1990s Photography

"Schnitzel Please!" This timeless, charming photo of a town favorite Dresden Dog, was captured by New York based photographer Fernando Natalici in Germany...

An Unknown Kate Moss At 16 by Jake Chessum 1990 Oversize limited edition edition size 7 only this size printed 2021 Archival pigment print numbered and signed by the artist unframed ships securely from London England Framing options available Jake Chessum British-born, New York-based photographer Jake Chessum’s portfolio includes Amy Winehouse, Robbie Williams...

Ahmadi Oil Fields by Steve McCurry depicts two figures standing in a fiery landscape. They are both dressed in white hazmat suits with gas masks. Both figures are fixated by the fire...

Behind Glass - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 5 Brighton UK, 1997 This image was captured on film. The negative was scan...

Annie Leibovitz Photographs 1970-1990 (Hand signed by Annie Leibovitz), 1993 Offset lithograph poster (hand signed) Boldly signed in black marker on the front 30 × 24 inches Ansel Adams Center for Photography, San Francisco in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Unframed This offset lithograph poster was published on the occasion of the Annie Leibovitz' 1993 survey exhibition at the Ansel Adams Center for photograph in San Francisco. The photograph of course depicts the actor and renowned art collector Steve Martin in front of a Franz Kline painting entitled Rue, which Martin apparently once owned. Steve Martin was said to have always wanted to be part of the painting; Complete with black brushstrokes on his white suit, Martin realized his dream and posed for Leibowitz in front of Rue. (Of course the irony is that Martin cuts a gleeful, almost clownish pose in front of a painting, Rue, whose very name means sorry and regret. Perhaps Martin will rue the day he sold this Franz Kline!) A companion photo appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The Portland Art Museum also exhibited the photo Annie Leibovitz took of Steve Martin in Beverly Hills when he posed for his portrait. A coveted poster when hand signed by Annie Leibovitz Provenance: Collection of former Trustee of the Portland Museum of Art Annie Leibovitz Biography: Born in 1949, Annie Leibovitz graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1971. Photos she took during college while living on a kibbutz in Israel and working to uncover the remains of King Solomon’s Temple helped land her a job at Rolling Stone magazine, where she was quickly named chief photographer. Between photographing John Lennon and documenting the Rolling Stones’ 1975 concert tour, Liebovitz reinforced her reputation as the most prominent celebrity photographer of her generation. In 1983, she moved to Vanity Fair, where she broadened her range of subjects from rock stars to other public figures like the Dalai Lama. In 1991, Leibovitz became only the second living photographer to be featured in an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Overview and Early Life For decades, Annie Leibovitz and her camera have exposed to the public eye subtleties of character in rock stars, politicians, actors, and literary figures that lay beneath their celebrity personae. Her work first fueled the American fascination with rock ’n’ roll dissidents in the 1970s and then, in the 1980s and 1990s, captured the essence of the day’s great cultural icons. Her photographs make plain that, as Leibovitz herself once put it, she was not afraid to fall in love with her subjects. Anna-Lou Leibovitz was born on October 2, 1949, in Westbury, Connecticut. She was the third of six children of Marilyn Leibovitz, a modern dance instructor, and Sam Leibovitz, an air force lieutenant colonel. As the daughter of a career military officer, Leibovitz moved with her family frequently from town to town. The constant relocation fostered strong ties among the six Leibovitz children. Education and Work with Rolling Stone Leibovitz attended the San Francisco Art Institute from 1967 until 1971. She shifted her focus from painting to photography early in her college career. In 1969, she lived on Kibbutz Amir in Israel. The archaeological team on which she worked during her five months in Israel uncovered the remains of King Solomon’s Temple. By the time Leibovitz received her bachelor of fine arts degree in 1971, her photographs of Israel and a picture of the poet Allen Ginsberg at a San Francisco peace march had already landed her a job at the music magazine Rolling Stone. Soon after she was hired, Leibovitz convinced editor Jann Wenner to grant her a breakthrough assignment. Leibovitz flew with Wenner to New York City to interview John Lennon. A photo from that trip adorned the cover of Rolling Stone, the first of dozens Leibovitz would shoot over the course of her career with the music magazine. In 1973, she was named chief photographer. The mid-1970s brought Leibovitz an increasing amount of notoriety and its concomitant tribulations. In 1975, the rock band the Rolling Stones invited Leibovitz to document their six-month concert tour. Living in the world of her subjects, her camera did not shield Leibovitz from the rock ’n’ roll life-style. She began using cocaine on tour and struggled for years afterward to recover. Photography Exhibits and Move to Vanity Fair In 1983, Leibovitz put together her first major exhibit, which led to the publication of her book Annie Leibovitz: Photographs (1983). Her ability to work with her subjects to get beneath the veneer of superficiality that typically characterizes Hollywood paparazzi has reinforced her reputation as the most prominent celebrity photographer of her generation. The rapport Leibovitz develops with her subjects creates an atmosphere in which celebrities will strike the most unconventional of poses and show emotions that other photographers could not evoke. Among her most famous shots are a naked John Lennon curled around a fully clothed Yoko Ono, Bette Midler in a bed of roses, and the Blues Brothers painted blue. In 1983, after more than a decade of photographing such rock ’n’ roll legends as Lennon, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, and Bruce Springsteen, Leibovitz left Rolling Stone for Vanity Fair. This move gave her the opportunity to shoot a broader range of subjects, including the Dalai Lama, Vaclav Havel, and Donald Trump. Her art did not suffer from the change. The American Society of Magazine Photographers selected her as the Photographer of the Year in 1984. Advertising Work, Awards, and Honors In addition to her work for Vanity Fair, Leibovitz became active in advertising photography. In 1986, she was the first photographer ever to be commissioned to design and shoot posters for the World Cup. A campaign she designed for American Express brought Leibovitz a storm of critical acclaim. In 1987, she received the Innovation in Photography Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers, a Clio Award from Clio Enterprises, and a Campaign of the Decade Award from Advertising Age for the “Portraits” campaign she produced for American Express. Then, in 1990, the International Center of Photography recognized the same work by giving Leibovitz the Infinity Award for applied photography. n 1991, Leibovitz became only the second living photographer to be featured in an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. She published this retrospective in book form under the title Annie Leibovitz: Photographs, 1970–1990. In anticipation of the centennial Olympic games, Leibovitz spent two years photographing athletes...

