Polaroid Landscape Photography

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Renée's Dream (29 Palms, CA) - 2005 32 pieces, Edition 3/5, 31 x 38 cm each, installed 276 x 164 cm including gaps. 32 analog C-Prints, hand printed by the artist, based on 27 or...

Wild Things (Till Death do us Part) - 2008 20x24cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #9503 Not mounted....

OK Corral - part 2 - (Stranger than Paradise), - 1999, 20x20 cm, Edition 5/10, digital C-Print based on the Polaroid, Artist Inventory 318_2.18, Not mounted. 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 dream scapes. 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) 2018 Participation Bombay Beach Biennale, Bombay Beach, USA (G) March Available to All, Rough Play Projects - Site Specific, Joshou Tree, USA (G) curated by Deborah Martin with Adam Berg, Doron Gazit, Kellan Barnebey, Chris Sanchez, Aili Schmelzt 2017 BLICKFELD Analoge Fotografie, Kommunale Galerie Steglitz-Zehlendorf (G) (catalog), (upcoming)
 Rosegallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica (G) Magie des Moments, 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 The Ballery in Heat, The Ballery, Berlin (G) 
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, Shirana Shahbazi, Sophie Calle, Martin Kippenberger, Arnulf Rainer, Thomas Ruff, Katharina Grosse, Jonathan Meese & others (catalog) 
The Girl behind the White Picket Fence, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (S)
 Heather's Dream, Short, German Competition Short Film Festival Oberhausen 
Multimedia Presentation with Artist Stefanie Schneider, Palms Springs Art Museum, Annenberg Theater
 The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, (G) with Ansel Adams, Bruce Charlesworth...

Palm Springs Palm Trees (Californication) - 2023 50x49cm. Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist I...

Stefanie Schneider Polaroid sized unlimited Mini 'Planes' - 2001 - signed in front, not mounted. 1 Digital Color Photograph based on the Polaroid. Polaroid sized open Editions 19...

Weight of the World - 2017 30x24cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate Artist inventory PL2017-...

Untitled (Cowboys and Angels) - 2005 39x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. artist Inventory No...

Male Nude (29 Palms,CA) - 2008 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #293 Not mounted. Stefanie S...

48x47cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #9309 Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider's...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Roy's Cafe (California Badlands) - 2010 20x24cm, Edition 2/10, Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 10905. Not m...

'And also the Trees’ - 2017 - 21 x 20 cm, Edition 3/10, digital C-Print based on a reclaimed Polaroid negative. Numbered and signed on the back by the artist. Not mounted. Art...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 10, hand-signed ...

Weight of the World - 2017 30x24cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate Artist inventory PL2017-...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Leaving (Strange Love) - 2005 20x30cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a 35mm film. Signature label and certificate. Not mounted. Stefanie Schnei...

Stefanie Schneider's work was used for Marc Forster's movie 'Stay'. Featuring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling. Naomi and Ryan were both portraying artists and Stefanie's ...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Wabi-Sabi (Sidewinder) - 2007 40x40cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, Not mounted. Artist Inventory No. 11165 Stefanie...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Lerici '25 is an original black and white Polaroid photograph captured on SX-70 film along the Ligurian coastline of Italy. The image is part of a limited edition of 20, hand-signed ...

Fabien (The Last Picture Show) triptych - 2005, 30x30cm each, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. 3 Archival C-Prints, based on the three original Polaroids. Certificate and sign...

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 ...

Crushing - 2017, 20x20cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Based on a Polaroid, digital C-Print, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-792. ...

Autumn Drift (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 ...

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...

Wonder Backyard II - 2018 50 x 66 cm, Edition 2 of 5. Photograph printed in Hanemühle Baryta Photo Rag 340gr, based on a Hand painted Fuji Instant Film original (not mounted). S...

Athena and Henry (Stay), from Ryan Gosling's memory sequence - 2006 50x49cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate a...

Palm Springs Palm Trees X (Californication) - 2019 78x76cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. digital C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist ...

Fata Margana - 2017 Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proof Archival C-print, based on the Polaroid not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-138 Kirs...

Wandering - switched off - (Wastelands) - 2003 Edition 4/5, 57x56cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Artist inven...

Fairytale - 2016, 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-112. Not mounted....

Magic Hour (Musica Poetica) - 1999 Edition 3/10, 44x59cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed and enlarged by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist...

Leaving Town (Sidewinder) - 2005 80x80cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 3...

Palm Springs Palm Trees (Californication) - 2023 20x20cm. Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist I...

Dayworker (American Depression), diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 58x57cm each, 58x122cm installed including an 8cm gap in between both pieces. 2 analog C-Prin...

True Colors (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 i...

Gasoline (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 6 pieces 128x126cm each, 263x390cm installed with gaps, sold out Edition of 5, Artist Proof 1/2, 6 analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the ar...

Stand, 2017, Edition 2/7 Based on a Polaroid Digital C-print, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-156 Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde is a ...

Circle of Magic - Spellbound (29 Palms, CA) - 2009, 20x24cm, Edition 8/10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #5919.08. ...

Buried (Stranger than Paradise) - 2003 Edition of 5 plus 2 Artist Proofs. 38x36cm each, 90x175cm installed. 8 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive P...

Village Motel - Heated Pool (The Last Picture Show) - 2005 58x56cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Chrystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid...

Palm Springs Palm Trees XI (Californication) - 2019 40x40cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory Number 22...

Tessellate - 2023, 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2024-007. ...

It's gonna be ok (Till Death do us Part) - 2008 Including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 202...

Wonder Valley (29 Palms, CA) - 2008 125x154cm, Edition 2/5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on a Polaroid, artist inventory numbe...

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 ...

Into the dark (Deconstructivism) - 2020 - about the narrative potential of images. 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, Artist Inventory 4600. Signat...

Untitled (Stage of Consciousness) - 2008 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #6328 Not mounted. ...

'Bluebell Dream', 2017 Edition 2/7 plus 2 Artist Proof Based on a Polaroid, digital C-Print, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-306 Kirste...

Fifty Shades - 2017, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Digital C-print, based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-333. Not mounted...

'Untitled' Oilfields) - 2004, 60x60cm, Edition 4/10. Analog C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #1212.04. Not mounted. ...

Those were the Days - 2020 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-8...

Untitled (The Last Picture Show), 2005 38x36cm, Edition 2/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the original SX-70 Polaroid. Inventory No. 781.02. 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 dark room. 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...

Welcome to Alcatraz (San Francisco) - 2023 40x40cm, Edition of 7, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signed on back with Certificate. Not mounted. The City San Francisco has always been a special place to me. I am overcome with romantic notions thinking about it. Some real, some imagined. Walking down to Market street feeling my heart skip a beat To see someone who looks like you, I guess that I'm not through Dreaming of the one I love, you know what I'm dreaming of San Francisco days, San Francisco nights San Francisco Days - Chris Isaak...

Anyway the Wind Blows - 2017 25x19cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2...

By the Pool (2015), Edition of 10. 50 x 50 cm. Archival Print on Canson Barita Fiber Rag 310gr, based on an analog Photograph (not mounted). Signed on back with Certificate. Crist...