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Art For Sale
Artist: Stefanie Schneider
Artist: Rene Couturier
Untitled - Stage of Consciousness (29 Palms, CA) - analog, mounted
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled - Stage of Consciousness (29 Palms, CA) - 2007 75x93cm, Edition 5/5 , analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid, Ar...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Untitled (Sidewinder), analog - 21st Century, Contemporary, Polaroid, hand print
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (Sidewinder) - 2005 Edition of 5, 57x56 cm, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on a Polaroid. Artist Inventory 3025.02. Sig...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

My green Undies (Strange Love)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My Green Undies I (Strange Love) 2005, 27 x 33 cm, Edition 2/10, digital C-Print, based on an i-sight video chat. Signature label and certificate. Not mounted. A piece of Stefanie ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Video, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color

Under the Influence (Cyndi Lauper) - record cover shoot
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Under the Influence' (Cyndi Lauper) from the 'Bring Ya to the Brink' record Album Shoot - 2009 20x24cm, Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroi...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

No Middle (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush')
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
No Middle (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') - Bombay Beach, CA - 2019 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, bas...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Polaroid, Black and White

Lila and Sam (Stay) with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts - 21st Century, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Lila and Sam (Stay) with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts - 2006 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 5067. Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider's art work was used for the Marc Forster movie 'Stay'. featuring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling. Naomi and Ryan were both portraying artists and Stefanie's art was the art both created during the movie. Stefanie's images were also used for Ryan Gosling's memory sequence, for the end titles, for edits in between and as art paintings hanging in several scenes within the movie. Torsten Scheid, “Fotografie, Kunst, Kino. Revisited.”, Film...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Film, Archival Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Stillness (Zuma Beach)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Stillness (Zuma Beach) - 2004 29x28cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #20433. N...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) - 20x20cm each, Polaroid, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x19.5cm each. 2 archival C-Prints, based on the 2 Polaroids. Artist inventory Numb...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

'Penelope' from the movie Immaculate Springs - starring Jacinda Barrett
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Penelope' from the movie Immaculate Springs - 1998 Edition of 10, 50x50cm, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature Label and Certificate. Artis...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The Empire (Strange Love) - Empire State Building, New York, Landscape
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'The Empire', (Strange Love), 2018, 80x50cm, Edition 1/10, digital C-Print, based on a 35mm analog Negative, signature label and certificate, artist Inventory No. 30000.01, not m...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Film, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Black and White, ...