Les Voiles H 35.5 in. x 27.5 in. W Edition 6 Unframed. Les Voiles Series Uwe Ommer wanted to try a series that revealed less of the body using different wet ...

John Baldessari Love and Work 1991: Baldessari’s Love & Work 1991, photogravure and color aquatint, features clasped hands clutching surrealistically amidst a black background. Classic, timeless Baldessari imagery that is sure to work well in any setting. Medium: Color photogravure and aquatint on wove paper. 1991. Dimensions: 26 x 11.5 inches. Well-preserved and in very good overall condition. Framed in acrylic plexiglass. One of the 15 numbered artist's proofs, aside from the general edition of 60. Signed, inscribed "A.P." and numbered 12/15 in pencil, lower margin. Published by Brooke Alexander, Inc., New York. Collections: MoMa New York John Baldessari: It is hard to characterize John Baldessari's varied practice—which includes photomontage, artist’s books, prints, paintings, film, performance, and installation—except through his approach of good-humored irreverence. Baldessari is commonly associated with Conceptual or Minimalist art, though he has called this characterization “a little bit boring.” His two-dimensional works often incorporate found images, composed in layers or presented as distinct pieces with an element of surprise, like a brightly colored geometric shape in the place of a face or a starkly printed sardonic caption. Baldessari has demonstrated a lasting interest in language and semantics, articulating these concerns through the use of puns or the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated images and words, as in his 1978 work Blasted Allegories. His self-referencing photomontages and use of text have been sources of inspiration for countless artists, including Cindy Sherman, David Salle, and Barbara Kruger. Baldessari identifies his own artistic lineage, saying, "I would prefer to go to the source with Duchamp rather than credit Warhol as an influence." Related Categories: Surrealist. Ed Ruscha. Los Angeles. Conceptual art. Photography. Minimalist. John Baldessari prints.

Scorpion (Stranger than Paradise) - 1998 43x59cm, sold out Edition of 5, Artist Proof 2/3. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature Label and C...

Old couple , Paris - Signed limited edition archival pigment print Edition of 5 This image was captured on film in 1994. The negative was scanned c...

Somewhere in Australia, 1995 - 46x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print based on a 35mm negative. Signed on back with Certificate. Not mounted.

This is a 17 x 22 inches archival giclée black and white print on archival exhibition paper. It is part of a limited edition of 10 plus 2 AP. It shows a woman looking straight into...

The Field (Musica Poetica) - 1997 44x59cm, Edition 4/10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist In...

