Polaroid Nude Photography

Star 80 (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 #57...

Now I’m Here and Now I’m Gone II - 2011 from the Daisy McCrackin Record Shoot 'God Willing' 30x40cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original P...

Blue House' (29 Palms, CA) - 1998, triptych Edition 4/25, 38x37cm each, together installed 38 x 125cm with gaps. Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on the 3 origi...

Fair Weather (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005, 20x24cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label Artist ...

Enchanted (Saigon) - 2003 Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 58x56cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 465. Not mount...

You, the desert, and me II (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. digital C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory # 11922. Offered is a piece from the movie: The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence A tale told with blemished and expired Polaroid film about the hopes and dreams of a newly orphaned girl after losing her parents who lived in the Californian desert in a vintage Spartan travel-trailer. -filmed with Polaroid film stock and Super-8 footage, overlaid with poetic voice-over monoloque - this feature film creates a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl's journal (Palms Springs life magazine / Caroline Ryder) Stefanie Schneider By Caroline Ryder Travel up a bumpy dirt road in Morongo Valley, the trail strewn with rocks, and you’ll come upon a gigantic 1950s trailer in pristine condition, ringed by a white picket fence, with cottontail rabbits hopping among neat little rose bushes that bloom in spite of the broiling desert heat. Inside the trailer are period accents—a vintage radio, vintage fridge, little crocheted doilies and dusty gilt-framed photographs. It’s a surreal home-sweet-home, an Americana fantasy as imagined by German artist and experimental filmmaker Stefanie Schneider whose work is so inspired by the desert landscape, she made it her home in 2005. “There’s a completely different light here than in Germany, a beautiful light,” says Schneider, whose 10 acre property in Morongo is dotted with vintage trailers. They surround her midcentury home, and serve as sets for her photo shoots or as guest lodgings for her friends from Hollywood and Berlin. “But what I really love about the desert is the desolation,” she continues. “The sense of hope for something that might or might not come. It’s easy to see our dreams projected in the desert.” Famed for shooting trailer park chic fine art photographs exclusively on vintage Polaroid film, Schneider recently completed her most ambitious project to date—a feature film made entirely of Polaroid stills (4000 images in total), the story set around her magnificent 1950s trailer. The film, called “The Girl Behind The White Picket Fence” tells the story of a broken-hearted girl who lives in the trailer. Her name is Heather, and she is played by model Heather Megan Christie, girlfriend of actor Joaquin Phoenix...

After the Dance (Sidewinder) - 2005 50x40cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 32...

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 ...

Stefanie Schneider Polaroid-sized unlimited Mini 'Waiting' (Sidewinder) - 2005 - signed in front, not mounted. 1 Archival Color Photograph based on the Polaroid. Polaroid sized ...

'Fairy' (Heavenly Falls) - 2016 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, Certificate and signature label artist inventory number: 19719, Not mounted. The ...

Another Day in Paradise (The Last Picture Show) - 1999, 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature...

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

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...

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. 20452. ...

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...

I Think I'm a Ghost II - 2011 from the Daisy McCrackin Record Shoot 'God Willing' 38x37cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. ...

Now I’m Here and Now I’m Gone - 2011 from the Daisy McCrackin Record Shoot 'God Willing' 30x30cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Pola...

Everything put Together (Suburbia) - 2004 50x50cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signature label with Certificate, Artist Inv. #2914. Not mounted. The ...

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 Inven...

You turn from Me (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x20cm, Edition 1/10, digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9555.01....

Hard Luck Princess II - 2011 from the Daisy McCrackin Record Shoot 'God Willing' 30x40cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. C...

Girl with Silver Bra (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist...

Small Breasts (Strange Love) - 2003, Edition 1/5, 60x80cm each, installed with gaps 127x80cm, 2 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, printed on Fuji Archive Paper, based ...

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 Invento...

Crack in the Wall (Till Death do us Part), - 2005, LAST EDITION 24x20cm, sold out Edition of 10, Artist Proof 2/2, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signatu...

Untitled (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x57cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and Certi...

What Are We Gonna Do? (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005 Including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective...

Untitled (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory N...

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...

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...

The Games we played (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. ...

Fairy (Heavenly Falls) - 2016, 50x50cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist inventory number: 1...

Making out in Car (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 arti...

Hard Luck Princess III - 2011 from the Daisy McCrackin Record Shoot 'God Willing' 30x40cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. ...