The morning after (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, Polaroid, Women
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The morning after (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, art...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Kirsten smokes (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Kirsten smokes (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist invento...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, Polaroid, Women
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, a...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Carwash - Contemporary, Landscape, Cityscape, expired, Polaroid, analog, Blue
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Car Wash (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 Edition of 10 , 58x56cm, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Signature label...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Home of the Brave (Oxana's 30th Birthday)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Home of the Brave (Oxana's 30th Birthday) - 2007 A Captivating Journey Through Faded Dreams Dimensions: 48x46cm Edition: Limited edition of 10, / plus 2 Artist Proofs Medium: Archi...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Spare Parts (29 Palms, CA) - Contemporary, Figurative, Portrait, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Spare Parts (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 78x76cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory 320....
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Her last Call (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - Polaroid, 21st Century
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Her last Call II (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 78x77cm, Edition 3/5, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory # 16495.03. Not mounted. Featuring Heather Megan Christie. Offered is a piece from the movie: The Girl behind the White Picket Fence A tale told with blemished and expired Polaroid film about the hopes and dreams of a newly orphaned girl after losing her parents who lived in the Californian desert in a vintage Spartan travel-trailer. -filmed with Polaroid film stock and Super-8 footage, overlaid with poetic voice-over monologue - this feature film creates a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl's journal (Palms Springs life magazine / Caroline Ryder) Stefanie Schneider By Caroline Ryder Travel up a bumpy dirt road in Morongo Valley, the trail strewn with rocks, and you’ll come upon a gigantic 1950s trailer in pristine condition, ringed by a white picket fence, with cottontail rabbits hopping among neat little rose bushes that bloom in spite of the broiling desert heat. Inside the trailer are period accents—a vintage radio, vintage fridge, little crocheted doilies and dusty gilt-framed photographs. It’s a surreal home-sweet-home, an Americana fantasy as imagined by German artist and experimental filmmaker Stefanie Schneider whose work is so inspired by the desert landscape, she made it her home in 2005. “There’s a completely different light here than in Germany, a beautiful light,” says Schneider, whose 10-acre property in Morongo is dotted with vintage trailers. They surround her midcentury home, and serve as sets for her photo shoots or as guest lodgings for her friends from Hollywood and Berlin. “But what I really love about the desert is the desolation,” she continues. “The sense of hope for something that might or might not come. It’s easy to see our dreams projected in the desert.” Famed for shooting trailer park chic fine art photographs exclusively on vintage Polaroid film, Schneider recently completed her most ambitious project to date—a feature film made entirely of Polaroid stills (4000 images in total), the story set around her magnificent 1950s trailer. The film, called “The Girl Behind The White Picket Fence” tells the story of a broken-hearted girl who lives in the trailer. Her name is Heather, and she is played by model Heather Megan Christie, girlfriend of actor Joaquin Phoenix, and former partner of Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis, with whom she has a son. Heather stars opposite Kyle Larson (who plays ‘Hank’), a real-life gypsy fisherman who catches crab in Alaska when he’s not surfing in Southern California. Neither of the two had ever acted before, and never in the history of movie making has a director shot a film entirely on Polaroid film. “There was great difficulty shooting a film this way,” says Schneider, who, with her long straight hair, wide innocent eyes and thick-framed glasses, conjures an art-house Gretel. “If I had used a regular camera I would have had 36 exposures per minute, much faster and easier than using the old Polaroid camera which takes a long time to shoot one frame. Also, sometimes it doesn’t shoot at the exact moment you think it’s going to—but that’s really great because then you miss the perfect moment…and often those are the best shots.” Individually, the Polaroid photographs that comprise 29 PALMS, CA stand alone, but together and in sequence, filmed with super 8 and 16mm film stock and overlaid with poetic voice-over monologues, they create a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick. Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl’s journal. The idea to shoot a movie in this way came about in 2004, when Schneider was working with leading German director Mark Forster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) on his film Stay. She had met Forster at director Wim Wender’s birthday party in Hollywood. A few years later, Forster asked Schneider to shoot Polaroids of scenes from Stay as he filmed; he used those photographs for dream and memory sequences in the movie. For the first time, Schneider saw her Polaroids strung together in sequence, moving with rhythm like a flipbook, in the context of a story. When Forster urged her to consider making a feature film using...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Riviera (Malibu)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Riviera (Malibu) - 2004 50x50cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 668. Not mounted. The works of Stefanie ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The DJ (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - Polaroid, 21st Century
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The DJ (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 50x50cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Mounted on Dibond with matte UV-Protection. Signed on back and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 16346. In Stefanie Schneider's evocative piece "Her Last Call," she presents a poignant scene featuring the talented actor Heather Megan Christie. The composition centers around a captivating image of Christie holding a red rotary phone...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Crow Burial - Contemporary, Polaroid, Analogue, Photography
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Crow Burial III (Sidewinder) 20 x 20 cm, 2005, Edition 4/10, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Artist Inventory 3507.04, not mounted Stefanie Schneider's scintillating situations take place in the American West. 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. 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 dream scapes. 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. Stefanie Schneider received her MFA in Communication Design at the Folkwang Schule Essen, Germany. Her work has been shown at the Museum for Photography, Braunschweig, Museum für Kommunikation, Berlin, the Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt, the Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Kunstverein Bielefeld, Museum für Moderne Kunst Passau, Les Rencontres d'Arles, Foto -Triennale Esslingen. “It was Stefanie Schneider, who inspired me to start the company THE IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT after seeing her work, which seems to achieve the possible from the impossible, creating the finest of art out of the most basic of mediums and materials. Indeed, after that one day, I was so impressed with her photography that I realized Polaroid film could not be allowed to disappear. Being at the precise moment in time where the world was about to lose Polaroid, I seized the moment and have put all my efforts and passion into saving Polaroid film. For that, I thank Stefanie Schneider almost exclusively, who played a bigger role than anyone in saving this American symbol of photography.” –Florian Kaps, March 8th 2010 (“Doc” Dr. Florian Kaps, founder of “The Impossible Project”) Exhibitions Selected (selected) 2018 Participation Bombay Beach Biennale, Bombay Beach, USA (G) March Available to All, Rough Play Projects - Site Specific, Joshou Tree, USA (G) curated by Deborah Martin with Adam Berg, Doron Gazit, Kellan Barnebey, Chris Sanchez, Aili Schmelzt 2017 BLICKFELD Analoge Fotografie, Kommunale Galerie Steglitz-Zehlendorf (G) (catalog), (upcoming)
 Rosegallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica (G) Magie des Moments, Kunstverein Bad Homburg Artlantis, Bad Homburg (G) 2016 
Instantdreams, Instantdreams Gallery, Berlin 