Total Edition of 15 signed and numbered Also available in: 90 x 120 cm / 35.4 x 47.2 in 120 x 160 cm / 47.2 x 63 in Black and white portrait of Supermodel Iman in New York City 1997...

Craig - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 5 This image was captured on film in 1998. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was then printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 gsm (Acid-free and lignin-free paper, Museum quality paper for highest age resistance and a popular alternative to analogue baryta paper) using pigment inks which are known for their longevity. Signed + numbered by artist with certificate of authenticity, unframed. Please note. There are three sizes of this archival pigment print; each is an edition of five (5) making the total that can be printed as fifteen (15). This will include any custom sizes requested Archival pigment print available sizes ( Image size , the white margin is not counted) : 35 x 53 cm / 13,78 x 20,87 in. - Edition of 5 50 x 75 cm / 19,68 x 29,53 in. - Edition of 5 67.3 x 101.6 cm / 26,37 x 40 in. - Edition of 5 Ian Sanderson (born 1951 Scotland, died 2020 Spain) was a Scottish photographer. He produced images over a 35 year career, and in recent years used archival techniques to produce his prints. For most of his career he worked as both a Commercial and Fine Art photographer, and during his last years concentrated on his personal imagery. Towards the end of his life journey, Ian was reviving with his partner two 19th century printing techniques in their studio, Platinum Palladium and Gum Bichromate ( one-of-a-kind pieces). This culminated in a large retrospective exhibition in Barcelona which was sponsored by the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation. The Platinum and Palladium prints are particularly interesting as they printed them onto vellum paper therefore transparent and bonded pure gold or silver to the back of the prints ( every print is therefore a unique and timeless piece of art). They have created rare and personalized pieces with an artisanal technique. Ian Sanderson was one of only a handful of artists worldwide producing this type of work. Nowadays, Ian’s partner continues their work, she’s still creating Platinum Palladium prints but also silver gelatin photographs. Style : Black and white photography, 20th. century, Archival pigment print, Portrait, Man, Nude, Homoerotic, Photographic film, Analogue, Analog, Antique...

16 x 20" vintage silver gelatin photograph of Tony and Academy Award Winner Cicely Tyson, 1995. It is signed by Jack Mitchell on the recto and in pencil o...

Aerial view with sunbathers and parasols and, dotted with yachts and small boats, the waters off the coast of Porto Ercole, Italy, in July 1991. The image was taken from Hotel Il Pel...

Donald Trump, 1992 Archival pigment print 24 x 24 inches edition of 25 William Coupon is an American photographer, born in New York City, known principally for his formal painterly ...

Palazzo Ducale, Massa, Italy, 1999 Chromogenic print 120 x 150 cm Edition of 5 Italian, b. 1954, Florence, Italy, based in Florence, Italy Massimo Listri travels his native Italy an...

On the Rocks (Long Way Home) - 1999, 80x79cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory # 253...

My Secret Business, 1992-1993 Duotone offset litho, Lithograph Sheet measures 30.13'' x 22.5'' (76 X 56 cm). 23 1/2 × 18 in (59.7 × 45.7 cm) image. Hand-signed by artist, Signed, da...

Limited Edition 25 More sizes on request The photographic work of the internationally well-known Austrian photographer Andreas H. Bitesnich is captivating by its beauty and aestheti...

This unique hand-painted photograph by Mark Beard is offered by CLAMP in New York City.

Stunning black & white landscape photograph with trees reflecting in water in the Sierra Nevada mountains by California artist Robert Werling. Signed on mat lower right: "Bob Werling." Presented in a silver metal frame. Image, 15"H x 19"W. Robert Werling was born in San Francisco, California in 1946 and realized an interest in art at an early age. While briefly attending a commercial art school, he found photography to be his medium and went on to obtain both a BA and an honorary MS from the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA. He also studied privately under Ansel Adams from 1966 to 1970 and Imogen Cunningham from 1969 to 1975. Through his affiliation with Adams, Werling came to know and work with other noted photographers. Brett Weston became his close friend and mentor and Marion Post Wolcott, relying on his darkroom expertise, entrusted her negatives to his printing genius. While creating an impressive number of his own fine art prints, Werling also lectured extensively and worked as an instructor for the Brooks Institute, the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Zone System Seminars and Workshops in the United States, and for the Werkschule fur Fotografie in Soltau, Germany. Werling has exhibited his photographs in over sixty one-man and group shows in both the United States and Europe. He was guest curator of photography for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art organizing VIVO, the Contemporary Japanese Photography and Brett Weston’s photographs...

