Paper Portrait Photography

Because I Am (Stage of Consciousness) - 2008 Including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 2024. ...

Please note that as of 1st March 2025, the Slim Aarons Estate Stamped Collection aligned its pricing across the entire collection. Please bear in mind that all prints are produced t...

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...

Please bear in mind that all prints are produced to order. Lead times are expected between 15-20 days. A gorgeous black and white fibre print, available in other sizes. Taken from...

This piece is an original artwork by Jason Chen titled "Coming To An End". It is made of archival pigment prints from the artist's photography that he then cuts into strips and weaves together by hand. The piece measures 28”h x 38”w and ships framed in the pictured 31”h x 41”w frame. In 2012, Jason Chen shifted his long-running focus on dry plate tintypes to a new process: photo weaving. Chen began using two separate images of the same person, then wove them together in a process exploring time, movement, process, and mutation. He has exhibited works in the series one by one over the years, but in Fragments, his 2015 solo exhibition at Paradigm Gallery, a full collection of these works were on display together for the first time. Bio // Jason Chen is originally from Guangzhou, China. He received his BFA in Animation from the University of Arts in 2008. Jason is a Philadelphia-based photographer specializing in Fashion, Editorial, and Alternative Process Photography...

Stefanie Schneider's Mini Renée's Dream XI (Days of Heaven) - 2006 signed in front, not mounted. Digital Color Photographs based on a Polaroid. Polaroid sized open Editions 1999-20...

Tangerine Dream - (29 Palms, CA) - 2007 75x93cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory N...

Actress Brigitte Bardot sitting on a tree swing outdoors, shot from behind, circa 1954. Brigitte Bardot was a French actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist....

Available sizes: 37.5" x 30", Edition of 15 50" x 40", Edition of 10 60" x 48", Edition of 5 THE EYES OF A WOLF are not like the yes of a dog. But, they used to be. Rooted deep in ...

Jean II (Suburbia) - 2004 20x25cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 1687. Not mounted. The project "Suburbia" was shot on the set of Marc Forster's first feature film 'Everything put Together' with Radha Mitchell, Michelle Hicks, Megan Mullally, Catherine Lloyd Burns, Matt Malloy and others. Suburbs collectively, or the people who live in them Suburb { a district, especially a residential one, on the edge of a city or large town } synonyms [Outer edge , Fringes, Periphery, Limits, Outer reaches, Environs ] Sunday in suburbia, a summer's day heavy with heat, hardly a soul to be seen. As a result, the motifs of Stefanie Schneider's “Suburbia” cycle – put together in California, in the very west of the USA – are virtually inconspicuous.Schneider's camera encircles an idyllic American setting, capturing a garden practically empty of people. Surrounded by a white picket fence, flowers and trees bloom profusely in the blazing sunlight. The day is empty and quiet like only a Sunday can be. The grass is perfectly cut, the garden well tended, the inhabitants oblivious to everything and lethargic. An instant is seized, revealing the tragedy of an average, unsuccessful, middle class life. The scene is familiar from countless movies and American literature; the perfect façade of an American ideal, which seems to conceal the horror of daily life. In David Lynch's „Blue Velvet“ the film begins with the camera rolling over a similar setting: the view over the fence, the painstakingly neatly cut lawn, ending with a close-up: a cut-off ear covered with feasting ants. Stefanie Schneider overdoes it, she exaggerates: this is confirmed by the irritating colourfulness as well as the vehemence of the motifs. Emptiness stands in stark contrast to the beauty of the blooming roses or the lush growth of the trees. The fenced, idyllic summer scene appears vacant; unused chairs surround a table, the grill untouched and clean, no object out of place. It is only the inhabitants who appear curiously lost. Schneider shows them in the middle of their saturated lives, in well-tended averageness, which can only be endured with a Martini on ice, on hand before lunch. In her opinion the scenes are banal, yet one becomes witness to great intimacy. Schneider's „Suburbia“ cycle lives from the interplay of the motifs, and tells a story with the same flavour as American author Raymond Carver...