(S) 2015
 Desert Voices, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (G) with Pamela Littky The Ballery in Heat, The Ballery, Berlin (G) 
Blue Nudes, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (G) 

 2014

 Summer Show, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (G) 6 Finalists, Saatchi Gallery London (G) 
Instantdreams, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (S)
Grand Opening, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (G) with Banksy, Andy Warhol, Alison Bignon, Sophie Dickens, Victor Gingembre and others
 2013 
Heather's Dream, Short, nominated for the German Short Film Award 2013 (Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis)
Images For Images (Artists fir Tichy), GASK - Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region,  Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, (G) with Richard Prince, Nan Golding, Shirana Shahbazi, Sophie Calle, Martin Kippenberger, Arnulf Rainer, Thomas Ruff, Katharina Grosse, Jonathan Meese & others (catalog) 
The Girl behind the White Picket Fence, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (S)
 Heather's Dream, Short, German Competition Short Film Festival Oberhausen 
Multimedia Presentation with Artist Stefanie Schneider, Palms Springs Art Museum, Annenberg Theater
 The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, (G) with Ansel Adams, Bruce Charlesworth, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Charles and Ray Eames, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Oppenheim, Andy Warhol and others, (catalog)
 Road Atlas - Straßenfotografie, DZ Bank Collection: Kunsthalle Erfurt (Spring), Art Foyer DZ Bank, Frankfurt/Main, (G) with Helen Levitt, Pieter Hugo, Nobuyoshi Araki, Pietro Donzelli, and others (catalog)  2012
 Stranger Than Paradise, Christian Hohmenn Fine Art, Palms Desert, (S) Stefanie Schneider, Gallery at Cliff Lede Vineyards, Napa Valley, CA, (S) Bienale Art Auction 2012, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, (G), with Ai Weiwei, John Baldessari, Christo, Ed Ruscha, Christopher Russell, and others. MUSES, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (G) with Kourtney Roy and Eric Weeks Polaroid (IM)POSSIBLE - THE WESTLICHT COLLECTION, NRW Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft, Düsseldorf (G), (catalog) Road Atlas - Straßenfotografie, DZ Bank Collection: Kunstmuseum Dieselkraftwerk, Cottbus, (G), (catalog) Studio Scholorship, Centro Cultural Andratx, Mallorca, May 2012 Selling Sex, ShowStudio Gallery, London (G) with Cortney Andrews, Una Burke, Liz Cohen, Inge Jacobsen Stranger Than Paradise, Scott White Contemporary, San Diego, (S) 

2011 
Kunst zu verlosen !  // Art to raffle off !, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, (G) with Monica Bonvicini, Tim Eitel, Olafur Eliasson, Pipilotti Rist...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, Polaroid, Women
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, a...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Palm Springs Palm Trees XI (Californication) - Polaroid, Contemporary, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Palm Springs Palm Trees XI (Californication) - 2019 40x40cm, Edition of 10, plus two artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Ar...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Max by the Fence - based on a Polaroid Original - Proof
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Max by the Fence' (29 Palms, CA) Proof b4 Printing / 2005, 128x125cm analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid, signed on front. The white border is for ease o...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Polaroid

