Book
Purchase
Gail Rebhan, About Time with running commentaries by Sally Stein, Mack Books, 2023
Reviews and Articles
Gail Rebhan’s Frame Narratives, British Journal of Photography, February 2, 2023 by Adam Heardman
About Time, Conscientious Photography Magazine, February 13, 2023 by Jörg Colberg
MACK Books: Gail Rebhan: About Time, The Eye of Photography, February 27, 2023 by Sean Sheehan
Gail Rebhan – About Time, James Cockroft’s photography blog February 27, 2023 by James Cockroft
Gail Rebhan | The Hyperconcious Cocooning of Time, Flaunt Magazine, Issue 185, 2023, by Nate Rynaski
Frieze Editor’s Picks: International Women’s Day Edition, Frieze, March 8, 2023, by Angel Lambo
Gail Rebhan – About Time, PhotoBook Journal, December 13, 2023 by Steve Harp
Retrospective Exhibtion
Gail Rebhan, About Time curated by Sally Stein
California Museum of Photography, UCR Arts, Riverside, CA
March 22, 2025 to August 17, 2025
Gail Rebhan, About Time curated by Sally Stein
American University Museum, Washington, DC
February 4 – May 21, 2023
For better or worse, nothing stays still. D.C. artist Gail Rebhan (b. 1953) knows that well, and this first museum retrospective explores the many ways over four decades she reconfigures the time-slicing medium of photography. She works with and against photography’s norms so we might confront cycles of change and repetition as primary vectors of life.
To foreground the temporal, Rebhan makes strong use of discrete series and also text—sometimes as wry captions, sometimes as embedded excerpts from first-person interviews and historical records. She began by focusing on dynamics inside the home, starting with her own first-generation Jewish American family. The same interest in excavating the hidden remnants of the past led her to explore the centuries of development (not always progressive) in diverse areas of the nation’s capital.
With her constant use of the camera to emphasize pressing issues in the world around her, Rebhan commemorates her passages from young adult to mother of two sons, then mutli-year caregiver of a once-dynamic immigrant father as he declines in old age, to her forthrightly activist present.
Lately, she renews the ethos of social engagement with which she was raised by harnessing her photographic skills to support a largely African American community group working to salvage a historic Black cemetery. In this same recent period, Rebhan, facing the start of her seventh decade, defies our youth-obsessed values with new studies of her aging body as a retort to the many slurs deriding the presence and commanding vision of mature women.
Sally Stein, Guest Curator
Curator and art historian Sally Stein shares her insights on Gail Rebhan, About Time, a career-spanning retrospective of Gail Rebhan at the California Museum of Photography. (7:37 minutes)
Gail Rebhan explores the many ways she works with and against photography’s norms compelling us to confront change and repetition as the primary cycles of life. (6:11 minutes)
Reviews and Articles
Gail Rebhan, About Time, Visual Art Source newsletter, June 14, 2025 by Liz Goldner and on Liz Goldner’s Substack, June 16, 2025
Gail Rebhan Retrospective Travels to California Museum of Photography, 24700 News from California Institute of the Arts, March 20, 2025 by Taya Zoormandan
American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Presents Gail Rebhan: About Time, East City Art, January 30, 2023, by Editorial Team
About Time: American University Presents Gail Rebhan Retrospective, 24700 News from California Institute of the Arts, February 8, 2023 by Taya Zoormandan
Aida Rodriguez, Mother Tongue, and More Best Bets for Feb. 16–22, Washington City Paper, February 16, 2023 by Louis Jacobson
Panel discussions complement the exhibition at the California Museum of Photography
This program will bring together two historic Black communities—Valley Truck Farms in San Bernardino, CA, and the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition in Bethesda, MD—both displaced by development and industry. Community members and artists from these communities will engage in a conversation about their collaborative efforts to unearth, remember, and honor these significant Black spaces.
About BACC: The Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition seeks to stop the desecration of Moses Macedonia Cemetery, preserve the rich history of this once thriving African community, and consecrate Moses Macedonia Cemetery with a memorial and museum on River Road in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the President of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition.
Moses Cemetery is located near Gail Rebhan’s Washington, DC neighborhood. The BACC’s mission resonates with Rebhan whose own Jewish ancestors’ burial grounds were disturbed and plundered during and after the Second World War in Europe. As a lifelong activist, Rebhan supports BACC’s efforts through her photography.
