1990s Black and White Photography

8 x 10 inch (image size) gelatin silver contact print, on an 11 x 14 inch sheet Edition 10. Signed and stamped on verso. Framing additional. Larger sizes available - please inqui...

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Inquire within for framing. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase...

Original Deborah Turbeville photograph. Signed by the artist.

This will be shipped direct from the artist to you or your framer. In this photograph a silhouetted horse follows a silhouetted figure closely as they trek through a field. The use of abstracted figures helps emphasize the emotional aspect of Kelly's main theme: the bond between humans and animals. Pete Kelly finds his inspiration in nature and the landscape. Specifically focusing on, "The reclamation by nature of urban settings", Kelly finds a particularly strong aesthetic and power in the beauty of the urban landscape. "I try to see beauty around me, drawing beauty from ugliness by capturing close up textures of fading paint or graffiti, or by reducing the shape of the subject to silhouette." Kelly's fascination with photography, the quality, and flexibility of the medium began at a very early age. Born in England in 1966, and as the son of a military man, Kelly spent most of his childhood growing up in West Germany. After leaving school Kelly enrolled in a photography course with the R. A. F Photographic Unit, based in Wildenrath in Germany. Although this initial training lasted only six months, it established a life long passion and dedication to photography. Already an avid traveller, Kelly initially decided to return to the UK,
to study Graphic Design at Stockport College, before moving to America in 1987. After completing an Internship at an innovative commercial photography studio in America,
Kelly began working as a Photographers Assistant. Working closely with a range of photographers allowed him to intrinsically develop his own
refined sense of aesthetic as well as develop and master photographic theory and technique. Now working as a Fine Art Photographer in his own right,
 Pete Kelly utilizes the most cutting edge equipment and techniques,
 painting with photography by compositing and layering photographs...

Listing is for a FRAMED edition print. Edition 7 of 25 After 30 years on West 11th Street, The Robin Rice Gallery celebrates its first ever exhibition for Robin Rice. For decades, Robin has exhibited a wide variety of photographers at the gallery but never her own work. As the show’s title denotes, “It’s About Time.” The opening reception will be held on Wednesday, January 23rd from 6pm to 8pm. The exhibit runs through March 17, 2019. While her photography spans five decades and multiple continents, Rice maintains a cohesive, candid voice that carries throughout all of her work. Observing the world around her in a cinematic way, she possesses an uncanny ability to recognize and capture moments of beauty and the spontaneity of the human spirit. By evoking a wonderstruck sensibility, Rice expresses a deep-rooted love for both people and landscapes using her distinct bohemian style. In this salon-style retrospective, Rice uses an “old school” approach and shoots with her Nikon on Tri-X film. When creating her art, she insists, “the camera has a mind of its own.” The scenes captured in her photography are unedited and thus born purely from the magic of the in-camera composition. In the invitational image, “Tree Farm...

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Inquire within for framing. Edition 1 of 15. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is p...

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Inquire within for framing. Edition 1 of 10. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase. Please allow two weeks for production. Shipping time depends on method of shipping. Price is subject to availability. The Robin Rice Gallery reserves the right to adjust this price depending on the current edition of the photograph. In her new exhibition Churilla draws from her years spent as a swimmer, lifeguard, and athlete to capture the forgotten freedom and exuberance of days of youth spent on the water. Viva la Vida is a mix of timeless portraits and candid photographs "I’ve always been drawn to the water- now my art, my sense of athleticism, freedom and oasis have merged in a way", says Churilla. Her nod to iconic photographers from the past, such as Edward Weston, and Herbert List, is apparent in her portrait work. In another Christian & Nathan Fletcher is in the midst of a surf crusade off the coast of Islamorada, Florida. Christian pioneered a new revolution in surfing style with his aerial techniques. The artist’s genuine connection to her subjects allows the viewer to forget the presence of a camera and to be drawn into the personal narrative. The invitational image Longboard Afternoon, taken at Ditch Plains, Montauk, focuses on the portrayal of the atmosphere rather than the individual subjects. With a 70’s feel the viewer is intrigued by the layers of life, activity and parallel moments shared by silhouettes of surfers carrying longboards at hazy days end. One such image, Gustavo, depicts a male figure seated poolside with head bowed. The pose and the wet sheen to his hair and skin give the subject a classic, sculptural look. All the photographs exhibited in are in various sizes are printed on heavy weight cotton paper with the traditional glossy baryta surface in rich tones of black and white. Her artist mother, Barbara Churilla, involved her in creating art, sculpture, painting and photography from an early age. She was raised in Princeton, New Jersey. She graduated from School of Visual Arts in NYC with a BFA in Photography. Lynda began her photo assisting career with legendary photographer Bruce Weber. Over a period of almost a decade she traveled the world with Weber learning not only knowledge of photography, but also life. Eventually becoming his trusted first assistant before embarking on her own photography adventure. Churilla’s work has been celebrated in American Photo, where she was heralded as one of the young visionaries of 21st century. She has photographed numerous celebrities, such as Cameron Diaz, Jewel, Olivier Martinez, Coldplay, Pet Shop Boys...

