Art by Medium: Polaroid

Fog (The Last Picture Show) 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist inventory...

'Long Way Home III' (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 128x125cm, Edition 1/10, analog C-Print, based on a Polaroid, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, Not mo...

Burning Field IV (The Last Picture Show) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. ...

Slab City Bible Belt (California Badlands) - 2016, 20x24cm, Edition 10/10, Archival Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. artist Inventory # 19396. Not m...

Radha Shooting II (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 38x36cm, Edition of 30, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No 259.34. Not mo...

Mountain Range (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 55x72cm, Edition 3/5, Analog C-Print, printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection. Art...

'Sherburne Hotel' (Strange Love) - 2010 98x96cm each, 4 pieces, installed with gaps 430x96cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print printed on Fuji Archive Paper, hand-printed by the artist...

Untitled (Paradise) - 1999, 50x50cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 18550. No...

The Diva and the Boy (Beachshoot) - 2005 Edition of 10 plus 2 artist Proofs. 37x36cm each, installed 126x123cm. 9 archival C-Prints, based on the 9 Polaroids. Certificate and Sig...

Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 Edition 8/10. 60x67cm including white frame. Analog C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inv...

Mountain Range (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 64x85cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 535. Signature labe...

'Spare Parts' (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 Edition 3/5, 128x125 cm, Analog C-Print, based on a Polaroid, enlarged by the artist, Not mounted, Artist inventory 792.18 With Radha Mitchell and Max Sharam Living and working in Los Angeles and Berlin, 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 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. 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) 2017 BLICKFELD] Analoge Fotografie, Kommunale Galerie Steglitz-Zehlendorf (G) (catalog), (upcoming)
 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 
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...

Sisyphus (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 98x97cm, Edition 1/5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label Arti...

Sleeping Beauties II (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005 Including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective,...

Spiegelbild (Stage of Consciousness), 2008 125x154cm, Edition 4/5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte surface, based on a Polaroid. Cer...

Actor Girl II (Stage of Consciousness) - 2008 including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 2024....

Facing Trains (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 55x73cm, Edition 2/5. Aanalog C-Print, printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Mounted on Aluminum with matte V-Protection. A...

You turn from Me (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x20cm, Edition 1/10, digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9555.01....

Fear (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 7...

Pool Time (Suburbia) - 2004 40x50cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signed on verso with Certificate, Artist inventory number: 1722. Not mounted. This pro...

Through the looking Glass (Deconstructivism) - 2015 - about the narrative potential of images. 50x50cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid, Artist Inventory 2027...