Keith Richards - Signed Limited Edition Oversized Print Album Cover August 26, 1998 Berlin (photo Kevin Westenberg) NB All prints are signed and...

Somewhere in Australia, 1995 - 20x32cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print based on a 35mm negative. Signed on back with Certificate. Not mounted.

Banya - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 2/5 A Basset Hound with her friend in a French café This image was captured on film in 1998. The negative w...

Slim Aarons View From Il Pellicano, 1991 C print Estate stamped and numbered edition of 150 with Certificate of authenticity Aerial view with sunbathers and parasols and, dotted w...

Mindscreen 5 (Night on Earth) - 1999 128x126cm, Edition of 5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signed on verso with Certificate. Artist Inventor...

Mint Condition Hand printed by artist. Signed and numbered by artist. Cibachrome paper. Framed in off white metal.

"Doubleend" is a black & white framed silver gelatin collage photograph in a surrealist style with images of nude, clock, clouds, and other abstract elements from artist Jenny Lynn's...

Procession of Nuns, Rangoon, Burma, 1994 Signed by Steve McCurry 19 × 23 inches / 50 × 60 cm - paper size Edition of 90 With hand signed, dated ...

Edition of 26 Signed, titled, dated and numbered on print margin. Photogravure

Michael Jackson is a vintage black and white photograph realized in the 1990s. Good conditions.

'Trapped' from the movie Immaculate Springs - 1998 - Edition of 10, 20x20cm, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Digital C-Print, based on an expired Polaroid. Si...

Edition of 10 Portrait of the young Monica Bellucci. Fashion and fine art embrace each other in the photography of Jacques Olivar (b. 1941), where th...

An original signed archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Baryta 315 gsm paper by Scottish artist Ian Sanderson (1951- 2020) titled ‘ Lisa ‘ who was captured on film in 1994...

Total Edition of 15 signed and numbered Also available in: 90 x 120 cm / 35.4 x 47.2 in 120 x 160 cm / 47.2 x 63 in Portrait of black woman in...

Printed later Combined Edition 25 Also available in 50 x 60 cm/ 20 x 24 inch and as combined Edition 10 in 76 x 101 cm / 30 x 40 inch 101 x 127 cm / 40 x 50 inch Portrait of Eartha Kitt...

Combined Edition 25 Also available in 50 x 60 cm/ 20 x 24 inch and as combined Edition 10 in 76 x 101 cm / 30 x 40 inch 101 x 127 cm / 40 x 50 inch Portrait of the American actress....

Total Edition of 15 signed and numbered Also available in: 90 x 120 cm / 35.4 x 47.2 in 120 x 160 cm / 47.2 x 63 in Close-Up of some lips. Thierry Le Gouè...

Orange Flowered Couch at Sunset (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 Edition 1/10, 20x20cm, Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid Artist inventory Number 19762 Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider:...

Edition 25 Also available in 101 x 127 cm / 40 x 50 inch, Edition 10 Black and white contact sheet of the legendary american artist Andy Warhol. From personality portraits and adv...

Albert WATSON (*1942, Scotland) Kate Moss, Frontal Nude 2, 1993 Special Gelatin Silver Print Sheet 61 x 51 cm (24 x 20 1/8 in.) Edition of 10 plus 2 AP's; Ed. no. 10/10 – from sold o...

