People Photography

Available Sizes: 11" x 14" $6,000.00 Edition of 25 + 5 AP 16" x 20" $8,000.00 Edition of 25 + 5 AP 20" x 24" $10,000.00 Edition of 20 + 4 AP 30" x 40" $16,500.00 Edition of ...

photo-eye Gallery is very excited to share new works from represented artist Maggie Taylor. After completing her prodigious series of illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Through the Lo...

Fire Hydrant, Harlem, 1963 by Leonard Freed is a 19" x 13" limited edition photograph. The portrait is signed verso (back of photo) by the estate and Brig...

Groundwork 2019, 20x20 cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2019-762...

Amorphisms explore the distorted and negative self-image, which is constructed and mutated from emotions, lived experiences, and interactions with others. Assuming that these mental ...

Touching the skin of the past is an extraordinary collection of Roman Statues captured with the ICM technique in order to make the marble skin like a truly human body. 'Touching the ...

Available Sizes: 11" x 14" $6,000.00 Edition of 25 + 5 AP 16" x 20" $8,000.00 Edition of 20 + 4 AP 20" x 24" $10,000.00 Edition of 20 + 4 AP 30" x 40" $16,000.00 Edition of ...

Iconic and whimsical capture of Audrey Hepburn in her role for the 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's", posed in the kitchen holding ballerina shoes as a cat approaches her. This lis...

Century Guild presents a selection of never-before-seen photographs taken on the set of Caligula in 1976 by legendary Italian still photographer Mario Tursi, best known for his work with Italian directors Pier Paolo Pasolini and Luchino Visconti as well as his long collaboration with Martin Scorsese on the sets of Gangs of New York and The Last Temptation of Christ. These museum-quality fine art prints are available in extremely limited archival editions honoring the Caligula MMXX restoration. Malcolm...

Poolside Chez Holder Guests by the pool at Albin Holder’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, May 1970. 60 x 40" inches / 152 x 101 cm paper size Estate Stamped Collection Edition to 1...

© Michael Putland David Bowie David Bowie at his home Haddon Hall, Beckenham, Kent, UK 1972 David Bowie was a visionary British singer, songwriter, and actor known for his eclecti...

Paris I Love You I Love You ! BATIK signed limited edition POP ART print Paper Size 30 x 20" inches / 76 x 51 cm Signed & numbered by artist on front Archival Pigment print Limited to 25 only Pop art of the now infamous mugshot arrest photo of socialite and famous hotel heiress Paris Hilton...

Gaze - 2020 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-911. Not mounted. Ki...

"In a few photographers like Mauricio Velez does aesthetic become ethic. Every portrait scene is seamless. Every composition is an impeccable piece: the light, gesture, even the pref...

This is a unique photographic work of Barbara Allen with an unidentified man taken by Andy Warhol. 1977's "Girl of the Year," Barbara Allen de Kwiatkowsk...

Swiss Alps, 1964: This landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features holiday-makers taking in the sunset on a white snowy mountain top in Verbier, Swit...

Argentinian dancers Julio Bocca and Eleonora Cassano nude study taken during a session for Playboy magazine, photographed in 1993. This is a vintage g...

'Private Dancer' Brigitte Bardot 1961 by Giancarlo Botti Wonderfully intimate shot of the French sex symbol and icon, Brigitte Bardot, on set of the film 'A Very Private Affair' w...

Boschereccia Palazzo Hercolani, Bologna, Italy 2022 50 x 62.5 inches ed. of 10 $6,000 60 x 75 inches ed. of 7 $9,000 70 x 87.5 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on labe...

"Michelle" Nude Photography 28" x 20" inch Edition 1/20 by Lika Brutyan Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta. Not Framed. Ships in a tube. Lika Brutyan is American...

Edition of 25 3 nude and beautiful girls sitting on a chaiselongue in a historical french builing. The artist, photographer and director Iris Brosch, living between New York and P...

Divine Nude No.1 is a limited-edition photograph by French contemporary artist Ronald Martinez. This photograph is sold unframed as a print only. It is available in only one dimens...

Hand printed by Edward Weston's son Cole Weston. Stamped and signed on verso. Framed with a grey mat and black wood frame. I have inspected the photograph and it is in pristine cond...

