1990s Portrait Photography

Female Fashion Zen Beach Hat 1999 by Herb Ritts Authentic quadtone photo of a model sitting on the beach with a Zen beach hat, gazing into the horizon. Unframed Matted Overall size : 12 x 16" inches / 31 x 41 cm Image Size: 8.25" x 10.25'' inches / 21 x 26 cm Printed 2012 Quadtone Print Mint condition Certificate of authenticity Framing option available Shipped securely from London, England. Herbert Ritts...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x ...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x ...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x ...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x ...

Avedon, Richard. RICHARD AVEDON - CENTER FOR CREATIVE IMAGING. Poster, 1991. Signed in ink by Avedon. Captioned " Gordon Stevenson, drifter Interstate 90 Butte Montana...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x ...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x ...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Open Edition 16" x 20" Unframed Open Edition 20" x ...

Hand Signed by Richard Beland Richard Beland is a music photographer based in Toronto, Canada. His extensive body of work, which dates back to 1986 and includes liv...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Listing includes framing with UV plexi and a 14 day return policy. This is available for pick up framed at Los Angeles gallery at no additional charge. For transport the US and internationally, please inquire for more details. Kate Moss by Glen Luchford...

Immaculate Springs Set with Jacinda Barrett - 1998 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x20cm, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature Label ...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Ed...

Open and Limited Edition Silver Gelatin Prints Hand Signed by Richard Beland 8" x 10" Unframed Open Edition 11" x 14" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 16" x 20" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 20" x 24" Unframed Limited Edition of 150 30" x 40" Unframed Limited Edition of 75 About the Artist: Richard Beland is a music photographer based in Toronto, Canada. His extensive body of work, which dates back to 1986 and includes live performance photographs as well as studio portraits, celebrates popular music’s depth and eclectic breadth. From photographs of Coldplay to those of The Tragically Hip...

