposing sides of some of the most contentious issues in recent US history. An exhibition of Family Matters opened at the International Center of Photography in conjunction with the publication. In her most recent project, Live2Tell, Laub photographed, filmed, and interviewed over two hundred Holocaust Survivors.