This striking black-and-white photograph captures the legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald during a live performance in East Germany (DDR) in 1967. The image showcases Fitzgerald's radiant smile, reflecting her infectious enthusiasm for music. She is elegantly dressed in a stylish black outfit, adorned with a delicate brooch on her shoulder, embodying her timeless fashion sense. The microphone stands close to her, emphasizing her connection to the audience as she sings with heartfelt emotion. The soft lighting highlights her expressive features and voluminous hairstyle, creating a beautiful contrast against the dark background. This photograph not only celebrates Fitzgerald's remarkable talent but also encapsulates the vibrant spirit of jazz music during her era, making it a captivating piece for any art lover or music enthusiast. Known for his exuberant and engaging performances, Bécaud, often referred to as "Monsieur 100.000 Volts" due to his electrifying stage persona, was immensely popular in the 1960s, and this concert in East Berlin would have been a rare cultural exchange during the Cold War era. His concerts were often marked by his powerful voice and the high emotional intensity of his performances, which captivated audiences across the world. The print is new, Highest Quality on Hahnemühle FineArt Baryta. More sizes up to 150x150 cm available on request. About Tassilo Leher: Born in the dark years of World War II, Tassilo Leher became an icon of photographic art in divided Germany. As the son of war correspondent Karl Leher, whose lens captured moments of contemporary history, he was born in 1940 in the heart of Berlin. He shared not only the studio in the picturesque Prenzlauer Berg with his father, but also the mysterious world of the darkroom. While Karl Leher, an early riser, made use of the morning hours, Tassilo found his creative flow only by midday, often working late into the night. His camera knew no bounds: from the dazzling stars of East German show business like Phudys, Karat, Hildegard Kneef, Manfred Krug, Bubi Scholz, to international greats such as Dean Reed, Karel Gott, Jiri Korn, and Costa Cordalis – all found themselves in front of his lens. The Friedrichstadt-Palast and numerous film sets became his stages, where he played with light and shadow to perfectly frame famous...

Black and white action shot of Johnny Cash playing a harmonica on stage. Johnny Cash was an American singer-songwriter. Most of Cash's music contains themes of sorrow, moral tribula...

Rita Hayworth in bathing suit, posed pin-up style on boat wheel. Rita Hayworth was an American actress, dancer, and pin-up girl. She achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top sta...

Lady Bird (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2019 50x49cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. A...

Black and white capture of John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney reading in a studio. The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of th...

In the Country, 1988 is by Roberta Fineberg. A black-and-white documentary-style portrait of a French woman in the countryside - from northeast France, the Haute-Marne, the subject is photographed against a backdrop of fresh-cut hay. Far from Paris the French maintain deep connections with the land - owning often an ancestral house in the countryside, often rustic, a nation equally rooted in the agrarian. An 11" x 14" gelatin silver print (analog/film) in an edition of 5, the photograph is signed and editioned on recto (in margin) by the artist. 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 fair (2020), Gallery122 New York pop-up group...

Memento Mori 2019 Edition 1/10 plus 2 Artist Proof, 20x25cm. Digital Print based on a Polaroid photograph on Hahnemühle photo rag paper. Signature label and certificate. Not mounte...

This black and white pinup style portrait features blonde actress and film icon Marilyn Monroe. Captured by celebrity photographer Frank Worth this sexy image features the actress se...

Please note that as of 1st March 2025, the Slim Aarons Estate Stamped Collection aligned its pricing across the entire collection. Please bear in mi...

The Elephants at the circus is a black and white vintage photo, realized in 1950s. Good conditions and aged. It belongs to a historical and nostalgic album including historical mom...

Erik at fifteen - 2019 - 20x25cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Photograph printed on Canson Barita Fiber Rag 340gr, based on a reclaimed Fuji Instant Film Negative (not m...

The desperation of a mother is  a black and white vintage photo, realized  in 1970s.. The four photograms depict a dramatic moment of a Cuban mother, Mrs Sabrina Gomez, for the murd...

