Neil Folberg
Israeli, 1950-

Comet, Hale Bopp, 1997
gelatin silver print, ed. 6/49
15 5/8 x 11 7/8 in.

SBMA, Gift of Arthur Steinman
2002.70.13





COMMENTS

About this work: In Celestial Nights, photographer Neil Folberg skillfully captures a spectacular world of nocturnal landscapes where the horizon isn’t always definitive. The earth and heavens are mingled in this collection of arresting photographs, which to Folberg represent a blurred division between present and eternity, substance and spirit, and knowledge and imagination. As Folberg writes, “No one can draw that line with precision, for we exist in all of these worlds at once.”

Celestial Nights marks Folberg's return to black-and-white photography. The volume presents a set of photographs that capture not only the skies but also their earthly foreground, creating a striking juxtaposition of the vast arid wilderness with the infinite and starry heavens. These stunning nighttime scenes feature the same historically and religiously resonant region of the Middle East that Folberg captured in daytime color in his first book, Abbeville’s In a Desert Land.

The landscapes in Celestial Nights carry an aura that is both earthly and divine. Folberg’s photographs describe places where the spiritual is at once near, imprinted in the arid landscapes, and far away, in the dark, starlit recesses of space.

- Vision Gallery, Neil Folberg, Celestial Nights, n.d.
http://www.visiongallery.com/index.php?tPath=1_3_184_218_317