Shuli Sadé, Israeli (b. 1952) Pipe Bending (1995) Hand painted silver gelatin photo print Hand signed in pencil lower right, numbered 1/10 Framed: 23.25 X 29.25 sight, 15 x 19 inches Provenance: Estate of Gideon Gartner Shuli Sade (Shuli Sadeh Goshen) is an Israeli Postwar & Contemporary artist born in Israel in 1952. Shuli Sadé studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem and the School of Visual Arts. Her work, which uses urban movement as a central theme, explores technology and its potential to impact still, moving, and two- and three-dimensional images. Sadé has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania School of Architecture, Parsons The New School for Design, and Barnard College. Her Sadé's cross-disciplinary artwork blends theory and practice with a focus on memory, space, and urbanism. Her work creates maps of urban memory, reflecting the DNA of a city. She mixes mediums including photography, video, augmented reality, site-specific installations, sculpture, and drawing. Her recent exhibitions include Upstream Downstream, a site-specific augmented reality installation, Riverside Park, NYC, part of Re: Growth, public art exhibition (2021), Fluid Formations, Gensler DC, (2019), Wild_Heterotopias, AR installation at the HighLineNine Galleries, and the High Line, (2019), Solid Red, Galeria Ethra, Mexico City, (2018) Day Dreams, AR installation at Montefiore Medical Center, the Bronx, NY (2017) and group shows including Timing is Everything, Mead Art Museum collection (2018), Making Time, AR installation Index Art Center, Newark, NJ (2019), Anniversario, Datasets, Galeria Ethra, Mexico City (2019) Israeli Modernism in the 1970s from the Collection, Haifa Museum of Art (2016). She had collaborated with Neural scientists at the Neurobiology of Cognition Laboratory, Center for Neural Science, New York University, and with architects and designers across the US. Sadé creates large-scale site-specific murals in the Corporate environment. She is an Israeli contemporary woman artist. Her recent artworks are permanently installed in Manhattan, Philadelphia, Boston, North Carolina., Miami, Mexico City, Jersey City, and more. Sadé received the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, (2014), the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1991), New York Foundation for the Arts Emergency Grant (2001), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Fund, NY- Israel Cultural Cooperation Commission Grant, AICF study grant, NY Art Development Committee grants. Her work is in private and public collections. Shuli Sade is a NY artist and architectural photographer. Sade studio photographed Renzo Piano renovations at the Morgan library, Norman Foster Hearst tower, Weiss Manfredi Nexus at Barnard College, Shiseido at Grey Art Gallery by Marble Fairbanks, Sade works on international commissions, Published in Metropolis magazine, Architectural Digest, Eating Architecture, MIT, Avroko Design, Regan books and others. She lives in NYC and works at her studio at Mana Contemporary, NJ. Her work is represented by Galleria Ethra in Mexico City. Select Exhibitions 2012 Reconfiguring Memory, (permanent installation), Center for Neural Science, New York University 2012 Conference of the Birds, CYNTHIA-REEVES Projects at Mana Contemporary, New Jersey 2011 Conceptualizing the Body Gaze, Masquerade, and Spectacle 2011 ENCODE/ DECODE: Work in Progress, The City of Herzliya Art Gallery, Herzliya, Israel 2009 H20 Film on Water, Brattleboro Museum, Bratleboro, NH 2009 Meeting/Place Cabri Gallery of Israeli Art, Kibbutz Cabri: Yigal Ozeri, Alex Kremer, Ofer Lellouche, Lea Nikel, Moshe Kupferman, Ori Reisman, Jan Rauchwerger, David Reeb, Shuli Sadeh, Yehiel Shemi, Marik Lechner, 2006 Illuminated Disjunction, Hungarian Cultural Center, New York, NY 2005 The Silence of the Sea, The National Maritime Museum, Haifa, Israel 2003 Sacred Drawings, Tibetan Healing International Conference, Washington DC 2003 Blueprints Reconfiguring Space, Art in General Gallery, New York, NY 2000 Light and its Opposite, Lemberger Museum of Photography, Tel-Hai, Galilee, Israel 2000 Bassam Abu Shakra Gallery, Um -El-Fahem, Israel 1999 Mythic Arrangements, Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, Los Angeles, CA 1999 Women photographers reflecting women, Talli's Fine Arts Gallery, New York, NY 1999 Neil Folberg Vision Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel 1996 Fragments of Anxiety, Columbia University, Avery Hall, School of Architecture, New York, NY 1995 Agni Vidya- the Fire of Knowledge, City of Venice Biennale, Isola Certosa, Italy 1994 Imprint, A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY 1993 Sculptors of the Next Century, Socrates Park, Long Island City, NY 1990 Galleria Principal, Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic 1981 Feminine Objects, Tzavta Jerusalem P.V.V, Israel 1980 Biennale of Contemporary Art, Tel Hai 80, Israel 1980 Borders, Israel Museum of Contemporary Art, Jerusalem, Israel Igael Tumarkin, Shuli Sadeh, Michal Naaman, Yair Garbuz, Gad Ullman...

Mountain Range (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 55x72cm, Edition 3/5, Analog C-Print, printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection. Art...

Combined Edition 25 Also available in 50 x 60 cm/ 20 x 24 inch and as combined Edition 10 in 76 x 101 cm / 30 x 40 inch 101 x 127 cm / 40 x 50 inch Portrait of the famous English ac...

Libro / Espejo (Book/Mirror) by Chema Madoz depicts a open book lying on a wooden table. The pages are spread open, as if someone is flipping through them. A mirror is placed in the ...