Living in a Dream (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory No. 9781. Not mounted. on offer is a piece from the movie "Till Death do us Part" Stefanie Schneider’s Till Death Do Us Part or “There is Only the Desert for You.” BY DREW HAMMOND Stefanie Schneider’s Til Death to Us Part is a love narrative that comprises three elements: 1. A montage of still images shot and elaborated by means of her signature technique of using Polaroid formats with outdated and degraded film stock in natural light, with the resulting im ages rephotographed (by other means) enlarged and printed in such a way as to generate further distortions of the image. 2. Dated Super 8 film footage without a sound track and developed by the artist. 3. Recorded off-screen narration of texts written by the actors or photographic subjects, and selected by the artist. At the outset, this method presupposes a tension between still and moving image; between the conventions about the juxtaposition of such images in a moving image presentation; and, and a further tension between the work’s juxtaposition of sound and image, and the conventional relationship between sound and image that occurs in the majority of films. But Till Death Do Us Part also conduces to an implied synthesis of still and moving image by the manner in which the artist edits or cuts the work. First, she imposes a rigorous criterion of selection, whether to render a section as a still or moving image. The predominance of still images is neither an arbitrary residue of her background as a still photographer—in fact she has years of background in film projects; nor is it a capricious reaction against moving picture convention that demands more moving images than stills. Instead, the number of still images has a direct thematic relation to the fabric of the love story in the following sense. Stills, by definition, have a very different relationship to time than do moving images. The unedited moving shot occurs in real time, and the edited moving shot, despite its artificial rendering of time, all too 2009often affords the viewer an even greater illusion of experiencing reality as it unfolds. It is self-evident that moving images overtly mimic the temporal dynamic of reality. Frozen in time—at least overtly—still photographic images pose a radical tension with real time. This tension is all the more heightened by their “real” content, by the recording aspect of their constitution. But precisely because they seem to suspend time, they more naturally evoke a sense of the past and of its inherent nostalgia. In this way, they are often more readily evocative of other states of experience of the real, if we properly include in the real our own experience of the past through memory, and its inherent emotions. This attribute of stills is the real criterion of their selection in Til Death Do Us Part where consistently, the artist associates them with desire, dream, memory, passion, and the ensemble of mental states that accompany a love relationship in its nascent, mature, and declining aspects. A SYNTHESIS OF MOVING AND STILL IMAGES BOTH FORMAL AND CONCEPTUAL It is noteworthy that, after a transition from a still image to a moving image, as soon as the viewer expects the movement to continue, there is a “logical” cut that we expect to result in another moving image, not only because of its mise en scène, but also because of its implicit respect of traditional rules of film editing, its planarity, its sight line, its treatment of 3D space—all these lead us to expect that the successive shot, as it is revealed, is bound to be another moving image. But contrary to our expectation, and in delayed reaction, we are startled to find that it is another still image. One effect of this technique is to reinforce the tension between still and moving image by means of surprise. But in another sense, the technique reminds us that, in film, the moving image is also a succession of stills that only generate an illusion of movement. Although it is a fact that here the artist employs Super 8 footage, in principle, even were the moving images shot with video, the fact would remain since video images are all reducible to a series of discrete still images no matter how “seamless” the transitions between them. Yet a third effect of the technique has to do with its temporal implication. Often art aspires to conflate or otherwise distort time. Here, instead, the juxtaposition poses a tension between two times: the “real time” of the moving image that is by definition associated with reality in its temporal aspect; and the “frozen time” of the still image associated with an altered sense of time in memory and fantasy of the object of desire—not to mention the unreal time of the sense of the monopolization of the gaze conventionally attributed to the photographic medium, but which here is associated as much with the yearning narrator as it is with the viewer. In this way, the work establishes and juxtaposes two times for two levels of consciousness, both for the narrator of the story and, implicitly, for the viewer: A) the immediate experience of reality, and B) the background of reflective effects of reality, such as dream, memory, fantasy, and their inherent compounding of past and present emotions. In addition, the piece advances in the direction of a Gesammtkunstwerk, but in a way that reconsiders this synaesthesia as a unified complex of genres—not only because it uses new media that did not exist when the idea was first enunciated in Wagner’s time, but also because it comprises elements that are not entirely of one artist’s making, but which are subsumed by the work overall. The totality remains the vision of one artist. In this sense, Till Death Do Us Part reveals a further tension between the central intelligence of the artist and the products of other individual participants. This tension is compounded to the degree that the characters’ attributes and narrated statements are part fiction and part reality, part themselves, and part their characters. But Stefanie Schneider is the one who assembles, organizes, and selects them all. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THIS IDEA (above) AND PHOTOGRAPHY This selective aspect of the work is an expansion of idea of the act of photography in which the artistic photographer selects that which is already there, and then, by distortion, definition or delimitation, compositional and lighting emphasis, and by a host of other techniques, subsumes that which is already there to transform it into an image of the artist’s contrivance, one that is no less of the artist’s making than a work in any other medium, but which is distinct from many traditional media (such as painting) in that it retains an evocation of the tension between what is already there and what is of the artist’s making. Should it fail to achieve this, it remains, to that degree, mere illustration to which aesthetic technique has been applied with greater or lesser skill. The way Til Death Do Us Part expands this basic principle of the photographic act, is to apply it to further existing elements, and, similarly, to transform them. These additional existing elements include written or improvised pieces narrated by their authors in a way that shifts between their own identities and the identities of fictional characters. Such characters derive partially from their own identities by making use of real or imagined memories, dreams, fears of the future, genuine impressions, and emotional responses to unexpected or even banal events. There is also music, with voice and instrumental accompaniment. The music slips between integration with the narrative voices and disjunction, between consistency and tension. At times it would direct the mood, and at other times it would disrupt. Despite that much of this material is made by others, it becomes, like the reality that is the raw material of an art photo, subsumed and transformed by the overall aesthetic act of the manner of its selection, distortion, organization, duration, and emotional effect. * * * David Lean was fond of saying that a love story is most effective in a squalid visual environment. In Til Death Do Us Part, the squalor of the American desert...

