Stefanie Schneider Art

Stefanie Schneider's Mini Jules and Jim (29 Palms, CA) - 2007 signed in front, not mounted. Digital Color Photographs based on the Polaroids. Polaroid sized open Editions 1999-2023...

Radha Mind Screen (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 128x125cm, Edition 5/5, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper Based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Si...

Thunderbird Motel (The Last Picture Show) - 2005 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 50x50cm. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Signature label and Certificate. Artist i...

Desert Center (Stranger than Paradise) - 2000 Edition of 10, 48x46cm. Archival Print, based on a Polaroid. Mounted on dibond with matte UV-Protection. Signature label and Certifi...

Jungle Boy (Back in the 80's) - 1999 48x46cm, Edition of 10. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory ...

Moving in Together (Till Death do us Part) - 2008 125x154cm, Edition 1/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Certifi...

Palm Trees on Wilcox (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 80x78cm, Edition of 100, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, Certificate and signature label. Artist inventory number: ...

Stefanie Schneider's Mini 'Pasolini' from the movie Immaculate Springs - 1996 featuring Jacinda Barrett signed in front, not mounted. Digital Color Photographs based on the Polaroi...

Stefanie Schneider's Mini Airstream (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 signed in front, not mounted. Digital Color Photographs based on the Polaroids. Polaroid sized open Editions 1999-2023 10....

Skylark (Stranger than Paradise) - 1997 43x59cm, Edition 3/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature Label and Certificate. Artist Inventory...

The Girl II (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) 38x36cm, Edition 1/10 from 2011 analog C-Print, hand-printed the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, matte surface, based on a...

'Max by the Fence' (29 Palms, CA) Proof b4 Printing / 2005, 128x125cm analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid, signed on front. The white border is for ease o...

You turn from Me (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. 9555.01. Not...

Brooklyn Bridge (Stay) - 2006 Edition of 5, 100x135cm installed, each piece is 30x29cm, 12 analog C-Prints, printed by the artist on Fuji Archive Crystal Paper, matte surface, b...

Gas station at Night I (Stranger than Paradise) - 2006 Edition 1/5, 48x46 each, 93x91cm installed with gaps. 4 analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on the 4 Polaroid...

Stefanie Schneider Polaroid sized unlimited Mini 'Gestures' - 1999 - signed in front, not mounted. 1 Digital Color Photographs based on ...

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 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, 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, and others. MUSES, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (G) with Kourtney Roy and Eric Weeks 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 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, Olafur Eliasson, Pipilotti Rist...

Frenzy (Sidewinder) - 2005 Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, not mounted, Signature label and Certificate artist Inventory Nr. 3048. In Stefanie Schneider's...

Indian Summer II (The Last Picture Show) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, matte surface, based on a Polaroid, signature label and certificate, Artist Inventory 878.11. 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., Bombay Beach Biennale 2018 / 2019. “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” now Polaroid) 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, 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, and others. MUSES, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France (G) with Kourtney Roy and Eric Weeks 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 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, Olafur Eliasson, Pipilotti Rist...

The Sound of Music - 2007 (from the 29 Palms, CA Project) 125x156cm, Edition of 5, 2007, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, signed on verso. artist Inventory # 11596.01. No...

Stefanie Schneider's work was used for Marc Forster's movie 'Stay'. Featuring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling. Naomi and Ryan were both portraying artists and Stefanie's ...

American Pie (Oxana's 30th Birthday) -2007, from the 29 Palms, CA project - 38x36cm, Edition of 10. digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid, mounted...

Stefanie Schneider's Minis - The size of a Polaroid. Astroland (Stay), 2006. Lambda digital Color Photographs based on a Polaroid. Signed and signature brand on verso. Polaroid...

Untitled (Cathy and Shannon) - 2004 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 481...

Judith (Suburbia) - 2004 50x60cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signed on verso with Certificate, Artist inventory number: 1698. Not mounted. This proje...

Oasis (Sidewinder), 2005 Edition 9/25, digital C-Print, based on expired Polaroids Artist inventory Number 3001.18 Stefanie Schneider: A German view of the American West The works ...