The Château de Compiègne is a French château, a royal residence built for Louis XV and restored by Napoleon. Compiègne was one of three seats of royal government, the others being Ve...

Nick Cave - Signed Limited Edition Oversized Print NME Cover Shoot April 20, 1998 London (photo Kevin Westenberg) NB All prints are signed and numbered by the artist. Unframed Signed and numbered by the artist. Edition limited to 10 only this size Printed 2020 This size image: 30 x 40" / 76 x 101 cm About the image: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds...

Woman in Malibu II (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory No. 315_2.26 No...

Edition of 20 Portrait of the young Supermodel Helena Christensen. Fashion and fine art embrace each other in the photography of Jacques Olivar (b...

Edition 10 Also available in 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 inch, Edition 25 Black and white portrait of actor Leonardo di Caprio in young age. From personality portraits and advertising ca...

"Kate Moss London" by Jake Chessum Portrait of a young 16 year old Kate Moss – before she shot to supermodel stardom and became the icon she is today. Jake grew up in Croydon, South London. He studied Graphic Design at St. Martins School Of Art, and started working as photographer straight out of college. Assignments for The Face, Arena, and an early ad campaign for “Neutrogena” featuring a 16 year old Kate Moss followed. By 1995 Jake was regularly flying the Atlantic on assignment for JFK Jrs' “George” Magazine and in 1999 he upped sticks and moved permanently to NYC where he still lives with his wife and 2 kids...

