Pointing to the large panes that line the street-side wall of her Chelsea home and studio, the photographer Gail Albert Halaban explains the provenance of her celebrated “Out My Window” series. “When my daughter was little, I used to feed her late at night while looking out, and on her first birthday, the shop across the street sent me balloons and flowers, but I’d never met them. They’d seen us the entire year and they noticed that people were over and having cake, so it must be a birthday party. It totally inspired the project.”
Albert Halaban started thinking about the types of relationships that happen through the glass — especially those that go unacknowledged. She began approaching Manhattanites willing to meet their neighbors and set up shoots; the photographer and neighbors would keep in contact during the day and recreate the usual scenes. “I don’t wait for the ‘right’ moment,” she notes, though she does stand by for the right lighting. In November 2012, at the invitation of the editors at M, Le Monde’s magazine, she brought her camera (and her chutzpah) to Paris. Tonight, 10 of the resulting images, printed in large format, will go on display at the Edwynn Houk Gallery.
T recently peered into the loft that Albert Halaban shares with her husband, the television director and producer Boaz Halaban, and their children: Zoe, almost 11, and Jonah, 6. The building was constructed in 1922 for garment manufacturing and from 1979 to 1989, the Albert Halabans’ space served as a dance studio. “We bought it the weekend that Zoe was born from a couple that was related to Chuck Close, so there were 20-by-24 family portraits by Chuck Close in the apartment, and I fell in love,” she says. “I thought, pictures would look great here.” Now, 20-by-24s of Zoe and other prints adorn the home, as well as Albert Halaban’s childhood furnishings and Jonah’s Legos.