Untitled 01 (Saigon) - 2003 Edition 2/5, 57x58cm, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte surface, based on a Polaroid. Artist Inventory Nu...

Musing (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 24x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, artist Invento...

Whisky and Water VI (Sidewinder), diptych - 2005 24x20cm each, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the 2 original Polaroids. Signature label and certif...

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. 363. Not mounted. Schneider harnesses the unpredictable chemical mutations of expired Polaroid film, where bursts of color erupt across the surface, destabilizing the photograph's traditional allegiance to reality. These vivid distortions draw her characters into ethereal, trance-like dreamscapes. Like fleeting sequences from a vintage road movie, Schneider’s images shimmer with a transitory quality, dissolving before any definitive conclusions can be drawn. Their ephemeral essence is conveyed through subtle gestures and enigmatic motives. Refusing to yield to the constraints of reality, Schneider’s work keeps alive a delicate interplay of dream, desire, fact, and fiction, blurring the boundaries between them with poetic ambiguity. Stefanie Schneider’s work echoes the heart of American art, channeling the cinematic nostalgia of Ed Ruscha’s roadscapes, the stark sensuality of Georgia O’Keeffe’s deserts, and the haunting solitude of Edward Hopper...

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

Happy Days (Till Death do Us part) - 2005 20x20cm, sold out Edition of 10, this is Artist Proof 2/2. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Arti...

'Prom Nights' (Till Death Do Us part) - 2005 20x20cm, sold out Edition of 10, this is Artist Proof 2/2. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. a...

Narween (Saigon) - 2003 58x56cm, Edition 2/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the original Polaroid. Mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection. Artist in...

Wheel Chair Corridor (Burned) - 1999 Edition of 10, 40x40cm Analog hand print, on Velvet Watercolor, 310gsm, No OBAs, Bright White, Acid Free based on the Polaroid. Signature labe...

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

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...

'Love Scene against the Wall" (Sidewinder) - 2007, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 4 x 20x20cm, 20 x 100 cm installed with gaps in between each piec...

Daisy in front of Trailer (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005 Edition 4 of 5, 125x123 cm. Analog C-Print, printed on Fuji Cristal Archive Paper, hand-printed by the artist, based on an expired Polaroid. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventory 9250.04. Not mounted. Note: the addional images show the edition 3/5 mounted (sold). Stefanie Schneider’s Till Death Do Us Part or “There is Only the Desert for You.” BY DREW HAMMOND Stefanie Schneider’s Til Death...

A Room with no View (Burned) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 
Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inven...

The Girl III (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 38x36cm, Edition 1/10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Archive Crystal Paper, matte surface, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory # 15705.01. Not mounted. Schneider harnesses the unpredictable chemical mutations of expired Polaroid film, where bursts of color erupt across the surface, destabilizing the photograph's traditional allegiance to reality. These vivid distortions draw her characters into ethereal, trance-like dreamscapes. Like fleeting sequences from a vintage road movie, Schneider’s images shimmer with a transitory quality, dissolving before any definitive conclusions can be drawn. Their ephemeral essence is conveyed through subtle gestures and enigmatic motives. Refusing to yield to the constraints of reality, Schneider’s work keeps alive a delicate interplay of dream, desire, fact, and fiction, blurring the boundaries between them with poetic ambiguity. Stefanie Schneider’s work echoes the heart of American art, channeling the cinematic nostalgia of Ed Ruscha’s roadscapes, the stark sensuality of Georgia O’Keeffe’s deserts, and the haunting solitude of Edward Hopper’s paintings...

'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...

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

The Princess Kiss (The Princess and her Lover), 2009, Edition of 2/5, 100x98cm analog C-Print based, printed by the artist, on a Polaroid, not mounted, Signature label and Certi...

Untitled 02 (Saigon) - 2003 57x58cm, Edition of 5 plus 2 Artist Proofs. analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte surface, based on the Polar...

The Girl III (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, base...

He holds her head (Sidewinder) - 2005 20x24cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and certificate. Artist Inventory 3299...

Shooting Range (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition 8/10, Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label, Artist Inventory # 9487. Not mounted...

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...

Happy endings (29 Palms, CA) - 2016 from 'The Girl behind the White Picket Fence' Original Polaroid - Unique Piece 1/1, 10.4 x 10.2 cm including white Polaroid frame. Signed on b...