Monika Merva Color Photography

My Girl (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #9506...

Wild Things (Till Death do us Part) triptych - 2005, 20x20cm each, 20x70cm installed, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 3 Archival C-Prints, based on the 3 Polaroids. Certifi...

Runaway Lovers (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x24cm Edition of 10. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 9366.01. No...

Richard Heeps became well-known for his Burlesque Photography after he spent 2003 capturing performances in Britain & America. He spent a lot on time with his subjects on a number of...

'Radha Leopard Dress III' (29 Palms, CA) Edition 3/10, 20x20cm, 1999, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory 18258.03. Not mounted. Featuring Australian actress Radha Mitchell. Living and working in Los Angeles and Berlin, 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 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. “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”) Selected Exhibitions 2019 Participating and curating the newly founded Polaroid Museum at the Bombay Beach Biennale 2019 (G) invited project at Saatchi's The Other Art Fair, LA - Polaroid Curation Instant Dreams USA film release March/April NYC, L.A. 2018 participating and curating Bombay Beach Biennale 2018 (G) Rough Play Project, Available for all, Joshua, Tree, USA (G) 2017 BLICKFELD] Analoge Fotografie, Kommunale Galerie Steglitz-Zehlendorf (G) (catalog) 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 
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, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Charles and Ray Eames, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Oppenheim, Andy Warhol and others, (catalog)
 Road Atlas - Straßenfotografie, DZ Bank Collection: Kunsthalle Erfurt (Spring), Art Foyer DZ Bank, Frankfurt/Main, (G) with Helen Levitt, Pieter Hugo, Nobuyoshi Araki, Pietro Donzelli, and others (catalog)  
2012
 Stranger Than Paradise, Christian Hohmenn Fine Art, Palms Desert, (S)
 Stefanie Schneider, Gallery at Cliff Lede Vineyards, Napa Valley, CA, (S)
 Bienale Art Auction 2012, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, (G), with Ai Weiwei, John Baldessari, Christo, Ed Ruscha, Christopher Russell... MUSES, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (G) 
Polaroid (IM)POSSIBLE - THE WESTLICHT COLLECTION, NRW Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft, Düsseldorf (G), (catalog)
 Road Atlas - Straßenfotografie, DZ Bank Collection: Kunstmuseum Dieselkraftwerk, Cottbus, (G), (catalog), 
Studio Scholorship, Centro Cultural Andratx, Mallorca, May 2012
 Selling Sex, ShowStudio Gallery, London (G) with Cortney Andrews, Una Burke, Liz Cohen, Inge Jacobsen, and others
 Stranger Than Paradise, Scott White Contemporary, San Diego, (S) 

2011 
Kunst zu verlosen !  // Art to raffle off !, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, (G) with Monica Bonvicini, Tim Eitel...

Field of Briar (Sidewinder) - 2005 Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 3141. Not mounted. "...

Untitled (Oilfields) - 2004 50x50cm, Edition of 10, Digital C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory # 1222. Not mounted. OILFIELDS, 2004 ...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, a...

'Looking back' (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition 1/10, digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory No. 9485.01, N...

A color photograph of Buzz Aldrin standing next to a seismograph with the "Eagle" and American flag in the background remains an historical and artistic document from 8 days in space...

Springtime (Suburbia) - 2004 50x50cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, Signed on verso with Certificate, Artist inventory number: 18251. Not mounted. Thi...

'North Shore Yacht Club I' - Salton Sea (California Badlands) - 1998 50x60cm with white border, Image size: 48x46cm, Edition 2/10, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory No. 585.02, Not mounted. The artist Stefanie Schneider has produced a unique body of work because she was the first to utilize expired Polaroid instant photography. Embracing the ‘imperfections’ this medium can produce Stefanie’s artwork was the inspiration of Instagram and the catalyst that motivated Dr. Florian Kaps to rescue the sole remaining Polaroid film production factory in Holland. Saving the last production equipment just before their planned destruction, therefore saving millions of vintage Polaroid cameras from obsolescence. Hows that for an artist having an effect on her medium of choice! The ‘Impossible film project’ saved the production factory and then a Polish business man bought ‘Impossible film’ and the actual Polaroid company to bring the two back together resulting in the so called ‘Polaroid Originals’ and giving it to his millennial son. (I hear he might also get Fuji film company for Christmas) Stefanie Schneider purchases Polaroid instant film and uses it only at it’s best possible outcome for her planned film shoots. The location, sets, costumes, actors and stories all come from Schneider but that’s just the beginning. The stories and their production take place in the high desert near Joshua Tree in California but the post production is in Berlin, Germany. The chosen photographs are rephotographed to make a negative. Following with the analogue medium, Schneider enlarges and prints old school in a self designed and built analogue darkroom in an old factory studio in Berlin. The largest of her hand printed art works measure 125cm or 49 inches in width with her vintage ‘Colenta’ developing machine. Schneider designed and built her own enlarger to properly fit her concept with the biggest ‘Durst’ enlarger ever built and turned on it’s side so as to print even bigger than was possible in it’s original design and rolls on custom tracks. Schneider created a film production movie set for her biggest film concepts from all her proceeds on an organic (off grid) farm in California where she eats only what she grows. Complete with garden, greenhouse and chicken coop. (It’s also a sanctuary for animals as no meat consumption is permitted) Vintage travel trailers dot the farm where production ideas develop. a costume trailer, film storage in the vintage refrigerators...