Artistic black and white portrait of Ray Charles playing the organ, awesome shot from above of the legendary musician. Ray Charles was an American singer,...

This male nude portrait by Curtice Taylor is offered by CLAMP in New York City.

Policeman with Puppet and Gun, New York City, USA 1979 by Leonard Freed is a black and white limited edition photograph from Freed's Policework series. The photograph, 13" x 19" is an archival pigment print with the photographer's copyright stamp and estate signature by the photographer's widow, Brigitte Freed. The print is in an edition of 10. Available: 1/10, 10/10. Provenance: Freed Estate *** Artist’s Bio: Leonard Freed (1929-2006) was an American photographer from Brooklyn, New York. His "Black in White America" series made him known as a documentarian, a social documentary photographer. Freed worked as a freelance photographer from 1961 onwards and as a Magnum photographer Freed traveled widely abroad and, in the US, photographing African Americans (1964-65), events in Israel (1967-68, 1973), and the New York City police department (1972-79). Freed's coverage of the American civil rights...

c. 1964 Stamped and numbered “3228-3” in black ink, verso Also titled, dated, and inscribed in pencil, verso This work is offered by ClampArt in New York City.

This photograph printed in platinum is exceptional. The image suits the color and style of a platinum print. Printed by a master of the medium under the guise of Kim Weston...

Eden-Roc Pool 1976 Slim Aarons Limited Estate Edition Guests round the swimming pool at the Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc, Antibes, France, August 1976. 72" x 48" paper size Photo by Sli...

Limited Edition of 6 More sizes on request Sebastian Copeland is considered a photographer "who has created works of outstanding artistic quality and conveys messages of urgent glob...

This evocative black-and-white photograph from 1952, taken by German photographer Klaus Redenbacher, captures a moment of poised intensity and expressive motion in a studio setting. ...

Joan Crawford (1933) Silver Gelatin Fibre Print - Oversized (Photo by Pictorial Press / Alamy Archives) 1933 Joan Crawford (1905-1977) US film actress. Additional Information: U...

Pentti Sammallahti is a benchmark figure in contemporary Finnish photography. His works depict nature eroded and broken down by civilization, but h...

Hailing from the picturesque city of Zaragoza, nestled near the Pyrenees, Carlos Blanchard's journey into the realm of photography was influenced by the rich tapestry of his upbringi...

Madison Square Garden (1953) Silver Gelatin Fibre Print - Oversized (Photo by H. Armstrong Roberts/Alamy) Madison Square Garden marquee night, west 49th street, Manhattan, New York, USA, circa 1953 Additional Information: Unframed Paper Size: 40x60'' Printed Later Silver Gelatin Fibre Print NOTE OTHER SIZES OF THIS IMAGE AVAILABLE 10 x 12'' 12 x 16'' 16 x 20'' 20 x 24'' 20 x 30'' 30 x 40'' 40 x 60'' FRAMING AVAILABLE ON REQUEST About the Artist: H. Armstrong ROBERTS (1883-1947) is an artist born in 1883 The oldest auction result ever registered on the website for an artwork by this artist is a photography sold in 2012. ACTORS ON SET, Bette Davis, Ladies Fashion...

Giclée Fine Art Print limited edition 4/10 Printed on FOMEI Collection Baryta Mono 290 gsm/ Museum quality fine art paper Each edition is numbered and signed by the artist...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of Rudolf Nureyev photographed at his friend Monique van Vooren's apartment for 'After Dark' magazine in 1970. S...

'Bath Time Story II' 2016, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs Based on a Polaroid, digital C-Print, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Arti...

Palm Beach Pastels (1959) Limited Estate Stamped (Photo By Slim Aarons) Socialite Alice Topping relaxing by a swimming pool in Palm Beach, Florida, ...

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitsky, called) Hollywood : Mr and Mrs Woodman, 1970 Original gelatin silver print Handsigned on the back Authenticated with the artist stamp "Epreuve originale...

Terry O’Neill’s candid photojournalistic portraits of creative and political luminaries have included Brigitte Bardot, The Beatles, Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, and Frank Sinatra,...

