Laura Glabman « Muybridge's Horse

Laura Glabman

I first found out about the work of Laura Glabman through her series The Spring After the Storm, in which she documents Hurricane Sandy’s stark effects on the domestic landscapes in her Long Island neighborhood. On a recent visit to her portfolio website, I discovered Glabman’s Neighborhood Investigations, images depicting the strange presence of animals in suburban America. I have probably mentioned before that these are my favorite types of photographs–the ones you can take on an afternoon wandering around a city or a neighborhood. You can encounter things that surprise you, things weird and humorous, kooky and disturbing. (Think Daniel George, Bernard Mindich, Paul Sisson.) They’re photos I always loved taking, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at them.

From the artist’s statement: The day I took the image of the giraffe on the front lawn of this suburban home, a car drove by and someone yelled out, “What is this, the Bronx Zoo?” I never met the people who lived there so I don’t know why they had a giraffe on their front lawn but I do know I would not pass up the opportunity to photograph one. I have been documenting my neighborhood for the last eight years and I have come across quite a lot of animal themed items and have been photographing them and collecting them as if they were prizes to be won at a fair. When my family and I first moved to Long Island over 50 years ago my neighborhood actually did not even exist. Everything was built from the ground up, right before our eyes. Now I am watching a lot of what was built disappear including the mom and pop stores and the old model homes. I may be a bit sentimental and as a friend of mine describes it, “Glabman lovingly embraces every shrub, ornament, home or commercial decoration she captured from neighboring properties: as though she had personally set them out for passersby to appreciate and enjoy.”