Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 4

Stefanie Schneider
Stefanie on bed looking quite dead (29 Palms, CA) - Analog, Polaroid, mounted

1998

$8,350.97
£6,079.44
€7,000
CA$11,390.71
A$12,753.05
CHF 6,686.84
MX$157,571.85
NOK 84,258.37
SEK 79,536.55
DKK 53,273.14
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

Stefanie on bed looking quite dead (29 Palms, CA) - 1998 130x130cm, Edition 1/5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the Artist, based on a Polaroid. Signed on back with Certificate, artist inventory number: 630.06. Mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection. THE GREATER THE EMPTINESS THE GRANDER THE ART – Stefan Gronert Not “Twenty-six Gasoline Stations” but “29 Palms, CA”! Forty-two years after Ed Ruscha’s legendary book, there is no gasoline station at the beginning of the book that is here at hand. Instead it is the open-hearted Radha – with orange hair, pink-colored overalls and a bashful, or rather cunning, gaze that is directed downward – with which this book begins! And with her and with Max – attention: a woman –, one whose appearance is in accordance with the same styling, it comes to an end as well – after Radha has in the meantime colored her fingernails pink, again endowed with the same openheartedness and the same look which now, however, reveals in combination with her altered facial expression an “old-maidish” turning away from the viewer. This may serve as an example for a vivid and understandable transformation which flows into a large-scale representation of a cheerless settlement beneath a shining, blue sky – there a figure, lost straightaway, becomes overwhelmed. Pictures which in 1998/99 play in the harsh California sunlight or in spaces that are not exactly cozy and comfortable. “Play” is the correct word in this regard, for precisely in view of the pictures of persons, there remains more than just doubt as to whether we are looking at staged scenes or have simply happened upon the high-strung “reality” of a (wannabe) film world. Yet not all the pictures have the same character of a glaring, plastic world. Upon flipping through the pages, we also encounter unpretentious, literally “colorless” scenes in undefined interiors, or unspectacular views resembling a still life and opening out onto a nowhere land. That which connects all participants in these picture-worlds is the observation that they appear to be exhausted, lost, empty or uncertain about their existence. One is almost reminded of the empty gazes and loneliness of the protagonists in the pictures of large cities painted by Manet or Degas in the era of Early Modernism. With one exception, all the photographs which are reproduced here, which originally measure 60 by 70 cm but which here, in their present size and configuration, make productive use of the possibilities presented by the medium of the book, manifest several elements of B-movies: smoking, naked, made-up and muscular persons who are not inclined to conform entirely to the vision of Hollywood dreams. Beauty and vexation, eroticism and loneliness enter into a mixture which reveals the rift between desire and truth. From a distance, one is reminded of the “Untitled Film Stills” of Cindy Sherman, which in this regard are not nearly as drastic. Yet whereas her photos from the seventies are characterized by a cool, objective mode of representation in historicizing blackand-white, the photographs of Stefanie Schneider evince a soft, sometimes seemingly pictorial visual language with a coloration ranging from the pale to the artificial-glaring. As in many other pictures of Stefanie Schneider which often present themselves to us as sequences, these photos refer back as well to the perceptual stereotypes of film. Making use of instant photography, proceeding from which significantly enlarged C-prints come into being, her pictures summon up the impression of a narration without ultimately becoming part of a plot that is readable in a linear fashion. The illusion of the narrative element, however, simply enhances the experience of a renunciation of just this aspect. For the picture titles as well – and also the title of this publication – provide no real help with the imaginary construction of a story. Nevertheless, names return which include the first name of the artist herself: hence is everything not in fact a game but rather a series of authentic and instantaneous images, or is it after all nothing other than a staging, a game – how real is life? The paucity of plot elements, which contradicts all expectation of a cinematic style, as well as the emptiness and loneliness of the persons, enters into a peculiar, sometimes seemingly surreal association with the magic of the sun-drenched expanses of the dreamlike landscape. Just as the fantasy and imagination of the viewer are stimulated, so to the same great extent does the redemption of these visual figures of love founder on a void whose glaze is created, not least of all, by the peculiar blurriness of the photographic representation. The seemingly amateur character of these pictures, which have in no way been treated with any excessive scrupulousness, leaves us with a stimulating incertitude as to their interpretation, one in which the spheres of reality, fiction or dream are scarcely capable any longer of being differentiated. Thus the gaps and the scenic openness of what is presented ultimately set in motion a self-appraisal. So what remains after “29 Palms, CA”? Perhaps that hope which deviates from the saying of Ruscha that is quoted in the title: The stronger the photography the better the reality will be! Translated by George Frederick Takis Stefanie Schneider lives and works in the California High Desert where her scintillating situations take place in the American West. Situated on the verge of an elusive super-reality, her photographic sequences provide the ambience for loosely woven story lines and a cast of phantasmic characters. Schneider works with the chemical mutations of expired Polaroid film stock. Chemical explosions of color spreading across the surfaces undermine the photograph's commitment to reality and induce her characters into trance-like dreamscapes. Like flickering sequences of old road movies Schneider's images seem to evaporate before conclusions can be made - their ephemeral reality manifesting in subtle gestures and mysterious motives. Schneider's images refuse to succumb to reality, they keep alive the confusions of dream, desire, fact, and fiction. Stefanie Schneider received her MFA in Communication Design at the Folkwang Schule Essen, Germany. Her work has been shown at the Museum for Photography, Braunschweig, Museum für Kommunikation, Berlin, the Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt, the Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Kunstverein Bielefeld, Museum für Moderne Kunst Passau, Les Rencontres d'Arles, Foto -Triennale Esslingen, Bombay Beach Biennale 2018, 2019.

