Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 7

Stefanie Schneider
Max in front of Motel (29 Palms, CA) - diptych, analog, mounted

1999

About the Item

Max in front of Motel (29 Palms, CA) - diptych Edition of 10, 67x60 each, 67x125cm installed with white 'Polaroid' frame. 2 analog C-Prints, based on 2 Polaroids. Mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection. Signed on back with Certificate. Artist Inventory 294. The works of Stefanie Schneider evoke Ed Ruscha's obsession with the American experience, the richness of Georgia O'Keefe's deserts and the loneliness of Edward Hopper's haunting paintings. So how exactly did this German photographer become one of the most important artists of the American narrative of the 20th and 21st century? Stefanie Schneider was born and raised in Germany but lives and works in Southern California. Exploring the American dream and capturing it with Polaroid instant film. Situated on the verge of an elusive super-reality, her photographic sequences provide the ambience for loosely woven story lines and a cast of phantasmic characters that reflect a part of the narrators life told from her perspective. Often about love, communication. sexuality and relationships. Schneider works with the chemical mutations of expired Polaroid film stock. Chemical explosions of color spreading across the surfaces undermine the photograph's commitment to reality and induce her characters into trance-like dreamscapes. Like flickering sequences of old road movies Schneider's images seem to evaporate before conclusions can be made - their ephemeral reality manifesting in subtle gestures and mysterious motives. Schneider's images refuse to succumb to reality, they keep alive the confusions of dream, desire, fact, and fiction yet they also explore the relationship with the medium and the viewer. The wabi-sabi 'ness' of Schneider's work can not be denied or ignored. It's a step of acceptance of 'flaws', gaps and distortions. Missing pieces of the puzzle. The artist flaunts, uses and exposes the unknown using expired Polaroid instant film intentionally. Presents it. What you do with that is up to you. That missing part of the picture is for you to include yourself, you fill it in with yourself. That might be critical that it's there at all, missing and missing the entire point all together or by filling in the unknown with their own imagination. Even their own memories which then integrates the viewer and artist as one with limitless potential. Stefanie Schneider's new photographic works tell fantastic stories about her adopted Californian home. She seeks out faded American myths and distills a charged reality in a very personal and surprising way. She uses out-of-date Polaroid film, and the blemishes caused by the degenerated film stock, - are included in the composition in a painterly way. Exposure mistakes and low budget movie effects are combined to alienating effect. Everything shimmers and flickers before our eyes. The artist plays with the authentic poetry of the amateur, mixing strangely dreamy staging with random photochemical events. In the 16-part work Frozen, which is characterized by a strangely transcendent mood in the lighting, film-still-like pictorial clusters come together to form a mysterious story, with the artist herself as the lonely protagonist. the aesthetic is reminiscent of early Lynch films. The components of the elliptically choreographed events are scenes from an enchanted, gleaming winter landscape, together with "staged snapshots" of a pale young woman in her underskirts, who radiates the troubled reality of a mirage with her sleep walking presence. The story is presented in the manner of cinematic flashbacks or dream sequences. Stage blood and a knife are used to evoke a crime of passion whose surreal attractiveness is derived from the scenic openness of what is shown. The deliberate use of old instant picture stock establishes in a richly faceted way the ephemeral quality of vulnerability and transience within a reality that is brittle from the outset. The American Stars and Stripes, recently updated as the absolute epitome of a patriotic signifier, is the subject of the 9-part work Primary Colors (2001). Schneider's reassuringly European view, free of undue emotion, presents the Stars and Stripes motif in a strangely alienated form: she shows stills with phases of fluttering violently in the wind, even torn in some cases, and the expired film stock emphasizes the fragility of the icon even more. FlashART - Sabine Dorothee Lehner (translated from German by Michael Robinson)
More From This SellerView All
  • Oxana (29 Palms, CA) with Radha Mitchell - Polaroid, 21st Century, Women, Color
    By Stefanie Schneider
    Located in Morongo Valley, CA
    Oxana (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 75x93cm, Edition 3/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte surface, based on a Polaroid. Mounted ...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

