Items Similar to Halfway Point (The Last Picture Show)
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 2
Stefanie SchneiderHalfway Point (The Last Picture Show)2005
2005
About the Item
Halfway Point (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 No 20304.
Not mounted.
LIFE’S A DREAM
(The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider)
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 The fact that Schneider uses out-of-date Polaroid film stock to take her pictures only intensifies the sense of their apparitional contents when they are realised.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 film making 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....
- Creator:Stefanie Schneider (1968, German)
- Creation Year:2005
- Dimensions:Height: 7.88 in (20 cm)Width: 7.88 in (20 cm)Depth: 0.04 in (1 mm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Morongo Valley, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU652314318542
About the Seller
4.9
Platinum Seller
These expertly vetted sellers are 1stDibs' most experienced sellers and are rated highest by our customers.
Established in 1996
1stDibs seller since 2017
955 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 2 hours
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Morongo Valley, CA
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Early DaysBy Kirsten Thys van den AudenaerdeLocated in Morongo Valley, CAEarly Days - 2017, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsC Print, Color, Polaroid, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper
- Money, Money, Money - 21st Century, Polaroid, Landscape PhotographyBy Kirsten Thys van den AudenaerdeLocated in Morongo Valley, CAMoney, Money, Money - 2016, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2016-120. Not m...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid
- AwaylandBy Kirsten Thys van den AudenaerdeLocated in Morongo Valley, CAAwayland - 2017, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proof. Digital C-Print, based on an Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-275. Not mounted. K...Category
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid, Photographic Paper
- Let's spend the Night togetherBy Kirsten Thys van den AudenaerdeLocated in Morongo Valley, CALet's spend the Night together, 2016 - Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Digital C-print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inven...Category
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid, Photographic Paper
- DrivingBy Kirsten Thys van den AudenaerdeLocated in Morongo Valley, CADriving - 2017, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-print, based on an original Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory Pl2017-356. Not mo...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid
- Beach life (Bombay all Day) - Contemporary, Polaroid, Women, 21st CenturyBy Kirsten Thys van den AudenaerdeLocated in Morongo Valley, CA'Beach life' (Bombay all Day) 2019, 20x20cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inven...Category
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
MaterialsC Print, Color, Polaroid, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper
You May Also Like
- New York IV - Contemporary Landscape Polaroid Original PhotographBy Pia ClodiLocated in Salzburg, ATNew York IV - Framed Contemporary Polaroid Photograph Like much of Pia Clodi's work, 'New York IV' leaves a trace of the fast, nomadic life she leads,. Here, a photograph of a hig...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, Polaroid
- New York V - Contemporary Landscape Polaroid Original Photograph FramedBy Pia ClodiLocated in Salzburg, ATNew York V - Framed Contemporary Original Polaroid Photograph Like much of Pia Clodi's work, 'New York V' leaves a trace of the fast, nomadic life she leads. This work is represen...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, Polaroid
- New York VI - 21st Century Contemporary Original Polaroid Photograph FramedBy Pia ClodiLocated in Salzburg, ATNew York VI - Framed Contemporary Original Polaroid Photograph Like much of Pia Clodi's work, 'New York VI' leaves a trace of the fast, nomadic life she leads. In this instance, C...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, Polaroid
- Paris Walks I - Framed Contemporary Landscape Polaroid Original PhotographBy Pia ClodiLocated in Salzburg, ATParis Walks - Contemporary Black & White Polaroid Original Photograph Framed Pia Clodi’s works encompass moments and mementos from her countless walks through cities as well as nat...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, Polaroid
- New York II - Contemporary Landscape Polaroid Original PhotographBy Pia ClodiLocated in Salzburg, ATNew York II - Framed Contemporary Original Polaroid Photograph Like much of Pia Clodi's work, 'New York II' leaves a trace of the fast, nomadic life she leads, this time depicting...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, Polaroid
- New York III - Contemporary Landscape Polaroid Original Photograph FramedBy Pia ClodiLocated in Salzburg, ATNew York III - Framed Contemporary Original Polaroid Photograph Like much of Pia Clodi's work, 'New York II' leaves a trace of the fast, nomadic life she leads, this time doucment...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, Polaroid