Wandering I (Wastelands)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Wandering - switched off - (Wastelands) - 2003 Edition 4/5, 57x56cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 1238.04. Signature label and certificate. Not mounted. For sale is a piece from the Wastelands series. Reality with the Tequila: Stefanie Schneider’s Fertile Wasteland by James Scarborough “How much more than enough for you for I for both of us darling?” (E. E. Cummings) Until he met her, his destiny was his own. Petty and inconsequential but still his own. He was cocksure and free, young and unaccountable, with dark hair and aquiline features. His expression was always pensive, a little troubled, but not of a maniacal sort. He was more bored than anything else. With a heart capable of violence. Until she met him, she was pretty but unappreciated. Her soul had regis- tered no seismic activity. Dust bowl weary, she’d yet to see better days. A languorous body, a sweet face with eyes that could be kind if so inclined. Until she met him, she had not been inclined. It began when he met her. She was struck in an instant by his ennui. The sum of their meeting was greater than the imbroglios and chicaneries of their respective existences. He was struck by the blank slate look in her eyes. They walked, detached and focused on the immediate, obscenely unaware of pending change across a terrain of mountainous desert, their eyes downcast and world-weary, unable to account for the buoyant feeling in her heart. His hard-guy shtick went from potentiality to ruse. The gun was not a weapon but a prop, a way to pass time. Neither saw the dark clouds massing on the horizon. They found themselves alone in the expanses of time, unaware of the calamity that percolated even as they posed like school kids for the pic- tures. Happiness brimmed in that wild terrain. Maybe things were begin- ning to look up. That’s when the shooting started… Stefanie Schneider assumes that our experience of lived reality (buying groceries, having a relationship with someone, driving a car) does not correspond to the actual nature of lived reality itself, that what we think of as reality is more like a margarita without the tequila. Stefanie Schneider’s reality is reality with the tequila. She does not abol- ish concepts that orient us, cause and effect, time, plot, and story line, she just plays with them. She invites us to play with them, too. She offers us a hybrid reality, more amorphous than that with a conventional subject, verb, and predicate. Open-ended, this hybrid reality does not resolve itself. It frustrates anyone with pedestrian expectations but once we inebriate those expectations away, her work exhilarates us and even the hangover is good. An exploration of how she undermines our expectation of what we assume to be our lived reality, the reasons why she under- mines our expectations, and the end-result, as posited in this book, will show how she bursts open our apparatus of perception and acknowl- edges life’s fluidity, its density, its complexity. Its beauty. She undermines expectations of our experience of reality with odd, other- worldly images and with startling and unexpected compressions and expansions of time and narrative sequence. The landscape seems familiar enough, scenes from the Old West: broad panoramic vistas with rolling hills dotted with trees and chaparral, dusty prairies with trees and shrubs and craggy rocks, close-up shots of trees. But they’re not familiar. These mis-en-scenes radiate an unsettling Picasso Blue Period...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Radha Shooting II
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Radha Shooting II (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 38x36cm, Edition of 30. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory #259. Not mo...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Memory Sequence (Stay) - Original Polaroid Unique Piece
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Memory Sequence (Stay) - 2006 Polaroid - Unique Piece 1/1, 8.8 x 7.5 cm (image area) 10.6 x 8.6 cm ( including white Polaroid frame) Artist Inv. #24851. Signed on verso. Not moun...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Polaroid