Desert Hell, Kuwait, 1991 - Black and White Photography Sebastião Salgado Stamped with photographer's copyright blind stamp Signed, inscribed with title and date on reverse Silver ge...

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Inquire within for framing. Edition 1 of 25. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is p...

This listing is for the unframed photograph. Each year, Robin Rice celebrates a Salon style exhibition to showcase her gallery artists and invite new ones. With Robin’s extensive ...

Desert Hell, Kuwait, 1991 - Black and White Photography Sebastião Salgado Stamped with photographer's copyright blind stamp Signed, inscribed on reverse Silver gelatin print 20 x 24 ...

Church Gate Station, Bombay, India, 1995 Sebastião Salgado International Shipping Available Stamped with photographer’s copyright blind stamp Si...

Monochromatic black matte photography on paper by well-known Polish artist Czeslaw Czaplinski. The artwork is minimalistic with composition in which...

Nobuyoshi ARAKI (*1940, Japan) Untitled (Erotos), 1993 Gelatin silver print Sheet 101.6 x 76.2 cm (40 x 30 in.) Print only – Nobuyoshi Araki Nobuyoshi Araki (Tokyo, 1940) is a Tokyo...

Nobuyoshi ARAKI (*1940, Japan) Untitled (Erotos), 1993 Gelatin silver print Sheet 101.6 x 76.2 cm (40 x 30 in.) Print only – Nobuyoshi Araki Nobuyoshi Araki (Tokyo, 1940) is a Tokyo...

Gelatin silver print Stamped and numbered, verso 14 x 11 inches, sheet (Edition of 15) 20 x 16 inches, sheet (Edition of 10) 24 x 20 inches, sheet (Edition of 10) From the series...

Original B&W Fine Art Fashion Photgraph of Kate Moss and Paul Rowland Kate Moss- Kate Moss (born 16 January 1974) is an English model. Born in Croydon, Greater London, she was discovered in 1988 at age 14 by Sarah Doukas, founder of Storm Model Management, at JFK Airport in New York City. Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend. She is known for her waifish figure, and role in size zero fashion. She had campaigns for designers including Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein, and Chanel. She received an award at the 2013 British Fashion Awards to acknowledge her contribution to fashion over 25 years. In 2007, TIME named her one of the world's 100 most influential people. She has inspired cultural depictions including a £1.5m ($2.8m) 18 carat gold statue of her, sculpted in 2008 for a British Museum exhibition. Paul Rowland- He is the one, that everybody knows about, Paul Rowland. A genius in the modeling industry, president of Ford Models New York, owner of Women Model Management & Supreme Management and photographer. Paul Rowland has more, than 20 years experiences in the industry. Paul Rowland was born in Arkansas in the USA. He left his home town and moved to New York City with the dream to become a painter. Not long after this he founded Women Management and Supreme Models. Paul Rowland founded Women Management in 1989. In his more than 15 years of professional experience, he has made transformation from model to founder of his own agency, and is credited for establishing a unique roster of talent known for personality and accessibility previously unseen in the business. He participated in the exhibition at Art Basel in 2008 In Fashion Photo features an exclusive collection of more than 250 contemporary works of photographic art by more than 35 of the world‟s leading icons in fashion photography. Representing more than 15 countries in five continents, some of the most globally esteemed names from the fashion photo world exhibited their work, including Slim Aarons, Miles Aldridge, Olivia Beasley, Michael Dweck, Arthur Elgort, Charles Frèger, Erwan Frotin, Alice Hawkins, Steve...

