Chris Frazer Smith Figurative Photography

Blowin' In The Wind III (The Last Picture Show) - 2002, 38x37cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature ...

OK Corral - part 2 - (Stranger than Paradise), - 1999, 20x20 cm, Edition 5/10, digital C-Print based on the Polaroid, Artist Inventory 318_2.18, Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider's 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 dream scapes. 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. “It was Stefanie Schneider, who inspired me to start the company THE IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT after seeing her work, which seems to achieve the possible from the impossible, creating the finest of art out of the most basic of mediums and materials. Indeed, after that one day, I was so impressed with her photography that I realized Polaroid film could not be allowed to disappear. Being at the precise moment in time where the world was about to lose Polaroid, I seized the moment and have put all my efforts and passion into saving Polaroid film. For that, I thank Stefanie Schneider almost exclusively, who played a bigger role than anyone in saving this American symbol of photography.” –Florian Kaps, March 8th 2010 (“Doc” Dr. Florian Kaps, founder of “The Impossible Project”) Exhibitions Selected (selected) 2018 Participation Bombay Beach Biennale, Bombay Beach, USA (G) March Available to All, Rough Play Projects - Site Specific, Joshou Tree, USA (G) curated by Deborah Martin with Adam Berg, Doron Gazit, Kellan Barnebey, Chris Sanchez, Aili Schmelzt 2017 BLICKFELD Analoge Fotografie, Kommunale Galerie Steglitz-Zehlendorf (G) (catalog), (upcoming)
 Rosegallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica (G) Magie des Moments, Kunstverein Bad Homburg Artlantis, Bad Homburg (G) 2016 
Instantdreams, Instantdreams Gallery, Berlin 

(S) 2015
 Desert Voices, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (G) with Pamela Littky The Ballery in Heat, The Ballery, Berlin (G) 
Blue Nudes, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (G) 

 2014

 Summer Show, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (G) 6 Finalists, Saatchi Gallery London (G) 
Instantdreams, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (S)
Grand Opening, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles (G) with Banksy, Andy Warhol, Alison Bignon, Sophie Dickens, Victor Gingembre and others
 2013 
Heather's Dream, Short, nominated for the German Short Film Award 2013 (Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis)
Images For Images (Artists fir Tichy), GASK - Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region,  Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, (G) with Richard Prince, Nan Golding, Shirana Shahbazi, Sophie Calle, Martin Kippenberger, Arnulf Rainer, Thomas Ruff, Katharina Grosse, Jonathan Meese & others (catalog) 
The Girl behind the White Picket Fence, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (S)
 Heather's Dream, Short, German Competition Short Film Festival Oberhausen 
Multimedia Presentation with Artist Stefanie Schneider, Palms Springs Art Museum, Annenberg Theater
 The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, (G) with Ansel Adams, Bruce Charlesworth...

Blowin' In The Wind II (The Last Picture Show) - 2002, 38x37cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature l...

'Ewan McGregor' (Stay) - 2006 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory No. 5007.01 Not mounted Stefanie Sc...

Crow Burial III (Sidewinder) 20 x 20 cm, 2005, Edition 4/10, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Artist Inventory 3507.04, not mounted “It was Stefanie Schneider, who inspired me...

Abstract I (Sidewinder) - 2005 part of DECONSTRUCTIVISM - about the narrative potential of images. 20x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid, Artist Inventory 38...

Gasoline II (Stranger than Paradise) 1999 - 3 pieces, each 128x125cm, installed 125x295cm including gaps. sold out Edition of 5, Artist Proof 1/2 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by...

Winter (The Last Picture Show) - 2005, 50x49cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist I...

Field of Dreams (Sidewinder) - 2005 80 x 78 cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid, Artist Inventory 3131.02, Not mounted Stefanie ...

A Man and a Woman (Sidewinder) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid, Artist Inventory 3213. Signature label and Cer...

'Ewan McGregor' (Stay) - 2006 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory No. 5007.01 Not mounted Stefanie Schneider: Torsten Scheid, “Fotografie, Kunst, Kino. Revisited.”, FilmDienst 3/2006, page 11-13

 Photography Art Cinema. Revisited Stay expands a traditional connection through new facets Interwoven between the media of photography and film is a veritable mesh-work of technical, motific, metaphorical and personal interrelationships. Extending from photo-film which, as in La Jetée by Chris Marker (France, 1962) is a montage of single, unmoving photographs all the way to the portrayal of photographic motifs in Hollywood cinema―most recently in Memento (USA, 2000) and One hour photo (USA, 2002)―is the range of filmic-photographic interactions on the one hand, and from the adaption of modes of cinematic production to the imitation of film stills on the other. For instance, with the legendary Untitled Film Stills (1978) of the American artist Cindy Sherman, who later made her debut as a film director with Office Killer (USA, 1997) and thereby, like many others, changed sides: Wim Wenders, Robert Frank and Larry Clark are doubtlessly the most successful of these photographic-filmic border crossers. This brief survey provides only a vague indication of the dimensions of this intermedial field, which in fact extends much further and is constantly being cultivated. Also as a motif in film, photography has experienced a historical transformation: Photographers were once considered to be technicians who mastered a craft but never achieved the status of artists. Photographer-figures were caught in the allure of beautiful appearance, incapable of penetrating to the actual essence of things. Such depth was reserved for literature or painting. When photography in film touched upon the sphere of art, then most often as its contrasting model, as the metaphor for a superficial access to the world. Coming to mind are Fred Astaire as a singing fashion photographer in Stanley Donen’s musical film Funny Face (USA, 1957), or the restless lifestyle-photographer in Michelangelo Antonioni’s genre-classic Blow up (GB, 1966). For the doubting Thomas...

Gasoline II (Stranger than Paradise) 1999 - 3 pieces, each 128x125cm, installed 125x295cm including gaps. sold out Edition of 5, Artist Proof 1/2 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by...