Art by Medium: Polaroid

'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...

Immaculate Springs Set with Jacinda Barrett - 1998 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x20cm, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature Label and Certificate. Artist i...

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...

Trouble me - 2020, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proof Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-842. Not mounted. K...

Untitled (Traintracks) - The last Picture Show - 2004 38x37cm. Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Arti...

Sonnet - 2022 20x25cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2022-2029. Not mo...

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...

Daisy and Austen in front of Trailer (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 Including Stefanie Schneider's signed monograph "Instantdreams". 64 pages, hardcover, published by Avenso, 2014. ...

Untitled (Beachshoot) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Mounted under Plexiglass (matte) with Aluminum backing. Signe...

Bend and break - 2020 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-958. No...

Mindscreen 5 (Night on Earth) - 1999 128x126cm, Edition of 5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signed on verso with Certificate. Artist Inventor...

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...

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 Cert...

Blue Cadillac (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x24cm, Edition of 10 Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. artist Inventory #607. Not mounted. ...

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

Many Fairytales (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 Edition of 10, 20x20cm. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, not mounted, Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory...

First Steps (Heavenly Falls) 2016 50x48cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Lambda Print based on the Polaroid Certificate and signature label artist inventory number: 19665. ...

Last Season - so I walked away from my Valley (Wastelands), diptych - 2003 Edition 2/5, 57 x 56 cm each, installed 57 x 118cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji C...

Silver Souls - 2024 - 20x25cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. inventory PL2024-27. Not m...

Even with my eyes closed - 2020 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL20...

Doll, 2017, Edition 2/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs Based on an original Polaroid, Digital C-print, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-128 Kirste...

Untitled (Beachshoot) - 2005 128x125cm, Edition 4/5. Analog C-Print, hand-Printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certifi...

Eat you whole - 2021 - 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventory PL2021-1044. Not m...

New moon rising- 2021 - 20x24cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2021-1021. No...

Shine - 2020 - 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-1005. Not ...

Lap Dance with Light - 2018, 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventory PL201...

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...

Think - 2021 48x40cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2021-1015. Not mou...

'Wonderland' (Bombay all Day) - 2019 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. A...

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...

Wonderland - 2019 20x20 cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2019 - 738. Kir...

Skin and Bones IV - 2018, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival Print based on Polaroid. Not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2018-444....

First Violin #03 - 2013 [From the series Need to be] 25x25cm + white border 0,5cm (total 26x26cm) Archival color print based on original Polaroid on beautiful PHOTO RAG ULTRA SMOOTH...

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...

'Islands', 2018, Print based on an original Polaroid on Hahnemühle photo rag paper, not mounted . 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Signature label and certificate. Not ...

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...

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...

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...

No one to run with - 2020 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-914. No...

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. ...

Wild Things (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Invento...

Landslide - 2021 20x25cm, Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2022-2013. Not mounted. Kirsten Thys van den Aude...

Fern II, 2018, 20x20cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Digital C-print, based on an original Impossible film. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2018-...

Operator? - 2020 20x25cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-8...

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...

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...

Linger - 2020 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-879. Not mounte...

Pause - 2020 48x60cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-949. Not mounted. K...

Stefanie Schneider Polaroid-sized unlimited Mini 'Angie' (Heavenly Falls) - 2016 - signed in front, not mounted. 1 Archival Color Photograph based on the Polaroid. Polaroid siz...

Stevie in Bathub (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, printed on Fuji Crystal Archive, based on the Polar...

'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...

'Heart and Soul' (Bombay Beach) - 2019 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL201...

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...

Blinded - 2020 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-916. Not mount...

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...

The Eye of the Beholder - 2018 Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-print, based on an Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory P...

Reality (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate...

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) ...