"Kate Moss London" by Jake Chessum Portrait of a young 16 year old Kate Moss – before she shot to supermodel stardom and became the icon she is today. Jake grew up in Croydon, South London. He studied Graphic Design at St. Martins School Of Art, and started working as photographer straight out of college. Assignments for The Face, Arena, and an early ad campaign for “Neutrogena” featuring a 16 year old Kate Moss followed. By 1995 Jake was regularly flying the Atlantic on assignment for JFK Jrs' “George” Magazine and in 1999 he upped sticks and moved permanently to NYC where he still lives with his wife and 2 kids...

Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti depicts nature, eroded and broken down by civilization, but does not put man and the environment in opposite camps. He sees an equal relations...

Female Fashion Zen Beach Hat 1999 by Herb Ritts Authentic quadtone photo of a model sitting on the beach with a Zen beach hat, gazing into the horizon. Unframed Matted Overall size : 12 x 16" inches / 31 x 41 cm Image Size: 8.25" x 10.25'' inches / 21 x 26 cm Printed 2012 Quadtone Print Mint condition Certificate of authenticity Framing option available Shipped securely from London, England. Herbert Ritts...

An original signed archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 gsm paper by Scottish artist Ian Sanderson (1951- 2020) titled ‘ Lisa ‘ who was captured on film in 1994...

Elizabeth Hurley photographed by British celebrity and fashion photographer John Stoddart. This risqué iconic black and white photograph expresses her incredible figure, capturing the actress completely naked, against the head of a large Grecian bust...

This print is currently featured in our exhibition, Warm Regards, and will be available to ship after the show closes June 24th, 2017. Pentti Sammallahti is a benchmark figure in co...

This print is currently featured in our exhibition, Warm Regards, and will be available to ship after the show closes June 24th, 2017. Pentti Sammallahti is a benchmark figure in co...

This print is currently featured in our exhibition, Warm Regards, and will be available to ship after the show closes June 24th, 2017. Pentti Sammallahti is a benchmark figure in co...

Foro Italico 1995 Signed, titled, and dated in blue ink, verso Gelatin silver print 13.5 x 8.875 inches (34.3 x 22.5 cm), image 14 x 10.875 inches (35.6 x 27.6 cm), sheet This wo...

# 14 of 24 Signed, dated and numbered Howard Schatz gave up a career as a retinal surgeon and a clinical professor to follow his passion for photography. Schatz first established a following in the 1990s with two collections of underwater photography, Water Dance and Pool Light...

Pentti Sammallahti is a benchmark figure in contemporary Finnish photography. His works depict nature eroded and broken down by civilization, but he does not put man and the environm...

China girl - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 8 This image was captured on film in 1999. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was t...

Groom and the White Arabian, CA 1996 Signed, titled, dated, and numbered in ink, recto Gelatin silver print (Edition of 50) 14.75 x 14.75 inches (37.5 x 37.5 cm), image This work...

Artist: Jeffrey Mayer Limited Edition: Signed and hand numbered in the margin, archival pigment print on 100% cotton paper with a Baryta finish. Authorized worldwide release of 100 prints as follows: 18X24, Edition 70 24X32, Edition 30 Remastered and printed at FATHOM Los Angeles Frame: FATHOM solid hardwood frames are sourced from managed forests that meet or exceed FSC certification standards. The shadow box style frame is 1 1/4 in high by 3/4 in wide with premium plexiglass. Starting his 50+ year career in the summer of 1966, after seeing The Beatles at Shea Stadium...

Erykah Badu - Oversize Signed Limited Edition Print American singer-songwriter Erykah Badu, the Queen of Neo-Soul, photographed for the cover of Musik Mag...

Stripper Performers, Atlanta, 1996 by Leonard Freed is an 11" x 14" vintage print, stamped on verso (back of photo) with Freed's copyright stamp and signed (back of photo) by the art...

Sax - Limited edition archival pigment print, 1999 - Edition of 10 This is an Archival Pigment print on fiber based paper ( Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 gsm , Acid-free and li...

Edition of 45 Signed, dated and numbered in pencil on mount margin recto. Signed, titled, negative date, print date and numbered in pencil with the artist's stamp in black ink on mou...

#1 of 8, signed, dated and numbered Howard Schatz gave up a career as a retinal surgeon and a clinical professor to follow his passion for photography. Schatz first established a fol...