Daisy and Austen in front of Trailer (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 Proof b4 Printing / 128x125cm signed, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid, signed ...

Nothing to do with my Will (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature labe...

Caitlin aka Jane Bond (Heavenly Falls) - 2008 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist ...

Wabi-Sabi (Sidewinder) - 9 Original Polaroids - Unique Piece, 2005 DECONSTRUCTIVISM, 2000 - present. About the narrative potential of images. each Polaroid 7.8 x 7,7cm (image area) ...

Renée's Dream - The Boys (Days of Heaven). Part of the 29 Palms, CA project. - 2006 40x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signatur...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, art...

Streetcorner (Stranger than Paradise) - 2008 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #509 Not mounted...

Into the Sky (Deconstructivism) - 2015 - about the narrative potential of images. 20x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid, Artist Inventory 20275. Signature ...

Aliens - triptych - 1998 Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 48x59cm each, 48x190 installed including the gaps. analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive P...

Palm Springs Palm Trees VI - 2008 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #22163 Not mounted. Stefa...

Radha Mind Screen (29 Palms, CA) - 2016 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory ...

Ensign Broderick I (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') - Bombay Beach, CA - 2019 100x120cm, Edition 3/5. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Cer...

A Vision you can't Capture #03 (29 Palms, CA) - 2007 A piece from the project: 29 Palms, CA 20x25cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original P...

Oleander (Life on Mars) - 2024 20x20m, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 22313....

A piece of art from the movie 'Stay' by Stefanie Schneider Stefanie created the art for both main actors Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling in the movie 'Stay' directed by Marc Forster. S...

Rapture (29 Palms, CA) - 2022 48x46cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 218829. Signature label and Certificate...

Max and Radha sitting on Rock (Long Way Home) - 1999 featuring Radha Mitchell 38x37cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Certificate an...

Narween (Saigon) - 2003 58x56cm, Edition 4/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the original Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 469.04. Signature labe and Cert...

Abstract - 2020 Polaroid - Unique Piece 1/1, 7.8 x 7,7cm (image area) 10.7 x 8.7 cm ( including white Polaroid frame). Artist Inv. #23481. Signed on verso. Stefanie Schneider's ...

Winter (The Last Picture Show) - 2005, 50x49cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist I...

Fly! (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2019 50x50cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory 20050. Signature label and Certificate. Not mo...

Ground Control (Stranger than Paradise) - 2008 40x40cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inv...

Untitled (Olancha) - 2006, 38x37cm. Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist...

Up up and away - 2008 40x40cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artis...

Frozen (Stranger than Paradise) - 2001 Edition of 5 16 pieces, 48 x 47 cm each, 2.20 x 2.20 cm installed. Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on 16 Polaroids. Signat...

Stefanie Schneider's Mini Daisy in front of Trailer (Till Death do us Part) signed in front, not mounted. Digital Color Photographs based on a Polaroid. Polaroid sized open Editi...

Don't Give up on Us Baby (Till Death do us Part) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature...

Princess' Kiss (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2018 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature labe...

Snap–15 Minutes of Fame (Wastelands) - 4 pieces, 2003 Edition of 5, 105x100cm each, 220x220cm installed. Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper,...

Sunflower (Musica Poetica) - 1997 44x59cm, Edition 4/10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate ...

Radha doing her Nails by the Pool (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 78x76cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. ...

Circle of Magic - Spellbound (29 Palms, CA) - 2009, 20x24cm, Edition 9/10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #5919.09. ...

Midnight Cowboy (Back in the 80's) - 2001 48x46cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #576. Not mounted....

Hidden Valley (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2000 128x126cm, Edition 3/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. A...

Play among the Stars (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature labe...

Treasure II (Stage of Consciousness) 29 Palms, CA, 2007, 75x93cm, Edition 3/5. Analog C-Print printed on Fuji Archive Paper, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Sign...