Photographic Paper Nude Photography

'You, the desert and me' (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) 125x150cm, Edition of 5, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Sign...

Tussle #02 (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007, part of the 29 Palms, CA project, Edition of 10, 20x24cm, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, Not mounted, Signature label an...

Silver Bra (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 287. S...

Making out in Car (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label arti...

Male Nude in Motel (Desert Nudes) - 1999 - 20x25cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inve...

Fugitives III (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 2 pieces, each 20x24cm, installed 40x50cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroids. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9364. Not mounted. on offer is a piece from the movie "Till Death do us Part" Stefanie Schneider’s Till Death Do Us Part or “There is Only the Desert for You.” BY DREW HAMMOND Stefanie Schneider’s Til Death...

Untitled (Paradise) - 1999 48x47cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 361. Not m...

The Girl IV (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 38x36cm, Edition of 10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Archive Crystal Paper, matte surface, based...

Please (Sidewinder) - 2005 20x24cm, Edition 1/10. Digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 3391. Not mounted. "private history...

Untitled (Paradise) - 1999, 20x20cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 362. N...

In front of Trailer (Sidewinder) - 2005 Diptych 25x24cm each, installed 25x55cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal archive Paper, based on ...

Untitled 03 (Saigon) - 2003 58x56cm, Edition of 5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by an artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte surface, based on the Polaroid. Artist invento...

Sunday Afternoons (Sidewinder), 2005 Edition of 1/10, 24x20cm, digital C-Print based on an expired Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory # 3765.01. Not mounted...

Waiting (Sidewinder) - 2005 Edition of 5, 125x124cm Analog C-Print, hand-printed and enlarged by the artist, based on the Polaroid, Not mounted, Signature label and Certificate,...

Fugitives III (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x24cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9363....

Untitled (Paradise) - 1999, 20x20cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 20452. 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, that 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 have 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...

Blue Water Pistol (29 Palms, CA), diptych - 1999 Edition 3/10, 67x60cm each, 67x128cm installed. 2 analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroids. Mounted on...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory No. 9273. Not mounted. on offer is a piece from the movie "Till Death do us Part" Stefanie Schneider’s Till...

Blue Water Pistol (29 Palms, CA), diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, 58x56cm each, analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, printed on Fuji Crystal Arch...

Strange Math (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certif...

'Daisy on Bed' (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 38x47cm, Edition of 30 Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and signature label, ar...

Morning Light (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x24cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory #21068. Not mounted. Schneid...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, a...

Male Nude V (29 Palms, CA) - 1999, 20x20cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory # 21971. Not mounted THE ...

Male Nude VI (29 Palms, CA) - 1999, 20x20cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory # 23700. Not mounted. T...

North Shore Yacht Club II (Back in the 80's) - 1999 48x46cm, Edition of 10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. ...

Girl Nude (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, 50x50cm, Archival C-Print, Not mounted, based on the Polaroid, Signature label and Certificate, Artist inve...

Moments in Time (Sidewinder) - 2005 Edition of 5, 20x20cm each, hanging 20x45cm together, including the gap analog C-Prints, hand-printed and enlarged by the artist, based on the 2...

'Foreverly' (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 20x24cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory Nr. 11...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, art...

Tropics Motor Motel II (Memories of Green) - 1999 Edition 1/10, 58x56cm. ANALOG C-Print, hand-printed and enlarged by the artist Stefanie Schneider on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, ...

Bless me Father for I have sinned (Sidewinder) - 2005 - Edition of 1/10, 20x20cm, digital C-Print based on an expired Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory #...

Cups II (Suburbia) - 2004 20x24cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, Signed on verso with Certificate, Artist inventory number: 2912. Not mounted. This pr...

Waiting for Response (Strange Love) - 2005 50 x 40 cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on an i-sight video chat. Signature label and certificate. Not mounted. A piece of S...

Love (The Princess and her Lover) part of the 29 Palms, CA project, 2007, Edition of 1/10, 20x24cm. Digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Not mounted. Signature label and Certifica...

Untitled (Last Picture Show) - 2001 40x40cm, Edition of 10, Lambda Print based on the Polaroid Certificate and signature label artist inventory number: 1268. Not mounted. Insta...

Untitled (Paradise) - 1999, 48x47cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 363. Not mounted. Have you heard about German photographer Stefanie Schneider yet? Her artworks have been featured as cover art for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Cyndi Lauper and also have appeared in the feature movie 'Stay' starring Ryan Gosling. She is now back on the silver screen for the film 'Instant Dreams', a Dutch documentary about the history of Polaroids. Stefanie, your photography is truly unique. How did you come to Polaroid and instant film photography as a means of expression for your art? When I started showing my work in galleries, photography was analog. I first shot Polaroid film in 1993 when it was essentially an ignored medium. I chose to use expired Polaroid film with its imperfections. I embrace them. They symbolise an alternative world view and I adopted it as the voice I had been looking for. A dream world to tell my stories of love. These so called ’imperfections' of the expired Polaroid film reflect the way we remember and dream. It goes with an understanding that everything has flaws, nothing is perfect and that’s ok. Actually feeling the photograph and accepting, the so called flaws as purposeful is the gateway. Like the song 'Hotel California...

Wild Things (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory...

Reality (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, ba...

Narween (Saigon) - 2003 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory Number 22722. Not mou...

Fly me to the Moon (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x49cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inve...

Love Scene against the Wall (Sidewinder), part 4 - 2007 40x40cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 3277. ...

Blow my Mind (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x20cm, Edition 3/10, digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9571.03. Not...

Outtake (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte surface, based ...

Runaway Lovers (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x24cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9373...

The Girl II (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence), 2013, 20x20cm, sold out Edition of 10, Artist Proof 2/2. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Cert...

Fugitives (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x24cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9377. Not...

Jungle Boy (Back in the 80's) - 1999 48x46cm, Edition of 10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory ...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, art...

Silence then (Sidewinder), 2005 Edition of 1/10, 40x50cm, digital C-Print based on an expired Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider: A German ...

Waiting III (Sidewinder) 2005 60x140cm, including white frame, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the 10 Polaroids. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. Stefanie...

Morning Light (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition 1/10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory #21068. Not mounted. Yet wher...

Nothing to do with my Will (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature labe...

150,000 Dollars (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Ce...

Male Nude in Motel II (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 - 30x40cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. . Artist Inventory No. 2777. “It ...

The Girl II (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2011 128x125cm. Edition of 5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and certif...

Cups III (Suburbia) - 2004 50x60cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signed on verso with Certificate, Artist inventory number: 2913. Not mounted. This pro...