Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Stefanie Schneider
Burning II - Gestures - analog C-Print, printed by the Artist - 40x40cm

2004

About the Item

'Burning II' (Gestures) 38 x 37cm, Edition 3/5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory No. 653_2.03 Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider: THE GREATER THE EMPTINESS THE GRANDER THE ART – Stefan Gronert Not “Twenty-six Gasoline Stations” but “29 Palms, CA”! Forty-two years after Ed Ruscha’s legendary book, there is no gasoline station at the beginning of the book that is here at hand. Instead it is the open hearted Radha – with orange hair, pink-colored overalls and a bashful, or rather cunning, gaze that is directed downward – with which this book begins! And with her and with Max – attention: a woman –, one whose appearance is in accordance with the same styling, it comes to an end as well – after Radha has in the meantime colored her fingernails pink, again endowed with the same open heartedness and the same look which now, however, reveals in combination with her altered facial expression an “old-maidish” turning away from the viewer. This may serve as an example for a vivid and understandable transformation which flows into a large-scale representation of a cheerless settlement beneath a shining, blue sky – there a figure, lost straightaway, becomes overwhelmed. Pictures which in 1998/99 play in the harsh California sunlight or in spaces that are not exactly cozy and comfortable. “Play” is the correct word in this regard, for precisely in view of the pictures of persons, there remains more than just doubt as to whether we are looking at staged scenes or have simply happened upon the high-strung “reality” of a (wannabe) film world. Yet not all the pictures have the same character of a glaring, plastic world. Upon flipping through the pages, we also encounter unpretentious, literally “colorless” scenes in undefined interiors, or unspectacular views resembling a still life and opening out onto a nowhere land. That which connects all participants in these picture-worlds is the observation that they appear to be exhausted, lost, empty or uncertain about their existence. One is almost reminded of the empty gazes and loneliness of the protagonists in the pictures of large cities painted by Manet or Degas in the era of Early Modernism. With one exception, all the photographs which are reproduced here, which originally measure 60 by 70 cm but which here, in their present size and configuration, make productive use of the possibilities presented by the medium of the book, manifest several elements of B-movies: smoking, naked, made-up and muscular persons who are not inclined to conform entirely to the vision of Hollywood dreams. Beauty and vexation, eroticism and loneliness enter into a mixture which reveals the rift between desire and truth. From a distance, one is reminded of the “Untitled Film Stills” of Cindy Sherman, which in this regard are not nearly as drastic. Yet where as her photos from the seventies are characterized by a cool, objective mode of representation in historicizing black-and-white, the photographs of Stefanie Schneider evince a soft, sometimes seemingly pictorial visual language with a coloration ranging from the pale to the artificial-glaring. As in many other pictures of Stefanie Schneider which often present themselves to us as sequences, these photos refer back as well to the perceptual stereotypes of film. Making use of instant photography, proceeding from which significantly enlarged C-prints come into being, her pictures summon up the impression of a narration without ultimately becoming part of a plot that is readable in a linear fashion. The illusion of the narrative element, however, simply enhances the experience of a renunciation of just this aspect. For the picture titles as well – and also the title of this publication – provide no real help with the imaginary construction of a story. Nevertheless, names return which include the first name of the artist herself: hence is everything not in fact a game but rather a series of authentic and instantaneous images, or is it after all nothing other than a staging, a game – how real is life? The paucity of plot elements, which contradicts all expectation of a cinematic style, as well as the emptiness and loneliness of the persons, enters into a peculiar, sometimes seemingly surreal association with the magic of the sun-drenched expanses of the dreamlike landscape. Just as the fantasy and imagination of the viewer are stimulated, so to the same great extent does the redemption of these visual figures of love founder on a void whose glaze is created, not least of all, by the peculiar blurriness of the photographic representation. The seemingly amateur character of these pictures, which have in no way been treated with any excessive scrupulousness, leaves us with a stimulating incertitude as to their interpretation, one in which the spheres of reality, fiction or dream are scarcely capable any longer of being differentiated. Thus the gaps and the scenic openness of what is presented ultimately set in motion a self-appraisal. So what remains after “29 Palms, CA”? Perhaps that hope which deviates from the saying of Ruscha that is quoted in the title: The stronger the photography the better the reality will be! Translated by George Frederick Takis Stefanie Schneider lives and works in the California High Desert 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, Bombay Beach Biennale 2018.

More From This Seller

View All
Ewan McGregor - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Figurative Photography
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Ewan McGregor' (Stay) - 2006 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory No. 5007.01 Not mounted Stefanie Sc...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

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

Untitled (Oilfields)
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Untitled' (Oilfields) - 2004 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory # 1207. Not mounted. OILFIELDS...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Photography

Materials

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

OK Corral - part 2 - (Stranger than Paradise)
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
OK Corral - part 2 - (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999, 20 x 20 cm, Edition 5/10, Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid Artist Inventory 3182.18. Not mounted Stefanie Schneider's s...
Category

1990s Contemporary Figurative Photography

Materials

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

Footsteps in the Sand (The Last Picture Show)
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Tree in the Plane (The Last Picture Show) - 2006, 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label....
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

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

Three Girls IX (The Last Picture Show)
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Three Girls IX (The Last Picture Show) - 2006, 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. A...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

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

Blowin' In The Wind III (The Last Picture Show)
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Blowin' In The Wind III (The Last Picture Show) - 2002, 38x37cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

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

You May Also Like

Saint Kitts and Nevis, 1984 - Horse Riding on Caribbean Island near Palm Trees
By Slim Aarons
Located in Brighton, GB
Saint Kitts and Nevis, 1984 - Horse Riding on Caribbean Island near Palm Trees 16 x 20" print. Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print. Edition of 150. Printed Later. "Saint Kitts and...
Category

20th Century American Modern Landscape Photography

Materials

C Print, Photographic Paper, Color, Digital

Poolside Socialites, 1970 - Poolside Glamour at Kaufmann House in Palm Springs
By Slim Aarons
Located in Brighton, GB
Poolside Socialites, 1970 - Poolside Glamour at Kaufmann House in Palm Springs 16 x 20" print. Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print. Edition of 15...
Category

20th Century American Modern Figurative Photography

Materials

C Print, Photographic Paper, Color, Digital

Youth II, 2020 - Limited Edition Digital Color C-Print
Located in Brighton, GB
Youth II is a C-Type Print by contemporary photographer Ben Thomas in a Limited Edition of 10 in this size. Hasselblad Master Photographer Ben Thomas moved...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

C Print, Photographic Paper, Color

Bondi Foundations, 2020 - Limited Edition Digital C-Print in Color
Located in Brighton, GB
Bondi Foundations is a gorgeous C-Type Print in a Limited Edition of 10 in this size by contemporary photographer Ben Thomas. Hasselblad Master Photograph...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

C Print, Photographic Paper, Color

The Distance, 2020 - Limited Edition Color Digital C-Type Print
Located in Brighton, GB
The Distance is a beautiful C-Type Print in an Edition of 10 in this size by contemporary photographer Ben Thomas. Hasselblad Master Photographer Ben Thom...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

C Print, Photographic Paper, Color

Bondi Interpretation - Limited Edition Digital Color C-Type Print
Located in Brighton, GB
Bondi Interpretation is a dynamic C-Type Print in a Limited Edition of 10 in this size by contemporary photographer Ben Thomas. Hasselblad Master Photogra...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Photography

Materials

C Print, Photographic Paper, Color

Recently Viewed

View All