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Autumn - 2001, 20x29cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid Slide. 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, 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? Why is Schneider not similarly attired? Is there a proximity to an army camp, are these would-be Lolita(s) Rahda and Max wives or American marine groupies, and where is the centre and focus of their identity? It is the ambiguity of personal involvement that is set up by Schneider which deliberately makes problematic any clear sense of narrative construction. The strangely virulent colours of the bleached-out girls stand in marked contrast to Schneider’s own anodyne sense of self-image. Is she identifying with the contents or directing the scenario? With this series, perhaps, more than any other, Schneider creates a feeling of a world that has some degree of symbolic order. For example the girls stand or squat by a dirt road, posing the question as to their sexual and personal status. Following the 29 Palms series, Schneider will trust herself increasingly by diminishing the sense of a staged environment. The events to come will tell you both everything and nothing, reveal and obfuscate, point towards and simultaneously away from any clearly definable meaning. If for example we compare 29 Palms to say Hitchhiker (2005), and where the sexual contents are made overtly explicit, we do not find the same sense of simulated identity. It is the itinerant coming together of two characters Daisy and Austen, who meet on the road and subsequently share a trailer together. Presented in a sequential DVD and still format, we become party to a would-be relationship of sorts. No information is given as to the background or social origins, or even any reasons as to why these two women should be attracted to each other. Is it acted out? Are they real life experiences? They are women who are sexually free in expressing themselves. But while the initial engagement with the subject is orchestrated by Schneider, and the edited outcome determined by the artist, beyond that we have little information with which to construct a story. The events are commonplace, edgy and uncertain, but the viewer is left to decide as to what they might mean as a narrative. The disaggregated emotions of the work are made evident, the game or role playing, the transitory fantasies palpable, and yet at the same time everything is insubstantial and might fall apart at any moment. The characters relate but they do not present a relationship in any meaningful sense. Or, if they do, it is one driven the coincidental juxtaposition of random emotions. Should there be an intended syntax it is one that has been stripped of the power to grammatically structure what is being experienced. And, this seems to be the central point of the work, the emptying out not only of a particular American way of life, but the suggestion that the grounds upon which it was once predicated are no longer possible. The photo-novel Hitchhiker is porous and the culture of the seventies which it might be said to homage is no longer sustainable. Not without coincidence, perhaps, the decade that was the last ubiquitous age of Polaroid film. In the numerous photographic series, some twenty or so, that occur between 29 Palms and Hitchhiker, Schneider has immersed herself and scrutinised many aspects of suburban, peripheral, and scrubland America. Her characters, including herself, are never at the centre of cultural affairs. Such eccentricities as they might possess are all derived from what could be called their adjacent status to the dominant culture of America. In fact her works are often sated with references to the sentimental sub-strata that underpin so much of American daily life. It is the same whether it is flower gardens and household accoutrements of her photo-series Suburbia (2004), or the transitional and environmental conditions depicted in The Last Picture Show (2005). The artist’s use of sentimental song titles, often adapted to accompany individual images within a series by Schneider, show her awareness of America’s close relationship between popular film and music. For example the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, becomes Leaving in a Jet Plane as part of The Last Picture Show series, while the literalism of the plane in the sky is shown in one element of this diptych, but juxtaposed to a blonde-wigged figure first seen in 29 Palms. This indicates that every potential narrative element is open to continual reallocation in what amounts to a story without end. And, the interchangeable nature of the images, like a dream, is the state of both a pictorial and affective flux that is the underlying theme pervading Schneider’s photo-narratives. For dream is a site of yearning or longing, either to be with or without, a human pursuit of a restless but uncertain alternative to our daily reality. The scenarios that Schneider sets up nonetheless have to be initiated by the artist. And, this might be best understood by looking at her three recent DVD sequenced photo-novels, Reneé’s Dream and Sidewinder (2005). We have already considered the other called Hitchhiker. In the case of Sidewinder the scenario was created by internet where she met J.D. Rudometkin, an ex-theologian, who agreed to her idea to live with her for five weeks in the scrubland dessert environment of Southern California. The dynamics and unfolding of their relationship, both sexually and emotionally, became the primary subject matter of this series of photographs. The relative isolation and their close proximity, the interactive tensions, conflicts and submissions, are thus recorded to reveal the day-to-day evolution of their relationship. That a time limit was set on this relation-based experiment was not the least important aspect of the project. The text and music accompanying the DVD were written by the American Rudometkin, who speaks poetically of “Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California.” The mix of hip reverie and fantasy-based language of his text, echoes the chaotic unfolding of their daily life in this period, and is evident in the almost sun-bleached Polaroid images like Whisky Dance, where the two abandon themselves to the frenetic circumstances of the moment. Thus Sidewinder, a euphemism for both a missile and a rattlesnake, hints at the libidinal and emotional dangers that were risked by Schneider and Rudometkin. Perhaps, more than any other of her photo-novels it was the most spontaneous and immediate, since Schneider’s direct participation mitigated against and narrowed down the space between her life and the art work. The explicit and open character of their relationship at this time (though they have remained friends), opens up the question as the biographical role Schneider plays in all her work. She both makes and directs the work while simultaneously dwelling within the artistic processes as they unfold. Hence she is both author and character, conceiving the frame within which things will take place, and yet subject to the same unpredictable outcomes that emerge in the process. In Reneé’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are increasingly autonomous and subversive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring their own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates. I began this essay by speaking about the apparitional contents of Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives, and meant at that time the literal and chance-directed ‘appearing’ qualities of her photographs. Perhaps, at this moment we should also think of the metaphoric contents of the word apparition. There is certainly a spectre-like quality also, a ghostly uncertainty about many of the human experiences found in her subject matter. Is it that the subculture of the American Dream, or the way of life Schneider has chosen to record, has in turn become also the phantom of it former self? Are these empty and fragmented scenarios a mirror of what has become of contemporary America? There is certainly some affection for their contents on the part of the artist, but it is somehow tainted with pessimism and the impossibility of sustainable human relations, with the dissolute and commercial distractions of America today. Whether this is the way it is, or, at least, the way it is perceived by Schneider is hard to assess. There is a bleak lassitude about so many of her characters. But then again the artist has so inured herself into this context over a long protracted period that the boundaries between the events and happenings photographed, and the personal life of Stefanie Schneider, have become similarly opaque. Is it the diagnosis of a condition, or just a recording of a phenomenon? Only the viewer can decide this question. For the status of Schneider’s certain sense of uncertainty is, perhaps, the only truth we may ever know.

1 Kerry Brougher (ed.), Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, ex. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 1996) 2 Im Reich der Phantome: Fotographie des Unsichtbaren, ex. cat., Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach/Kunsthalle Krems/FotomuseumWinterthur, (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997) 3 Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish – Sigmar Polke, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zürich-Berlin-New York, 1995) 4 Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Occasional Papers, no. 1, 2000. 5 Diane Arbus, eds. Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel...

Kurt Cobain - Signed Limited Edition Print Melody Maker Magazine August 30 1992 Reading (photos by Kevin Westenberg) NB All prints are signed and numbered by the artist. Unf...

Dune - Limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 5 This image was captured on film. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was then printed on H...

This is a photogravure by John Dugdale offered by CLAMP in New York City. 1999 Signed, titled, and numbered in pencil, verso Photogravure (Edition of 50) 15 x 13.5 inches (38.1 x...