Les Acrobates IV H 35.5 in. x 27.5 in. W Edition 6 Unframed Les Acrobates Series This series was part of a calendar, and pays tribute to the art of the circus and its artists. ___...

Lisa - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 10 This image was captured on film in 1994. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was then prin...

Sax - Limited edition archival pigment print, 1999 - Edition of 10 This is an Archival Pigment print on fiber based paper ( Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 gsm , Acid-free and li...

This is a 18.5" x 12" x archival giclée print on a 22" x 17" archival exhibition paper. It shows a man diving into mediterranean see while jumping from a sailing boat. It is part o...

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO (*1948, Japan) 401 Tyrrhenian Sea, C. Vaticano 1993 Gelatin silver print Sheet 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.) Edition of 25; Ed. no 2/25 For over 40 years, the Japane...

Total Edition of 15 signed and numbered Also available in: 90 x 120 cm / 35.4 x 47.2 in 120 x 160 cm / 47.2 x 63 in A black naked model from the front. Thierry Le Gouès...

Edition 6 of 25. CURRENT EXHIBITION - runs through October 29th, 2017. Any framed photographs purchased during the show will be available after October 29th. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase. Please allow two weeks for production. Shipping time depends on method of shipping. Price is subject to availability. The Robin Rice Gallery reserves the right to adjust this price depending on the current edition of the photograph.” ABOUT In 2008, Andrew Arrick and Michael Hofeman first came across The Robin Rice Gallery and immediately fell in love with the fine art photography becoming fans and collectors of the work. On a visit to the gallery this past winter, Michael and Andrew had a brilliant idea to join forces with Robin to curate an exhibition in tune with the aesthetic of their vintage lifestyle boutique, FINCH hudson...

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO (*1948, Japan) 310 Sea of Japan, Oki 1987 Gelatin silver print Sheet 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.) Edition of 25; Ed. no 15/25 For over 40 years, the Japanese artist...

3 Trees - Signed limited edition archival pigment print, France, 1996 - Edition of 5 This image was captured on film in 1996. The negative was scanned creating a digital file w...

Ellen Kogan performing a tribute to Ruth St. Denis choreography in 1994, signed by Jack Mitchell, taken for The New York Times. This is an 8 x 10" vintage silver gelatin photograph t...

Total Edition of 15 signed and numbered Also available in: 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 in 90 x 120 cm / 35.4 x 47.2 in Nude woman bend over. Thierry Le Gouès...

# 1 of 8 Signed, dated and numbered Howard Schatz gave up a career as a retinal surgeon and a clinical professor to follow his passion for photography. Schatz first established a fo...

