Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 2

Stefanie Schneider
Zabriskie Point IV - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait

2003

$410
£311.79
€359.63
CA$574.33
A$642.79
CHF 335.64
MX$7,842.13
NOK 4,260.50
SEK 4,042.95
DKK 2,685.55
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

Zabriskie Point (Stranger than Paradise) - PART IV - 2003 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory 625. Not mounted. published in STRANGER THAN PARADISE, hatje cantz verlag, Ostfilder, 2006, (monograph) LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) by Mark Gisbourne 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 serialization, 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.

More From This Seller

View All
Zabriskie Point I - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Zabriskie Point I (Stranger than Paradise) - 2003 Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x20cm. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroids. Signature label and Certification. Artis...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

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

Zabriskie Point - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Zabriskie Point (Stranger than Paradise) - 6 pieces - 2003 Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x20cm each, together with gaps 45x70cm. 6 archiva...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

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

Zabriskie Point - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Zabriskie Point (Stranger than Paradise) - 6 pieces - 2003 Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x20cm each, together with gaps 45x70cm. 6 archival C-Prints, based on the 6 Pola...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

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

Zabriskie Point II - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Portrait
By Stefanie Schneider
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 Color Photography

Materials

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

Cadiz Valley - Mindscreen 15 - Contemporary, Polaroid, Portrait, Women
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Cadiz Valley - Mindscreen 15 (Night on Earth) - 1999 40x40cm, Edition of 10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. A...
Category

1990s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

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

My Girl (Till Death do us Part) Contemporary, Woman, Polaroid
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My Girl (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 48x46cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #92...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Polaroid, Color, C Print, Parchment Paper

You May Also Like

Large Format Vintage Color 20X24 Polaroid "Radiant Child" signed and dated
By Dennis Farber
Located in Surfside, FL
30X26 with Mat. (20X24 inch polaroid) From The New York Times: Dennis Farber abducts children from photographic illustrations in children's books of the 30's. He paints Ku Klux Klan costumes on some toddlers at a birthday party, as if he could see their character and future by the light of the birthday candles...
Category

1980s Figurative Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

"Pola Girls 11" Unique Polaroid Photography by Larsen Sotelo
By Larsen Sotelo
Located in Culver City, CA
"Pola Girls 11" Unique Polaroid Photography by Larsen Sotelo 4.2" x 3.5" inch - including white Polaroid frame 3.1" x 3,1" inch - image area Comes with A...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Polaroid

Chelsea Hotel #3 – Emma Summerton, Polaroid, Interior, Woman, Nude, Polaroid
By Emma Summerton
Located in Zurich, CH
Emma SUMMERTON (*1970, Australia) Chelsea Hotel #3, 2003 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Paper 100 x 120 cm (39 3/8 x 47 1/4 in.) Edition of 5, plus 2 AP; Ed. no. 1/5 Print only...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

"Pola Girls 12" Nude Polaroid Photography - Unique piece by Larsen Sotelo
By Larsen Sotelo
Located in Culver City, CA
"Pola Girls 12" Nude Polaroid Photography - Unique piece by Larsen Sotelo 4.2" x 3.5" inch - including white Polaroid frame 3.1" x 3,1" inch - image area ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Polaroid

"Pola Girls 7" Nude Polaroid Photography - Unique piece by Larsen Sotelo
By Larsen Sotelo
Located in Culver City, CA
"Pola Girls 7" Nude Polaroid Photography - Unique piece by Larsen Sotelo 4.2" x 3.5" inch - including white Polaroid frame 3.1" x 3,1" inch - image area C...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Polaroid

"Pola Girls 6" Nude Polaroid Photography - Unique piece by Larsen Sotelo
By Larsen Sotelo
Located in Culver City, CA
"Pola Girls 6" Nude Polaroid Photography - Unique piece by Larsen Sotelo 4.2" x 3.5" inch - including white Polaroid frame 3.1" x 3,1" inch - image area ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Polaroid