More From This Seller

View All
Sleepy Head (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary, 20th Century
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Sleepy Head (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory Numbe...
Category

1990s Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Girl in Motel (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Girl in Motel (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist invent...
Category

1990s Contemporary Still-life Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Girl with Silver Bra (29 Palms, CA) - analog, Polaroid, Contemporary
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Girl with Silver Bra (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist...
Category

1990s Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Stefanie on Sofa beaten (29 Palms, CA) - Analog, Polaroid, Contemporary
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Stefanie on Sofa beaten (29 Palms, CA) - 1998 58x56cm, Edition of 10, analog C-Print, printed by the Artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate, artist invent...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Mind Blender (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary, 20th Century
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Mind Blender (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory Numb...
Category

1990s Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

2nd Thoughts (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
2nd Thoughts (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist invento...
Category

1990s Contemporary Still-life Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

You May Also Like

Chelsea Hotel #3 – Emma Summerton, Polaroid, Interior, Woman, Nude, Polaroid
By Emma Summerton
Located in Zurich, CH
Emma SUMMERTON (*1970, Australia) Chelsea Hotel #3, 2003 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Paper 100 x 120 cm (39 3/8 x 47 1/4 in.) Edition of 5, plus 2 AP; Ed. no. 1/5 Print only...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Awake Asleep AC – Emma Summerton, Polaroid, Colour, Light, Sunbeam, Hotel room
By Emma Summerton
Located in Zurich, CH
Emma SUMMERTON (*1970, Australia) Awake Asleep AC, 2008 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Paper 100 x 120 cm (39 3/8 x 47 1/4 in.) Edition of 5, plus 2 AP; Ed. no. 2/5 Print only Australian born Emma Summerton (*1970) graduated from the National Art School in Sydney, where she studied fine arts majoring in Photography. Summerton moved to London in 1998, where she worked as an assistant to artist Fiona Banner...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Waiting LHR – Emma Summerton, Polaroid, Fashion, Bed, High Heels, Nude, Woman
By Emma Summerton
Located in Zurich, CH
Emma SUMMERTON (*1970, Australia) Waiting LHR, 2003 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Paper 100 x 80 cm (39 3/8 x 31 1/2 in.) Edition of 5, plus 2 AP; Ed. no. 3/5 Print only Aust...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Chelsea Hotel #1 – Emma Summerton, Polaroid, Interior, Woman, Nude, Polaroid
By Emma Summerton
Located in Zurich, CH
Emma SUMMERTON (*1970, Australia) SP Chelsea Hotel, 2003 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Paper 100 x 120 cm (39 3/8 x 47 1/4 in.) Edition of 5, plus 2 AP; Ed. no. 1/5 Print only Australian born Emma Summerton (*1970) graduated from the National Art School in Sydney, where she studied fine arts majoring in Photography. Summerton moved to London in 1998, where she worked as an assistant to artist Fiona Banner...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Untitled 19 (Polaroid Transfer of Young Nude Man in Bed on Rives BFK)
By Mark Beard
Located in Hudson, NY
image size: 8 x 10 inches Young Nude Man in Bed Unique Polaroid Transfer on 22 x 15 inch Rives BFK paper, unframed signed SM Beard in pencil on bottom left...
Category

1990s Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Polaroid

"Pola Girls 11" Unique Polaroid Photography by Larsen Sotelo
By Larsen Sotelo
Located in Culver City, CA
"Pola Girls 11" Unique Polaroid Photography by Larsen Sotelo 4.2" x 3.5" inch - including white Polaroid frame 3.1" x 3,1" inch - image area Comes with A...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

Polaroid