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Walking Lulu - 2001, 20x83cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Slide. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) by Mark Gisbourne Projection is a form of apparition that is characteristic of our human nature, for what we imagine almost invariably transcends the reality of what we live. And, an apparition, as the word suggests, is quite literally ‘an appearing’, for what we appear to imagine is largely shaped by the imagination of its appearance. If this sounds tautological then so be it. But the work of Stefanie Schneider is almost invariably about chance and apparition. And, it is through the means of photography, the most apparitional of image-based media, that her pictorial narratives or photo-novels are generated. Indeed, traditional photography (as distinct from new digital technology) is literally an ‘awaiting’ for an appearance to take place, in line with the imagined image as executed in the camera and later developed in the darkroom. The fact that Schneider uses out-of-date Polaroid film stock to take her pictures only intensifies the sense of their apparitional contents when they are realised. The stability comes only at such time when the images are re-shot and developed in the studio, and thereby fixed or arrested temporarily in space and time. The unpredictable and at times unstable film she adopts for her works also creates a sense of chance within the outcome that can be imagined or potentially envisaged by the artist Schneider. But this chance manifestation is a loosely controlled, or, better called existential sense of chance, which becomes pre-disposed by the immediate circumstances of her life and the project she is undertaking at the time. Hence the choices she makes are largely open-ended choices, driven by a personal nature and disposition allowing for a second appearing of things whose eventual outcome remains undefined. And, it is the alliance of the chance-directed material apparition of Polaroid film, in turn explicitly allied to the experiences of her personal life circumstances, that provokes the potential to create Stefanie Schneider’s open-ended narratives. Therefore they are stories based on a degenerate set of conditions that are both material and human, with an inherent pessimism and a feeling for the sense of sublime ridicule being seemingly exposed. This in turn echoes and doubles the meaning of the verb ‘to expose’. To expose being embedded in the technical photographic process, just as much as it is in the narrative contents of Schneider’s photo-novel exposés. The former being the unstable point of departure, and the latter being the uncertain ends or meanings that are generated through the photographs doubled exposure. The large number of speculative theories of apparition, literally read as that which appears, and/or creative visions in filmmaking and photography are self-evident, and need not detain us here. But from the earliest inception of photography artists have been concerned with manipulated and/or chance effects, be they directed towards deceiving the viewer, or the alchemical investigations pursued by someone like Sigmar Polke. None of these are the real concern of the artist-photographer Stefanie Schneider, however, but rather she is more interested with what the chance-directed appearances in her photographs portend. For Schneider’s works are concerned with the opaque and porous contents of human relations and events, the material means are largely the mechanism to achieving and exposing the ‘ridiculous sublime’ that has come increasingly to dominate the contemporary affect(s) of our world. The uncertain conditions of today’s struggles as people attempt to relate to each other - and to themselves - are made manifest throughout her work. And, that she does this against the backdrop of the so-called ‘American Dream’, of a purportedly advanced culture that is Modern America, makes them all the more incisive and critical as acts of photographic exposure. From her earliest works of the late nineties one might be inclined to see her photographs as if they were a concerted attempt at an investigative or analytic serialisation, or, better still, a psychoanalytic dissection of the different and particular genres of American subculture. But this is to miss the point for the series though they have dates and subsequent publications remain in a certain sense unfinished. Schneider’s work has little or nothing to do with reportage as such, but with recording human culture in a state of fragmentation and slippage. And, if a photographer like Diane Arbus dealt specifically with the anomalous and peculiar that made up American suburban life, the work of Schneider touches upon the alienation of the commonplace. That is to say how the banal stereotypes of Western Americana have been emptied out, and claims as to any inherent meaning they formerly possessed has become strangely displaced. Her photographs constantly fathom the familiar, often closely connected to traditional American film genre, and make it completely unfamiliar. Of course Freud would have called this simply the unheimlich or uncanny. But here again Schneider almost never plays the role of the psychologist, or, for that matter, seeks to impart any specific meanings to the photographic contents of her images. The works possess an edited behavioural narrative (she has made choices), but there is never a sense of there being a clearly defined story. Indeed, the uncertainty of my reading here presented, acts as a caveat to the very condition that Schneider’s photographs provoke. Invariably the settings of her pictorial narratives are the South West of the United States, most often the desert and its periphery in Southern California. The desert is a not easily identifiable space, with the suburban boundaries where habitation meets the desert even more so. There are certain sub-themes common to Schneider’s work, not least that of journeying, on the road, a feeling of wandering and itinerancy, or simply aimlessness. Alongside this subsidiary structural characters continually appear, the gas station, the automobile, the motel, the highway, the revolver, logos and signage, the wasteland, the isolated train track and the trailer. If these form a loosely defined structure into which human characters and events are cast, then Schneider always remains the fulcrum and mechanism of their exposure. Sometimes using actresses, friends, her sister, colleagues or lovers, Schneider stands by to watch the chance events as they