Max turning (Long Way Home) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition 3/10, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory # 257.03. Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider at Alysia Duckler Gallery Berlin-based artist Stefanie Schneider enlarges expired Polaroid stock into burned-out C-prints. The lossy images almost completely dissolve into lurid color abstractions. The shiny pink of a sex kitten's glittery body suit becomes an electrified, free-floating color field. The vivid, flame-orange hair of a 70's sexploitation film star vibrates against the dusty gray of the sky above an LA desert. Skin tones and facial details in the figures are completely lost. They are refugees from Faster Pussycat...

Aerial view with sunbathers and parasols and, dotted with yachts and small boats, the waters off the coast of Porto Ercole, Italy, in July 1991. The image was taken from Hotel Il Pel...

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Winter - 2001, 20x25cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid Slide. Signature label and Certifi...

Virus Aquarium 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature Label and Certificate. Not mounted.

Edition of 45 Signed, titled, dated, print date and numbered. Sepia toned gelatin silver print. Michael Kenna's black and white photographs are powerful and alluring. His imager...

John Biggers in His Studio by Earlie Hudnall, Jr. depicts John Biggers painting in his art studio, surrounded by paintings and art supplies. Gelatin silver print Paper size: 20 x 1...

Untitled, from the series "Every Other Day" from the essay "Zoo-Logos" by Eduardo Muñoz is a black and white photograph depicting a bear in the water, lunging at the camera while bar...

An 11" x 14" (Ed of 5) signed gelatin silver print of Friendship, 1994 by Roberta Fineberg is from a world of horse-crazy girls in New York City. A black-and-white photograph, friendship shared by three teenage girls who display their horseback riding bracelets. The girls wear the names of their horses engraved on the bracelets. The photograph was shot in the 1990s at the now defunct City stable, Claremont, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The photo is published in the book City Riders (1997) - Howell/Macmillan Publishers Provenance: RF Studio *** Artist's Bio: As a visual artist, Roberta Fineberg (RF) focuses on the themes of serendipity, inventiveness, and the development of ideas for her photography, video, installations, works on paper, and painting. Drawn to experimentation, she explores diverse mediums and concepts such as the ephemeral (Butterfly Series), stolen moments (documentary photography), play, timelessness, the enduring, and the significance of matter. RF, living in New York City, began her career as an editorial photographer while studying in Paris. In France she contributed both photography and writing to publications, landing a column (photos and text) with The Saturday Review while exhibiting photographs in public spaces. Roberta Fineberg’s freelance photography appeared in Le Monde, Jeune Afrique, Paris Match, L’Officiel Femme, Ms, Weltwoche, Vanguardia, among others with images licensed through stock agencies. Photographs were selected for cover art at W.W. Norton, St. Martin’s Press, Harcourt, Bookspan, Simon & Schuster, etc. Print Regional Design Annual New York (2003) awarded her for book jacket photography for If Wishes Were Horses. In 1997 Macmillan published City Riders: A Story of Riding and Friendship her first book of black-and-white photographs and a story about three teenage girls in the 1990s who rode horses at the now-defunct Claremont Riding Academy and oldest stable in New York City. In 2023, RF created an interactive installation, works on paper on the female body, in a public space. In July 2022, Fineberg’s Double Helix was included in a Sotheby’s auction in New York City and exhibited in the preview show Contemporary Discoveries. Selected exhibitions include Time Gallery New York (2022), Phyllis Harriman Gallery New York studio shows (2020, 2022), CADAF online art...

Michelle - Signed limited edition archival pigment print, 1997 - Edition of 5 This image was captured on film. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was the...

Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...

Combined Edition 25 Also available in 50 x 60 cm/ 20 x 24 inch and as combined Edition 10 in 76 x 101 cm / 30 x 40 inch 101 x 127 cm / 40 x 50 inch Portrait of British-American sta...

Anita, part of Richard Heeps autobiographical series, 'A View of the Fens from the Car With Wings', a journey on the roads of his childhood. Unusually for Richard this is a staged ph...

Statues prises à contre jour à la Villa Cimbrone à Ravello Italy

Cape Otway, South Australia, 1998 - 20x30cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print based on a 35mm negative. Signed on back with Certificate. Not mounted.

Childhood 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Medium format Negative. Signed on back with Certificate. Not mounted.

Sophie - Signed limited edition archival pigment print, 1995 - Edition of 10 This image was captured on film. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was then prin...