Biography from the niece of the artist from during his lifetime. Paintings acquired from the artist.s estate. Max Turner 1925 - 2019 Max Lamar Turner Painter, Sculptor, Teacher and Author. Max Turner was born in Omaha, Nebraska on July 28, 1925. His father was Lance Howard Turner and his mother Mary Irene Turner. In 1927, his family moved to Bingham Canyon, Utah where Max's father extracted copper from a creek that he had diverted to pass through his garage. The town was located in a narrow canyon on the eastern face of the Oquirrh Mountains. In 1938, when Max was 13, his family moved to Midvale, Utah. After completing high school, Max went to work laying rail until he was inducted into the U.S. Navy to serve during W.W. II. There he took an aptitude test and was initially assigned to the medical corp., later transferring to the dental unit. Max was stationed at Port Hueneme, Ventura County, California through the end of the war. When he was discharged in 1946, he remained in Southern California, living in the Los Angeles area. He met a man named Larry Torres and they formed a partnership to do silk screen work primarily for the Colby Poster Printing Company. This lasted about 10 years until the Colby building caught fire and burned down. In 1958, Max began working for Slade Novelty company that made doll parts using a product called plastisol. A year later, Max began producing plastic parts through his own business. One day, a couple of kids brought in a shrunken skull they had made and asked Max if he could reproduce it. Max said he could and he looked around for a business to work with for this task. He ultimately decided he could create his own machine shop to make molds. As a result, Max purchased a lathe, drill press, grinder and other tools to create his own machine shop and went into business making molds. He built a clientele and in 1973, he moved his machine shop to Glendale, California. Painter, Sculptor, Teacher and Author: Max recalls the day when his interest in art took a new direction. He happened to be in a paint store to purchase some supplies when he saw a card posted on a wall that read, "Come paint with Connie Marlo". Max had been interested in art since his youth and he was frequently impressed with paintings displayed by local artists at various community events. Consequently, he decided to go to Connie's Saturday morning art class at a studio on North La Brea Avenue (between Sunset and Hollywood) in Los Angeles. But, as fate would have it, he immediately took a detour from this class when he found a piece of paper on the floor of the studio referencing another art class dealing with compositions, patterns, rhythms and color harmony. The instructor's name was Hal Reed, a former art student of the Russian/American Master, Nicolai Fechin. Hal owned the building (previously the Will Foster Studio) and had founded the Art League of Los Angeles. When Max found Hal, he asked Hal if he could join his class. Hal said "No, the class was full" but he said Max could monitor the class in the back of the classroom. Max took him up on the offer and began observing the weekly class. During the class, Hal told his students that they should practice what they were learning by going to "live model" classes. Max began attending these classes where he learned how to draw figures. After a few months, Hal and Max became good friends. Hal was so impressed with Max's work that he offered Max the opportunity to teach at another location that Hal was opening in the San Fernando Valley. Max accepted the offer and began teaching his own art class. For Max, it was a quick jump from learning to teaching. Max then found that several of his students had to commute to his art class from the west end of the "Valley". To better serve this group of students, Max decided to relocate to another studio in Calabasas. Max continued teaching, and at this time he was producing very impressive portraits, both oil paintings and charcoal drawings from live models (Max never worked from photos). Max demonstrated real talent, and the style of his drawings and paintings were being compared to those of Nicolai Fechin. And, like Fechin, Max also had an interest in sculpting. One day, Max decided to design and cast a bronze owl sculpture to put in his Calabasas Fine Art Gallery. Later, someone approached Max when he was at the foundry and asked him about his success selling the owl sculpture. The individual who asked this question was convinced that there was a broader market for these sculptures and he ordered a dozen of the owl sculptures from Max. This encouraged Max to do more castings. Some of the new castings were antique sculptures he found and reproduced. As this new business grew, he decided to establish his own foundry, employing up to 15 workers. The business continued for many years, up until the late 1990's when Max got tired of the foundry business and sold it. Max, who was now in his 70's, decided to move on to his next venture as an artist, dedicating himself to doing the actual sculpting of original art. He loved the creativity of sculpting and he had his sculptures cast at local foundries, ironically the same ones that used to be his competition. Max was now fully engaged in his new artistic direction and, over time, he produced a large body of work. He created very impressive sculptures, including about 100 full-size sculptures. He sold some of these to high-end clientele, the Foundry at SLS Las Vegas, and to Hollywood studios. Even though Max now seemed to be totally in his element, he somehow also found time to continue to teach painting classes at the California Art Institute in Westlake Village in Los Angeles. At the institute, he specialized in figure work. Max continued to draw, paint and teach, but he says he stopped sculpting when he turned 90. Max produced four books showcasing his drawings and paintings. The first is "Faces, The Drawings of Max Turner", copyright 2000, that showcases nearly 100 of his portrait drawings. Within the "Acknowledgements" section, he lists Hal Reed and Joseph Nordmann, two former students of Nicolai Fechin. In 2006, Max produced his second book titled "Figures and Faces", reflecting not only portraits but also figure drawings and paintings. It is a wonderful book of Max's work, but it is currently difficult to find. The third book is titled "Faces 2, The Paintings and Drawings of Max Turner", copyright 2009, which includes 75 portrait paintings and drawings. In the "Preface" of this book, Max describes growing up in a small and isolated mining town during the Great Depression. He states that as a kid, he had little exposure of any culture or view of what the rest of the world was like. His neighbor was the trash collector and Max would sometimes go through his truck looking for anything of value. Among other things, he found magazines like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Red Book, with covers that frequently showed drawings or paintings of faces. Max states that these images were the very first source of inspiration for him. He says that he began looking more carefully at people's faces and if they had character, he would draw them. By drawing them, Max says that he was making them part of his world, his world of "Faces". In 2018, Max published his newest book showcasing his drawings and paintings. It is titled "Max Turner's Figure Sketches". This softbound book includes 76 pages and over 120 drawings and paintings. In the Introduction, Max explains "I have found that when approaching the figure, one should begin with the gesture. After having captured the essence or feeling of the pose, one can then proceed to build on it." The figure sketches in this wonderful book reflect a Master's work that consistently captures the "gesture"-showing the emotion, movement and expression. Two more books are on the horizon for Max, both dealing with his passion for sculpting. His first, "The Sculpture of Max Turner" is a compilation of his commercial and noncommercial pieces throughout his career. The second, "Terra Cotta Sculpture by Max Turner" is a complete collection of figures done at the California Art Institute. These much anticipated books should be out later in 2018. Max now considers himself primarily a sculptor. But others in the art world are more than impressed with his drawings and paintings as well. His portraits are often described as having a Fechin-esque appearance, referring to the style of Nicolai Fechin. When Max observed those first art classes given by Hal Reed, it should be noted that Hal had previously been a student of the Russian/American Master Nicolai Fechin in the early to mid-1950's. In fact, Hal was a student in the last art class that Fechin taught before he unexpectedly died in 1955. Hal was so strongly influenced by Fechin that he later produced two 30-minute art instruction videos as part his Art Video Productions wherein he specifically described Fechin techniques that he learned in Fechin's class. The Fechin style and techniques were in play when Max later met Hal. Over the years, many of Max's art students, art collectors, gallery owners, as well as the Director of the Monterey Museum of Art have commented on the Fechin-esque qualities of Max's wonderful charcoal drawings and paintings. So, while Max may consider himself primarily a sculptor, his drawings and paintings are also impressive and very much sought after. When Nicolai Fechin died in 1955, three of the nine students in his last art class became life-long friends. Max subsequently became friends with not only Hal Reed, but also with prior Fechin students Joseph Nordmann and Albert Londraville...

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

No Edition Signed, titled and dated in pencil on print verso by Earlie Hudnall, Jr. Gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches. Earlie Hudnall, who is one of the most notable African Amer...

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

"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...

Dominique and Felix (Stranger than Paradise) - 1997 38x48cm, Edition of 30, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid Not mounted, Signature label and Certificate, artist Inventory N...

A black and white photograph from 1994 that captures Alain Bernardin and chorus girls at The Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris, France. A leading tourist attract...

Limited Edition 10 More sizes on request The photographic work of the internationally well-known Austrian photographer Andreas H. Bitesnich is captivating by its beauty and aestheti...

A hip young black woman in Central Park pauses for a moment of reflection after her roller skate dance. Street photographer, Mithcell Funk, captures her in an off moment of introspe...

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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