unfold. And, this is even the case when she is a participant in front of camera of her photo-novels. It is the ability to wait and throw things open to chance and to unpredictable circumstances, that marks the development of her work over the last eight years. It is the means by which random occurrences take on such a telling sense of pregnancy in her work. However, in terms of analogy the closest proximity to Schneider’s photographic work is that of film. For many of her titles derive directly from film, in photographic series like OK Corral (1999), Vegas (1999), Westworld (1999), Memorial Day (2001), Primary Colours (2001), Suburbia (2004), The Last Picture Show (2005), and in other examples. Her works also include particular images that are titled Zabriskie Point, a photograph of her sister in an orange wig. Indeed the tentative title for the present publication Stranger Than Paradise is taken from Jim Jarmusch’s film of the same title in 1984. Yet it would be dangerous to take this comparison too far, since her series 29 Palms (1999) presages the later title of a film that appeared only in 2002. What I am trying to say here is that film forms the nexus of American culture, and it is not so much that Schneider’s photographs make specific references to these films (though in some instances they do), but that in referencing them she accesses the same American culture that is being emptied out and scrutinised by her photo-novels. In short her pictorial narratives might be said to strip films of the stereotypical Hollywood tropes that many of them possess. Indeed, the films that have most inspired her are those that similarly deconstruct the same sentimental and increasingly tawdry ‘American Dream’ peddled by Hollywood. These include films like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990) The Lost Highway (1997), John Dahl’s The Last Seduction (1994) or films like Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise with all its girl-power Bonny and Clyde-type clichés. But they serve no more than as a backdrop, a type of generic tableau from which Schneider might take human and abstracted elements, for as commercial films they are not the product of mere chance and random occurrence. Notwithstanding this observation, it is also clear that the gender deconstructions that the characters in these films so often portray, namely the active role of women possessed of a free and autonomous sexuality (even victim turned vamp), frequently find resonances within the behavioural events taking place in Schneider’s photographs and DVD sequences; the same sense of sexual autonomy that Stefanie Schneider possesses and is personally committed to. In the series 29 Palms (first begun in 1999) the two women characters Radha and Max act out a scenario that is both infantile and adolescent. Wearing brightly coloured fake wigs of yellow and orange, a parody of the blonde and the redhead, they are seemingly trailer park white trash possessing a sentimental and kitsch taste in clothes totally inappropriate to the locality. The fact that Schneider makes no judgment about this is an interesting adjunct. Indeed, the photographic projection of the images is such that the girls incline themselves to believe that they are both beautiful and desirous. However, unlike the predatory role of women in say Richard Prince’s photographs, which are simply a projection of a male fantasy onto women, Radha and Max are self-contained in their vacuous if empty trailer and motel world of the swimming pool, nail polish, and childish water pistols. Within the photographic sequence Schneider includes herself, and acts as a punctum of disruption. Why is she standing in front of an Officers’ Wives Club? Why is Schneider not similarly attired? Is there a proximity to an army camp, are these would-be Lolita(s) Rahda and Max wives or American marine groupies, and where is the centre and focus of their identity? It is the ambiguity of personal involvement that is set up by Schneider which deliberately makes problematic any clear sense of narrative construction. The strangely virulent colours of the bleached-out girls stand in marked contrast to Schneider’s own anodyne sense of self-image. Is she identifying with the contents or directing the scenario? With this series, perhaps, more than any other, Schneider creates a feeling of a world that has some degree of symbolic order. For example the girls stand or squat by a dirt road, posing the question as to their sexual and personal status. Following the 29 Palms series, Schneider will trust herself increasingly by diminishing the sense of a staged environment. The events to come will tell you both everything and nothing, reveal and obfuscate, point towards and simultaneously away from any clearly definable meaning. If for example we compare 29 Palms to say Hitchhiker (2005), and where the sexual contents are made overtly explicit, we do not find the same sense of simulated identity. It is the itinerant coming together of two characters Daisy and Austen, who meet on the road and subsequently share a trailer together. Presented in a sequential DVD and still format, we become party to a would-be relationship of sorts. No information is given as to the background or social origins, or even any reasons as to why these two women should be attracted to each other. Is it acted out? Are they real life experiences? They are women who are sexually free in expressing themselves. But while the initial engagement with the subject is orchestrated by Schneider, and the edited outcome determined by the artist, beyond that we have little information with which to construct a story. The events are commonplace, edgy and uncertain, but the viewer is left to decide as to what they might mean as a narrative. The disaggregated emotions of the work are made evident, the game or role playing, the transitory fantasies palpable, and yet at the same time everything is insubstantial and might fall apart at any moment. The characters relate but they do not present a relationship in any meaningful sense. Or, if they do, it is one driven the coincidental juxtaposition of random emotions. Should there be an intended syntax it is one that has been stripped of the power to grammatically structure what is being experienced. And, this seems to be the central point of the work, the emptying out not only of a particular American way of life, but the suggestion that the grounds upon which it was once predicated are no longer possible. The photo-novel Hitchhiker is porous and the culture of the seventies which it might be