Desert Center - Polaroid, Contemporary, 21st Century, Color, Portrait
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Desert Center (Stranger than Paradise) - 2000 Edition of 10, 48x60cm. Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Mounted on dibond with matte UV-Protection. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 534. Published in Stranger than Paradise, Hatje Cantz (monograph) Stefanie Schneider: A Discovery on Polaroid. An essay by Eugen Blume How is it that the photographic works of Stefanie Schneider do not allow anything other than one single association, namely that of America? Because they were taken in America itself? That fact alone would not yet be a compelling argument. Many photographs of America possess a reckless ambivalence which allows even the different country of their own particular creator to seem so similar as to be confused with America itself. Does this ambiguity have something to do with the ongoing, accelerating Americanization of the entire world? Or is it simply connected with our personal clichés which we attribute to a country the size of North America as valid expressions of its very essence, thereupon negligently allowing it not only to dwindle down into any size whatever, but also to expand to a great extent, from Germany by way of Luxembourg right through to Japan? Now it is certainly true that the figures of Thelma and Louise in the desert do not represent an American reality, not even after their resurrection as Radha and Max in the series 29 Palms from 1999. Strangely enough, it is nature which allows this utterly artificial scene to grow into an American verity. The harsh sunlight in the barren landscape establishes the fundamental tone out of which the women emerge in excessive hysteria from beneath their colored wigs. It is inherently absurd to celebrate the feminine aspect in the middle of a mercilessly inhospitable environment. The image of the two women is a monument of resistance, the meaningful assertion of a lifestyle which stands in contradiction to each and every convention. The pictorial structure and the captured movement along the edge of the format are a means of blending the glaring luminosity with the plot in a manner which perhaps functions successfully only in the “simple” instant technique of the Polaroid. Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives are striking in their formal elegance. She utilizes the chemical faults of the Polaroids, their tendency towards overexposure and double-images as a sovereignly controlled means of artistic design. The defects become, as it were, metaphorical levels which plumb depths lying far beneath the surface. The overly bright colors and schlieren seek out the uncanny; they provide a counterweight to a narration that is deliberately kept superficial. They tell of an invisible strand. They illuminate, in the truest sense of the word, underground processes. Although we are familiar with a series featuring American flags which could not indicate the site of its narrations any more clearly, nevertheless there remains a fundamental doubt as to whether the initially described association with America is identical with that which we deem to be America in a geographical sense. Although I have in the meantime been in America several times, in both South and North America, deep down I remain uncertain as to whether the New World actually exists. Columbus’ error of continuing to believe, even when having arrived on land, that he was encountering the India which was the actual goal of his journey has burrowed down deep into the European unconscious as a cultural convention. Peter Bichsel’s amusing story “Amerika gibt es nicht” (There is no America) still remains today an undeniable truth: America’s northern half is a film, not a continent. Everything which signifies the U.S.A. – from the Indians, whose most noble savages were invented in Europe, all the way to September 11th and the subsequent war in Iraq, the aliens and the revival of the dinosaurs, the terminators as governors and presidents as actors and vice versa, the electric chairs, the godfather Marlon Brando and the eternal singer Bob Dylan, the neurotic Woody Allen, Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol – all this is an invention of the media. Everything that I know about America has been conveyed to me by Hollywood films. My trip into this fictional wonderland, this country where nothing seems impossible, began with a landing at Kennedy Airport, along with a list of questions investigating my existence up to that point in time and inquiring whether I belonged or belong to any Communist organization. There went by three long hours of waiting, without my having seen anything that was actually real, among variously colored passengers until there was a call to board my flight to Houston, Texas, the destination of my first trip to America. The airplane traveled for an endless stretch of time just to reach the take-off runway and thereby crossed bridges under which dense auto traffic flowed ceaselessly towards somewhere, like a never-ending caravan. My little onboard window was nothing more than a monitor tuned to one of the many road movies at which I gazed in boredom. Finally the machine