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Stefanie SchneiderUntitled (Traintracks) - based on a Polaroid2004
2004
About the Item
Untitled (Traintracks) - The last Picture Show - 2004
40x39cm.
Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs.
Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No. 1073.
Not mounted.
Stefanie Schneider’s work captures the American West in a way that transcends mere documentation—it distills the mythos of the frontier into something dreamlike, deteriorating, and deeply personal. Her images evoke Ed Ruscha’s fascination with roadside Americana, Georgia O’Keeffe’s reverence for arid landscapes, and Edward Hopper’s haunting loneliness, yet they engage in a unique dialogue with history, both photographic and cultural. How did a German artist become one of the most essential voices in the visual storytelling of the American dream—and its unraveling?
Born in Germany in 1968, Schneider grew up in a divided nation, where the scars of history were still visible in the landscape. This early exposure to ruptured histories and fading ideologies may explain her pull toward the abandoned edges of the American West—a land that once symbolized limitless possibility but now bears the melancholy of faded utopias.
Schneider’s process begins in these liminal spaces—the parched deserts and forgotten highways of Southern California—where she photographs her subjects using expired Polaroid film. The very material of her work embodies impermanence and decay, its chemical imperfections mirroring the breakdown of memory and myth. In Berlin, she develops and enlarges her images by hand, bringing an almost cinematic post-production process to a medium often associated with instant gratification.
Her role in preserving Polaroid film as an artistic medium has placed her at the forefront of a historical crossroads in photography. At a time when instant film was being phased out—a casualty of digital progress—Schneider refused to let it vanish. In doing so, she not only safeguarded a crucial chapter in photographic history but also cemented her place as one of its key narrators, treating Polaroid not as a tool of nostalgia but as a medium uniquely suited to capturing time slipping away.
This tension between preservation and deterioration is central to Schneider’s work. As she told Artnet in 2014, her images are deeply personal explorations of longing, memory, and loss:
"My work resembles my life: Love, lost and unrequited, leaves its mark in our lives as a senseless pain that has no place in the present."
The notion of absence—whether in love, landscapes, or fading cultural dreams—haunts her work. Her subjects, often seen in desolate spaces—trailer parks, oilfields, run-down motels, and empty highways—appear disconnected, isolated even when together. The ghosts of American iconography—the road trip, the drifter, the neon-lit escape—are present, yet they flicker like echoes of a past that may never have existed as we remember it.
In many ways, Schneider’s vision of the American West is a farewell letter—not to the physical place, but to the idea of it. She does not merely document a landscape; she captures the moment it dissolves, leaving behind only traces of what was. In doing so, she ensures that the story of the West, much like her Polaroid film, lingers—imperfect, beautiful, and just beyond our grasp.
- Creator:Stefanie Schneider (1968, German)
- Creation Year:2004
- Dimensions:Height: 15.75 in (40 cm)Width: 15.36 in (39 cm)Depth: 0.04 in (1 mm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Framing:Framing Options Available
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Morongo Valley, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU652316221342
Stefanie Schneider
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.
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