said to homage is no longer sustainable. Not without coincidence, perhaps, the decade that was the last ubiquitous age of Polaroid film. In the numerous photographic series, some twenty or so, that occur between 29 Palms and Hitchhiker, Schneider has immersed herself and scrutinised many aspects of suburban, peripheral, and scrubland America. Her characters, including herself, are never at the centre of cultural affairs. Such eccentricities as they might possess are all derived from what could be called their adjacent status to the dominant culture of America. In fact her works are often sated with references to the sentimental sub-strata that underpin so much of American daily life. It is the same whether it is flower gardens and household accoutrements of her photo-series Suburbia (2004), or the transitional and environmental conditions depicted in The Last Picture Show (2005). The artist’s use of sentimental song titles, often adapted to accompany individual images within a series by Schneider, show her awareness of America’s close relationship between popular film and music. For example the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, becomes Leaving in a Jet Plane as part of The Last Picture Show series, while the literalism of the plane in the sky is shown in one element of this diptych, but juxtaposed to a blonde-wigged figure first seen in 29 Palms. This indicates that every potential narrative element is open to continual reallocation in what amounts to a story without end. And, the interchangeable nature of the images, like a dream, is the state of both a pictorial and affective flux that is the underlying theme pervading Schneider’s photo-narratives. For dream is a site of yearning or longing, either to be with or without, a human pursuit of a restless but uncertain alternative to our daily reality. The scenarios that Schneider sets up nonetheless have to be initiated by the artist. And, this might be best understood by looking at her three recent DVD sequenced photo-novels, Reneé’s Dream and Sidewinder (2005). We have already considered the other called Hitchhiker. In the case of Sidewinder the scenario was created by internet where she met J.D. Rudometkin, an ex-theologian, who agreed to her idea to live with her for five weeks in the scrubland dessert environment of Southern California. The dynamics and unfolding of their relationship, both sexually and emotionally, became the primary subject matter of this series of photographs. The relative isolation and their close proximity, the interactive tensions, conflicts and submissions, are thus recorded to reveal the day-to-day evolution of their relationship. That a time limit was set on this relation-based experiment was not the least important aspect of the project. The text and music accompanying the DVD were written by the American Rudometkin, who speaks poetically of “Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California.” The mix of hip reverie and fantasy-based language of his text, echoes the chaotic unfolding of their daily life in this period, and is evident in the almost sun-bleached Polaroid images like Whisky Dance, where the two abandon themselves to the frenetic circumstances of the moment. Thus Sidewinder, a euphemism for both a missile and a rattlesnake, hints at the libidinal and emotional dangers that were risked by Schneider and Rudometkin. Perhaps, more than any other of her photo-novels it was the most spontaneous and immediate, since Schneider’s direct participation mitigated against and narrowed down the space between her life and the art work. The explicit and open character of their relationship at this time (though they have remained friends), opens up the question as the biographical role Schneider plays in all her work. She both makes and directs the work while simultaneously dwelling within the artistic processes as they unfold. Hence she is both author and character, conceiving the frame within which things will take place, and yet subject to the same unpredictable outcomes that emerge in the process. In Reneé’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are increasingly autonomous and subversive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring their own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates. I began this essay by speaking about the apparitional contents of Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives, and meant at that time the literal and chance-directed ‘appearing’ qualities of her photographs. Perhaps, at this moment we should also think of the metaphoric contents of the word apparition. There is certainly a spectre-like quality also, a ghostly uncertainty about many of the human experiences found in her subject matter. Is it that the subculture of the American Dream, or the way of life Schneider has chosen to record, has in turn become also the phantom of it former self? Are these empty and fragmented scenarios a mirror of what has become of contemporary America? There is certainly some affection for their contents on the part of the artist, but it is somehow tainted with pessimism and the impossibility of sustainable human relations, with the dissolute and commercial distractions of America today. Whether this is the way it is, or, at least, the way it is perceived by Schneider is hard to assess. There is a bleak lassitude about so many of her characters. But then again the artist has so inured herself into this context over a long protracted period that the boundaries between the events and happenings photographed, and the personal life of Stefanie Schneider, have become similarly opaque. Is it the diagnosis of a condition, or just a recording of a phenomenon? Only the viewer can decide this question. For the status of Schneider’s certain sense of uncertainty is, perhaps, the only truth we may ever know.

1 Kerry Brougher (ed.), Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, ex. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 1996) 2 Im Reich der Phantome: Fotographie des Unsichtbaren, ex. cat., Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach/Kunsthalle Krems/FotomuseumWinterthur, (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997) 3 Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish – Sigmar Polke, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zürich-Berlin-New York, 1995) 4 Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Occasional Papers, no. 1, 2000. 5 Diane Arbus, eds. Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel...

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