Andy Warhol with Keith Haring, 1983 by Christopher Makos is an 8 x 10in vintage gelatin silver print on fiber paper of downtown New York celebrity artists Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. The photograph is stamped (black ink) on verso (photo back). Provenance: Private Collector *** Artist’s Bio: Christopher Makos (1948- ) is an American photographer and visual artist. He studied architecture in Paris and was an apprentice to Man Ray. Andy Warhol was Makos' good friend and frequent portrait subject. His photographs of Andy Warhol have been exhibited in galleries and museums, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao,Tate Modern in London, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, IVAM in Valencia (Spain), Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, among others. Makos’ pictures have appeared in publications, including Paris Match and the Wall Street Journal. The visual artist is the author of numerous books, such as Warhol/Makos In Context (2007), Andy Warhol China...

Faithfull To Jagger - Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger 1967 Actress Marianne Faithfull backstage with her boyfriend Mick Jagger after her first night performance as Irina in Cheko...

Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc 1976 - Slim Aarons Guests by the pool at the Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc, Antibes, France, August 1976. 60 x 40" inches / 152 x 101 cm paper size Estate Stamped ...

Brothers, Black and White Nude Queer Photography by Amos Badertscher 1998 Signed, titled, and dated twice in black ink, recto; Also signed, titled, d...

16 x 20" vintage silver gelatin photograph, multiple exposure male nude. Titled, numbered, dated, and signed by Jack Mitchell on the recto. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Arch...

Underwater photograph of a naked young woman wrapped in fishing net. The perfect body of the model has slight green tint; her perfect breasts are partial...

Tim 1998 Signed, dated, and inscribed “AP” in pencil, recto Polaroid transfer on Rives BFK paper 22 x 15 inches, sheet 9 x 6.75 inches, image This work is offered by ClampArt in ...

Elevate - 2022 40x50cm, Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2022-2014. Not mounted. Kirsten Thys van den Audenae...

Audrey Hepburn and Husband Mel Ferrer Looking Down a Spiral Staircase, circa 1956. Hepburn had a successful career in Hollywood and was recognised as a film and fashion icon, she wa...

Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood walking backstage in Oakland, CA.

© Michael Putland John Lennon John Lennon at home in the white room, Ascot, UK July 1971 John Lennon was a legendary British musician, songwriter, and peace activist, best known a...

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...

Black and white studio capture of Rita Hayworth posed smiling while petting a dog, circa 1939. Rita Hayworth was an American actress, dancer, and pin-up girl. She achieved fame in t...

Balthasar BURKHARD (1944–2010, Switzerland) Kuba, 2005 C-print in artist’s iron frame, museum glass Sheet 176 x 176 cm (69 1/4 x 69 1/4 in.) From an...

Nobuyoshi ARAKI (*1940, Japan) 69YK #19, 2009 Gelatin silver print 50.8 x 60 cm (20 x 23 5/8 in.) Print only Nobuyoshi Araki (Tokyo, 1940) is a Tokyo-based photographer. Araki completed his studies at Chiba University’s Department of Photography, Painting and Engineering with a focus on the study of film and photography. His photographic project Satchin earned him the prestigious Taiyo Award in 1964, shortly after he had joined the advertising agency Dentsu, where he worked until 1972. At Dentsu he met his wife Yoko, to whom he paid homage in Sentimental Journey, a photographic record of their honeymoon published in 1971. Eros and thanatos (sex and death) has been a central theme in Araki’s work; an abiding fascination with female genitalia and women’s bodies in Japanese bondage...

Poolside Style 1970 by Slim Aarons Slim Aarons Limited Estate Edition Former fashion model Helen Dzo Dzo Kaptur (in white lace), Nelda Linsk (in yellow), wife of art dealer Joseph...

Westin Excelsior The Westin Excelsior Hotel on the Lido in Venice, 1957. 16 × 16 inches - paper size Estate Stamped Collection Edition to 150 Ph...

John Casado - Untitled 20259, Unique silver gelatin print. image = 14 5/8 x 22 or 37 x 55.9 centimeters / ppr 20 x 24 horizontal Each photographic print from John Casado is sold as ...

'Bombay Nights' part of the series 'A girl called N.' 2019, 20x20cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with c...