came to a standstill and the massive doors were opened, warm air hung heavily amid functional concrete buildings and a few palms: I was in the southern region of North America. In front of the airport was the usual scene from the beginning of a film viewed hundreds of times: yellow cabs with black drivers. Along the highway to Houston, seen from car windows that were once again nothing more than monitors, there rose up upon high poles to the right and left vastly oversized, widescreen-formatted billboards advertising everything that for a long time now we in Europe have internamericalized: Coca-Cola in an immediate love-hate relationship to Pepsi, the successful taste plagiarizer, McDonald’s, cornflakes. Concrete streets above and below me, in the distance the skyline of Houston set against the background of the desert: high-quality Cinemascope. Spontaneously there came to mind the first scenes of Tarkovsky’s Solaris, that never-ending stretch of concrete, filmed from within the automobile which, remotely controlled, brings its passenger somewhere, anywhere, just not into reality. I didn’t understand the first Texan whom I met; the ponderous dialect, spoken in the interior of his mouth, was not compatible with my knowledge of English. America was not only a film but also a collection of clichés. In the evening I attended the opening of an museum exhibition, which was the actual reason for my journey: rich women wearing fur coats in approximately thirty degrees Centigrade; first the buffet, then the art; no wordily wandering speeches, but rather everything economically tailored to momentary pleasure and external appearance. Modern Houston was nothing more than a city of offices; the last skyscrapers in the series already end in the desert sand; some are nailed up and carry signs of warning: “Contaminated with Asbestos.” In the bus I am the only white person among variously hued immigrants from South America or scions of long-established families of former slaves, and I myself am marveled at like a strange, stray soul. In search of the DeMenil Collection amid endless single-family dwellings, there was the usual action scene: an identity check, police vehicles outfitted with sirens and sporting double, revolving lights upon their roofs, the role of the sheriff well cast, a successful sequence filmed on the first take and put right in the can. I am not given any trouble with my status as a European, such as can easily be seen from my passport. The whole atmosphere is friendly, suffused with an almost unbelievable amicality. The colleagues in the Museum of Fine Arts, an astounding universal museum with artworks ranging from antiquity all the way to the present and a Mies van der Rohe building extension, are enthusiastic about my idea of traveling on to California as soon as possible. Beneath me a nature film presented by National Geographic, the Grand Canyon, red cliffs of incredible dimensions, somewhere Death Valley and Hollywood, to which I owe so much. In San Francisco friends are waiting for me at the airport, two American biographies such as are only written here. Everything is just as I know it, the soundtrack is right on the money: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and up further in the surf, the Beach Boys. The Golden Gate Bridge in fog, the wonderful district of Sausalito, and far across the bay the city of Oakland. A paradise of hippies, twenty degrees Centigrade as the average annual temperature. William Seward Burroughs is reading in a bookshop, Alan Ginsburg, and somewhere Patti Smith is singing. I do not intend to write here about my next destination, New York City, not about the wonderful people who were my hosts, not about Mildred the pianist, who worked with John Cage, not about her husband, the painter who was friends with Alexander Calder… When I recall this first trip to America, my images are strangely blurred in their colors, and the sharply focused photographs which I have kept among many useless ones convey nothing of that which remains in my head. I think back to the magical places, just like to the inhospitable ones, from a certain aesthetic perspective, and it is this very aesthetic which I rediscover in the pictures of Stefanie Schneider. Tales of America, a discovery on Polaroid. Basically we know nothing about how our remembered images in fact look; we believe that we recall pictures and we tell of images which nocturnal dreams implant in our brains, but we would have great difficulty in specifying their actual form. From time to time we consider ourselves to have seen distinct pictures, but mostly we think of blurred appearances, more of shadows than of sharp contours. For her part, Stefanie Schneider as a native German sees her chosen country of residence as if in a dream. She stages a land which does not exist, a land of visions and spirits. During 2005 in the film Hitchhiker and in the photo series Sidewinder, she tells about love in terms of the hippie clichés of the 1960s: the long-haired girl with no makeup together with the preacher in a trailer amid the eternal heat, God’s warm canopy above California, Jack Daniels as the celebratory wine of the mass, the Colt revolver...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

