Neil Folberg

Neil Folberg follow Israeli, born 1950

Lives in Jerusalem, Israel

Projects/Portfolios

Travels with Van Gogh & the Impressionists

Introduction

These photographs were made in France during the years 2001-2003. They comprise a look at the places where the French Impressionists lived and worked, but they are also a contemporary photographic treatment of the themes that interested them, in a style inspired by each of the individual artists. I found it interesting to consider that the medium of photography was coming into its own just as the Impressionists were making their mark on the world. In France, Nadar, Gustave Le Gray, Hippolyte Bayard, and Édouard-Denis Baldus were some of the early proponents of the new medium. Le Gray in particular had a visual sensibility that was related to that of the Impressionists; interestingly, he started out as a painter and exhibited work at the Paris Salons of 1848 and 1853, before turning his attention to photography. Could such photographic visions have inspired some of the Impressionist artists?

The idea of capturing transient phenomena certainly fascinated these painters—and this capability was of course the great promise of photography. We see this interest very clearly in Monet’s work: think, for example, of his 1873 painting Impression, Sunrise, the piece that gave the Impressionist movement its name. But the new visual approach was not confined to obviously poetic effects of winter, twilight, and grand landscape; it extended in both painting and photography to everyday life on the streets, in the cafés and guinguettes, in the train stations and countryside. It was, in fact, a sociological change as well as an aesthetic one.

Still, despite its inspiring potential, photography in the 1880s was a cumbersome process: emulsions and prints were handmade, cameras were large and difficult to handle, demanding skilled operators willing to suffer a fair amount of discomfort to make images. Emulsions were slow and required long exposures of static subjects, denying the instantaneous vision of contemporary life that the medium would later offer. So although some of Impressionist painters might have been conceptually attracted to the medium, they would likely have found it lacking in spontaneity (and of course color, which was a prime interest of these artists). Degas experimented with the medium for a couple of years—with very interesting and beautiful results—but eventually lost interest in it . . . perhaps because of its technical awkwardness.

If the Impressionist painters were resurrected today, they would naturally be turning their attentions to modes, subjects, and media far different from those they utilized in the mid- and late nineteenth century. For this series of images, I was of course working in the world of contemporary France, with elements of the Impressionist aesthetic in my mind, but advanced photographic tools in my hands. I have tried to channel the Impressionists’ approaches through my own, and to make photographs that reflect their individual interests and perspectives.

Celestial Nights

Introduction

Serpent's Chronicle

Introduction

Serpent's Chronicle by Neil Folberg

Serpent's Chronicle constitutes the visual and textual record of what the Serpent observed in the Garden of Eden, in a series of staged photographs using modern dancers set in a wild Mediterranean valley. The story has been rewritten based on an ancient oral tradition, but in a contemporary mode. Identities are universal: Everyman and Everywoman in their mutual interactions. The moment is both archetypal and present.

The work raises questions inherent in the story that few consider. How could there be a state of paradise with only one human inhabitant? And how could conflict be avoided if there were two? Did they knowingly decide together to plot their course to independence and understanding, or were they set up in an impossible situation that was not meant to last? The story of Eden is a prototype of every human relationship and endeavor.

Why are we still drawn to this vision of an Eden that never was perfect? Eden was a trap, a laboratory for learning to deal with complexity and failure. So this fable is now ours. Since we will never cease to fail, we will never cease our search for completion. I chose as my narrator the Serpent, the very founder of deceit, and here is his story, in words and images.

ARTnews writes: “These lush depictions use subtle anachronism, metaphor and theatricality to memorable effect.”

Available from Abbeville Press in hardbound, iPad iBook and a Special Edition Portfolio

Excerpt from the text of Serpent's Chronicle by Neil Folberg:

"Adam believes that Eve is his alone, but I can see that her gaze is not only for him. I hang unseen among the tree's branches, a branch laden with fruit. Ripe figs with the fragrance of sunlight cast a spell. Her hair becomes tangled in the branches and a fig falls loose before her. Fig leaves, with fingers like hands, caress her face and cast their shadow on her cheeks. If she ate the fruit what would she see? She would see the flow of life unfolding, she would offer a prayer for her descendants. I who know, think them foolish for abstaining from such sweetness. The warm fragrance of ripeness seduces her. She licks the sticky syrup from her fingers and as she eats, her eyes gaze upon a new world rich with possibility and certain despair, where death conquers birth and birth cycles in endless pain. Eden is a trap, a trick."

Link to interview with Neil Folberg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdGHBmJtxY

Excerpt from iBook:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c2d2vTB3Gw