About Valley Truck Farms: Valley Truck Farms, a Black community that thrived in San Bernardino, CA in the 1920s to the 1970s and 1980s was destroyed by city and county zoning decisions and the expansion of a warehouse economy. One of the only places remaining is St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church which was founded in 1929 and is still active today.
In collaboration with Dr. Jen Tilton and other community archivists through A People’s History of the I.E., Tamara Cedré worked on Live from the Frontline; a participatory public memory project inviting artists into the archives and the landscapes of logistics to create site-specific works that explore the roots of environmental racism. In the Valley Truck Farms area of San Bernardino, Cedré photographed St. Mark’s Baptist church, a church that has been in existence for 94 years and where Percy Harper has been pastor for 37 years. Once a fertile, picturesque Black farming community, the church is now surrounded by warehouse development and a dwindling congregation that reflects the lack of residences in the area.
Join us for a compelling panel discussion on the intersections of immigration, assimilation, and activism in the work of artist Gail Rebhan. Her photography-based collage works explore the cultural and linguistic divisions between generations—those who came to the U.S. seeking refuge and their American-born children navigating dual identities. Rebhan’s work is deeply informed by her family’s history, particularly her father Herman’s legacy as a labor organizer and human rights advocate.
The artist will be joined by Michael Alexander, Professor and Maimonides Endowed Chair, Religious Studies, UCR, and photographer Christina Fernandez, whose work also engages themes of immigration. Moderated by scholar and curator Sally Stein. Watch the video recording
This panel discussion explores themes of caregiving, aging, and intergenerational responsibility in the photographic work of Gail Rebhan. Through her deeply personal yet universally resonant images, Rebhan documents the complexities of care—both for growing children and aging parents—while navigating her own career and artistic practice. Her work challenges idealized depictions of aging and caregiving, offering an unsentimental, layered perspective on these lived experiences.
The artist will be joined in discussion by a distinguished panel: Rachel Wu, Associate Professor, Psychology, UCR, whose research examines learning across the lifespan; Kimberly Hiroto, Associate Professor of Medicine (affiliated), Stanford University, who specializes in clinical psychology and palliative care; and Jenni Sorkin, Professor and Department Chair, History of Art and Architecture, UC Santa Barbara, whose work explores intersections of gender, material culture, and contemporary art. Moderated by scholar and curator Sally Stein, this conversation will delve into how Rebhan’s work confronts the realities of caregiving and aging while shedding light on the broader social and psychological dimensions of these experiences. Watch the video recording
Panel discussions complemented the exhibition at American University
- The Deeply Social Art of Gail Rebhan / February 5, 2023, with Jack Rasmussen, Director of the American University Museum / Steve Nelson, Dean of the National Gallery of Art’s Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts / Sally Stein, Curator and Professor Emerita, Art History, University of California-Irvine / Gail Rebhan, artist. Watch the video recording.
- First-Generation American Visions Bridging Old and New Worlds / March 4, 2023 with Monica Jahan Bose, Bangladeshi American artist and climate activist / Khánh H. Lê, Vietnamese American artist working in painting, drawing, printmaking and video / Amita Sarin, Producer of the documentary A Sacred Piece of Home / Gail Rebhan, artist with retrospective About Time / Moderated by Sally Stein, Curator and Professor Emerita, Art History, University of California-Irvine. Watch the video recording.
- The Draw (& Drawbacks) of Family Connections for Women Artists & Their Art / March 25, 2023 with Jennie Klein Professor of Art History, Ohio University / Leena Jayaswal, Professor and Director of Photography, American University /Andrea Liss Professor Emerita Contemporary Art Historian and Cultural Theorist, California State University-San Marcos / Gail Rebhan artist with retrospective About Time/ Moderated by Sally Stein, Curator and Professor Emerita, Art History, University of California-Irvine. Watch the video recording.
- Greater DC and the depiction of urban flux / April 29, 2023 with Marsha Coleman Adebayo, President of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition / Veronica Melendez, visual artist and a founder of diasporic arts publication, La Horchata / Sarah Jane Shoenfeld, Co-Founder of Mapping Segregation in Washington and Principal Prologue DC / Gail Rebhan, artist with retrospective About Time / Moderated by Sally Stein, Curator and Professor Emerita, Art History, University of California-Irvine. Watch the video recording
All images © 1972 – present Gail Rebhan