No Causes (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush')
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
No Causes (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') - Bombay Beach, CA - 2019 48x47cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature l...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

An Image of Life (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') -Bombay Beach, CA
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
An Image of Life (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') - Bombay Beach, CA - 2019 48x47cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Sign...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Bombay Beach Pirates (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush')
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Bombay Beach Pirates (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') - Bombay Beach, CA - 2019 30x40cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Magic Hour (Musica Poetica)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Magic Hour (Musica Poetica) - 1999 Edition 3/10, 44x59cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed and enlarged by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Certificat...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

American Pie (Oxana's 30th Birthday) starring Radha Mitchell - Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
American Pie (Oxana's 30th Birthday) -2007, from the 29 Palms, CA project - 38x36cm, Edition of 10. digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid, mounted...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Plexiglass, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Jimi Hendrix Palm Trees (Californication) - Contemporary, Landscape, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Jimi Hendrix Palm Trees (Californication) - 2016 20x20cm, Edition 7/10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signatur...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Untitled (Cathy and Shannon) - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (Cathy and Shannon) - 2004 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 481...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Approaching Train (Wastelands) - Contemporary, Landscape, Polaroid, analog
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Approaching Train (Wastelands) - 2003 Edition of 3, 126x166cm Analog C-Print, hand-printed and by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

Nipple - Bathtime III (29 Palms, CA) based on a Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Nipple - Bathtime IV (29 Palms, CA) 1999, 40x40cm, Edition 1/10, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Making out in Car (Till Death do us Part)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Making out in Car (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label arti...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Dreamgirl (triptych) - analog, Polaroid, Contemporary, 21st Century, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Dream girl (Stranger than Paradise) - 2000 Edition of 10 3 x 58x56 x 0.1 cm, 58 x 188 cm installed. 3 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist. based on the 3 Polaroids. Signat...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

Officer's Wives Club - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Figurative
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Officer's Wives Club (29 Palms, CA), diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, 58x56cm each, installed 58x123cm, including gap. 2 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on 2 Polaro...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Hans and Penelope (Immaculate Springs) starring Udo Kier and Jacinda Barrett
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Hans and Penelope (Immaculate Springs) - 1998 Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 58x185cm installed, 58x56cm each. 3 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on 3 Pola...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Desert Center - Polaroid, Contemporary, 21st Century, Color, Portrait
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Desert Center (Stranger than Paradise) - 2000 Edition of 10, 48x46cm. Archival Print, based on a Polaroid. Mounted on dibond with matte UV-Protection. Signature label and Certifi...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Judith (Suburbia) Contemporary, Polaroid, Analog, Color, Photography
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Judith (Suburbia) - 2004 50x60cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signed on verso with Certificate, Artist inventory number: 1698. Not mounted. This proje...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Stefanie Schneider Polaroid sized unlimited Mini 'Gestures' - signed
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Stefanie Schneider Polaroid sized unlimited Mini 'Gestures' - 1999 - signed in front, not mounted. 1 Digital Color Photographs based on ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, C Print, Color, Lambda, Polaroid

Sunset (Sidewinder) - Original Polaroid Unique Piece
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Sunset (Sidewinder) - 2006 Polaroid - Unique Piece 1/1, 8.8 x 7.5 cm (image area) 10.6 x 8.6 cm ( including white Polaroid frame) Artist Inv. #23636. Signed on verso. Not mounted...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Polaroid

Blue Cadillac (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Cadillac, Vintage, 20th Century, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Blue Cadillac (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 68x90cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #607....
Category

20th Century Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

A Stefanie Schneider Mini - Moonwalk (29 Palms, CA)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Stefanie Schneider's Minis 'Moonwalk' (29 Palms, CA), 2006 signed and signature brand on verso Lambda digital Color Photograph based on a Polaroid Polaroid sized open Editions 1999-...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Plexiglass, Archival Paper, Color, Lambda, Polaroid

Untitled (The Last Picture Show)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Untitled' (The Last Picture Show) - 2005, Edition 2/10, 20x20cm, Based on a Polaroid, Certificate and signature label, Not mounted, Artist inve...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Day Worker (American Depression) -Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Day Worker (American Depression) - 1999 Edition of 10, 58x56cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, on Crystal Fuji Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

Radha Pink - LAST EDITION - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
LAST EDITION 'Radha Pink' (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid, not mou...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Streetcorner (Stranger than Paradise) - Contemporary, Woman, Polaroid, Dream
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Streetcorner (Stranger than Paradise) - 2003 58x56cm each, 58x190cm together, Edition 6/10, 3 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper. based on t...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