This beautiful color image features Marilyn Monroe in her starring role for 'Seven Year Itch'. The Seven Year Itch is a 1955 American romantic comedy film based on a 1952 three-ac...

'Kansas Bowling' - 2018 Edition of 10, 20x30cm, printed on Velvet Watercolor, 310gsm, Bright White, Acid Free, Signature label and Certificate. About Tao Ruspoli (born 7 Novembe...

This is a black and white photograph of three soldiers seated on a bridge, above the Arno River, Florence, Italy 1958 by Leonard Freed. It is a 12" x 16" ge...

Deepika - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 10 Deepika Padukone in Cannes 2015 Red Carpet, France Cannes Festival, The International Film Festival This is an Archival Pigment print on fiber based paper ( 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). The inks used are also known for their longevity. Signed + numbered by artist with certificate of authenticity. Archival pigment print available sizes : 40 x 27 cm / 15,75 x 10,63 in - Edition of 10 60 x 40 cm / 23,62 x 15,75 in. - Edition of 5 Laurent Campus...

Vintage Photo. The actor during a tender moment in the company of his ex-wife Dyane Cannon.

Lace curtains, Morocco, 1980 by Jean-Michel (JM) Voge, is a contemporary color photograph, an archival pigment print on handmade Awagami Japanese paper. ...

Great capture of Led Zeppelin members sitting together during a visit to the Chateau Marmont, 1969. Led Zeppelin was an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group consis...

The  Blandford  Marquis  is a black and white vintage photo, realized in 1961 . It belongs to a historical and nostalgic album including historical moments, places, families, artwor...

The Who members John Entwistle, Keith Moon, Pete Townshend, and Roger Daltry standing in flower garden. The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup (1964–1978) consisted of lead vocalist Roger Daltrey...

This beautiful vintage portrait features Rita Hayworth smiling while enjoying a sandwich break.Rita Hayworth was an American actress and dancer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as...

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

Play among the Stars (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 labe...

Runaway Ride - The Getaway (The Last Picture Show) - 1999 40x40cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Artist Inventory #345. ...

A black-and-white 12" x 8" vintage photograph of Editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner checking proofs for Playboy magazine, 1966 by Burt Glinn. A historical photo...

Willy Nelson, 1993 by American photographer Leonard Freed is a series of (3) photographs, gelatin silver press RC prints, which are each signed verso (bac...

Brooke Shields, Martin Hewittin - Endless Love - Vintage Photo is a vintage black and white photograph realized in the 1981. Good conditions.

Ways of a Wild Heart #47 - 2014 Giclee archival pigment print on archival Hahnemühle Pearl paper. 320 gsm · 100% Cotton · natural white · pearl-finish. Based on a Polaroid. Hand ...

This gorgeous gorgeous piece, 'Glamour Cabs' taken at the glamorous retro event Goodwood Revival, perfectly captures elegant feminine sophistication with a vintage vibe. A nod to the...

This lovely black and white image features Marilyn Monroe on the set of "How to Marry a Millionaire". How to Marry a Millionaire is a 1953 American romantic comedy film directed by...

Mystery of Love (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2017 20x24cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory 21300. Signature label and Certific...

Please be aware that the US recently imposed an import duty on photographs printed in the last 20 years which may apply if you are purchasing and importing this to the US. Edition 5...

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

Red Desert (Stranger than Paradise) - 2006, 38x37cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Cer...

'Emily' Edition 1/10, 20x30cm, 2015, digital C-Print, printed on Velvet Watercolor, 310gsm, Bright White, Acid Free, Signature label and Certificate. Published in Tao Ruspoli's Mono...

Haley and the Bird (29 Palms, CA) - 2013 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist inventory ...

Always Sometimes, 2020 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory - P...

Richard Heeps' Dream in Colour Series beautifully captures 1950's chic, the nostalgic vibe and warm colours paired with a Marilyn Monroe movie sti...

Vintage Photo. The Italian Actress Antonella Lualdi.

Steve McQueen sitting shirtless on the floor while speaking on the phone Terrence Stephen McQueen was an American actor and his antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the...

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...

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