    Materials

    Metal

  • Cricket on the Nose Scene - Untitled II - 29 Palms, CA, analog, mounted
    By Stefanie Schneider
    Located in Morongo Valley, CA
    'Untitled II' (Cricket on the Nose Scene) from the 29 Palms, CA series - 2009 56x56cm, Edition 1/5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid signed on verso,...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Metal

  • Small Town Love (Last Picture Show) - 21st Century, Polaroid, Color
    By Stefanie Schneider
    Located in Morongo Valley, CA
    Small Town Love (Last Picture Show) - 2006 Edition 1/10, 58x57cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Archive Fuji Chrystal Paper, based on the Polaroid. Artist invento...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Metal

  • Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) - analog, Polaroid, Contemporary
    By Stefanie Schneider
    Located in Morongo Valley, CA
    Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 50x48cm each, 50x102cm together with gap. 2 Archival C-Prints, based on 2 Polaroids....
    Category

    1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

    Materials

    Metal

  • Margarita (Till Death do us Part) - Polaroid, 21st Century, Contemporary
    By Stefanie Schneider
    Located in Morongo Valley, CA
    Margarita (Till Death do us Part) 2005, 50x50cm, Edition 1/10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 8579.08. Not mounted. On ...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Metal

  • Felix and Dominique (California Blue Screen) - analog, mounted
    By Stefanie Schneider
    Located in Morongo Valley, CA
    Felix and Dominique (California Blue Screen) - 1997 44x59cm, sold out Edition of 5, Artist Proof 1/2, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid, Mounted o...
    Category

    1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

    Materials

    Metal

You May Also Like
  • Tyler Shields - Pill, Photography 2020, Printed After
    By Tyler Shields
    Located in Greenwich, CT
    Series: Mouths Chromogenic Print on Kodak Endura Luster Paper All available sizes and editions: 18" x 18" 30" x 30" 40" x 40" 60" x 60" 70" x 70" Editions of 3 + 2 Artist Proofs Tyl...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Luster, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print

  • Isabelle Van Zeijl - All For Love, Photography 2020, Printed After
    By Isabelle Van Zeijl
    Located in Greenwich, CT
    All For Love C-print on Fuji Paper Collection: FLOWER LOVE One size: 40.5 x 40.5 Edition of 8 + 2 Artist Proofs FLOWER LOVE Roses warm you heart, they ins...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Archival Ink, Digital Pigment, Archival Pigment, Digital, C Print, Photo...

  • Isabelle Van Zeijl - Revive, Photography 2020, Printed After
    By Isabelle Van Zeijl
    Located in Greenwich, CT
    Revive C-print on Fuji Paper Collection: THE REBIRTH OF THE DUTCH FLOWER One size: 62.2 x 56.7 Edition of 8 + 2 Artist Proofs THE REBIRTH OF THE DUTCH FLOWER COLLECTION Isabelle van...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Archival Ink, Digital Pigment, Archival Pigment, Digital, C Print, Photo...

  • Isabelle Van Zeijl - Love Me Wild, Photography 2020, Printed After
    By Isabelle Van Zeijl
    Located in Greenwich, CT
    Love Me Wild C-print on Fuji Paper Collection: FLOWER LOVE One Size 40.5 x 30.3 Edition of 8 + 2 Artist Proofs, 9 left FLOWER LOVE Roses warm you heart, t...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Archival Ink, Digital Pigment, Archival Pigment, Digital, C Print, Photo...

  • Isabelle Van Zeijl - Revive Portrait, Photography 2020, Printed After
    By Isabelle Van Zeijl
    Located in Greenwich, CT
    Revive Portrait C-print on Fuji Paper Collection: THE REBIRTH OF THE DUTCH FLOWER One size: 44.5 x 40.5 Edition of 8 + 2 Artist Proofs THE REBIRTH OF THE DUTCH FLOWER COLLECTION Isa...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Archival Ink, Digital Pigment, Archival Pigment, Digital, C Print, Photo...

  • Isabelle Van Zeijl - Higher Love, Photography 2020, Printed After
    By Isabelle Van Zeijl
    Located in Greenwich, CT
    Higher Love C-print on Fuji Paper Collection: FLOWER LOVE One size: 40.5 x 40.5 Edition of 8 + 2 Artist Proofs FLOWER LOVE Roses warm you heart, they insp...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Digital, Arch...

Recently Viewed

View All