This will always be my Memory (Stay) - Polaroid, 21st Century
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Stefanie Schneider's work was used for Marc Forster's movie 'Stay', featuring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling. Naomi and Ryan were both portraying artists and Stefanie Sc...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Duet (Till Death do us Part) - 21st Century, Polaroid, Figurative
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Duet (Till Death do us Part) - 2016 50x50cm, Edition of 10. Archival C- Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist inventory number: 9441. Not mounted....
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The Girl III (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - Contemporary, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Girl III (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013, 128x126cm, Edition 2/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Archive Crystal Paper, matte surface, bas...
Category

2010s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Untitled 03 (Saigon) - analog, 58x56cm
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled 03 (Saigon) - 2003 58x56cm, Edition of 5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by an artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte surface, based on the Polaroid. Artist invento...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Poolside - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Figurative Photograph
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Pool Side (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 Edition 5/5, 20x20cm. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 619. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. A Ge...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Hidden Valley (Wastelands) - Polaroid, Expired. Contemporary, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Hidden Valley (Wastelands) - 2003 57x56cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No 1...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Metal

Zabriskie Point II - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Zabriskie Point (Stranger than Paradise) - PART II - 2003 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Skylark (Stranger than Paradise)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Skylark (Stranger than Paradise) - 1997 43x59cm, Edition 5/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature La...
Category

1990s Contemporary Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Shop Art on 1stDibs: Photography, Drawings, Prints, Sculptures and Paintings for Sale

Whether growing your current fine art collection or taking the first steps on that journey, you will find an extensive range of original photography, drawings, prints, sculptures, paintings and more on 1stDibs.

Visual art is among the oldest forms of expression, and it has been evolving for centuries. Beautiful objects can provide a window to the past or insight into our current time. Art collecting enhances daily life through the presence of meaningful work. It displays an appreciation for culture, whether a print by Elizabeth Catlett channeling social change or a narrative quilt by Faith Ringgold.

Contemporary art has lured more initiates to collecting than almost any other category, with notable artists including Yayoi Kusama, Marc Chagall, Kehinde Wiley and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Navigating the waiting lists for the next Marlene Dumas, Jeff Koons or Jasper Johns has become competitive.

When you’re living with art, particularly as people more often work from home and enjoy their spaces, it’s important to choose art that resonates with you. While the richness of art with its many movements, styles and histories can be overwhelming, the key is to identify what is appealing and inspiring. Artwork can play with the surrounding color of a room, creating a layered approach. The dynamic shapes and sizes of sculptures can set different moods, such as a bronze by Miguel Guía on a mantel or an Alexander Calder mobile suspended over a table. A wall of art can evoke emotions in an interior while showing off your tastes and interests. A salon-style wall mixing eclectic pieces like landscape paintings with charcoal drawings is a unique way to transform a space and show off a collection.

For art meditating on the subconscious, investigate Surrealists like Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí. Explore Pop art and its leading artists such as Andy Warhol, Rosalyn Drexler and Keith Haring for bright and bold colors. Not only did these artists question art itself, but also how we perceive society. Similarly, 20th-century photography and abstract painting reconsidered the intent of art.

Abstract Expressionists like Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner and Color Field artists including Sam Gilliam broke from conventional ideas of painting, while Op artists such as Yaacov Agam embraced visual trickery and kinetic movement. Novel visuals are also integral to contemporary work influenced by street art, such as sculptures and prints by KAWS.

Realist portraiture is a global tradition reflecting on what makes us human. This is reflected in the work of Slim Aarons, an American photographer whose images are at once candid and polished and appeared in Holiday magazine and elsewhere. Innovative artists Mickalene Thomas and Kerry James Marshall are now offering new perspectives on the form.

Collecting art is a rewarding, lifelong pursuit that can help connect you with the creative ways historic, modern and contemporary artists have engaged with the world. For more tips on piecing together an art collection, see our guide to buying and displaying art.

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