Stefanie Schneider's work was used for Marc Forster's movie 'Stay'. Featuring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling. Naomi and Ryan were both portraying artists and Stefanie's ...

Untitled - Stage of Consciousness (29 Palms, CA) - 2007 75x93cm, Edition 5/5 , analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid, Ar...

'Eavesdropping' (29 Palms, CA), Edition 3/10, 20x20cm, 1999, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature Label and Certificate. Artist inventory No. 18257.03. Not mounted. ...

Nipple - Bathtime IV (29 Palms, CA) 1999, 40x40cm, Edition 1/10, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory ...

Stillness (Zuma Beach) - 2004 29x28cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #20433. N...

Radha Shooting II (Long Way Home) - 1999 published in 'Stranger than Paradise' 128x126cm Sold out edition of 5, Artist proof 2/2, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based...

Hans and Penelope (Immaculate Springs) - 1998 Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 58x185cm installed, 58x56cm each. 3 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on 3 Pola...

Stefanie Schneider Polaroid sized unlimited Mini 'Sam' - 2006 - featuring Ewan McGregor signed in front, not mounted. 1 Digital Color Ph...

'Under the Influence' (Cyndi Lauper) from the 'Bring Ya to the Brink' record Album Shoot - 2009 20x24cm, Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroi...

Renée's Dream (29 Palms, CA) - 2005 185 x 111cm (including white frame) Edition 6/10. Archival C-Print, based on 32 Polaroids. Artist inventory 8072. Signature Label and certificate...

Riviera (Malibu) - 2004 50x50cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 668. Not mounted. The works of Stefanie ...

Forgotten Land (California Badlands) - 2010 24x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 10899. Not mounted....

Stefanie Schneider's Minis 'Moonwalk' (29 Palms, CA), 2006 signed and signature brand on verso Lambda digital Color Photograph based on a Polaroid Polaroid sized open Editions 1999-...

Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x19.5cm each. 2 archival C-Prints, based on the 2 Polaroids. Artist inventory Numb...

Lipstick (Sidewinder) - 2005 20 x 24 cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, signature label and certificate. Artist Inventory 3045. Not mounted. sidewinder "private history turned into an intimate mythology of elemental fantasies where reality is perceived through a veil of psychedelic memories and unconscious projections. such is a collection of passions and dreams, an uncanny diary of ephemeral narratives and mental intensities in Stefanie Schneider’s painterly photographs...

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, a...

Palm Springs Palm Trees XI (Californication) - 2019 40x40cm, Edition of 10, plus two artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Ar...

Spiegelbild (Stage of Consciousness) part of the 29 Palms, CA project - 2008 Edition of 30, 38x47cm, archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Ar...

The Girl III (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013, 128x126cm, Edition 2/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Archive Crystal Paper, matte surface, bas...

'Untitled' (The Last Picture Show) - 2005, Edition 2/10, 20x20cm, Based on a Polaroid, Certificate and signature label, Not mounted, Artist inve...

The morning after (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, art...

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...

Car Wash (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 Edition of 10 , 58x56cm, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Signature label...

Home of the Brave (Oxana's 30th Birthday) - 2007 A Captivating Journey Through Faded Dreams Dimensions: 48x46cm Edition: Limited edition of 10, / plus 2 Artist Proofs Medium: Archi...

Desert Center (Stranger than Paradise) - 2000 Edition of 10, 48x60cm. Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Mounted on dibond with matte UV-Protection. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 534. Published in Stranger than Paradise, Hatje Cantz (monograph) Stefanie Schneider: A Discovery on Polaroid. An essay by Eugen Blume How is it that the photographic works of Stefanie Schneider do not allow anything other than one single association, namely that of America? Because they were taken in America itself? That fact alone would not yet be a compelling argument. Many photographs of America possess a reckless ambivalence which allows even the different country of their own particular creator to seem so similar as to be confused with America itself. Does this ambiguity have something to do with the ongoing, accelerating Americanization of the entire world? Or is it simply connected with our personal clichés which we attribute to a country the size of North America as valid expressions of its very essence, thereupon negligently allowing it not only to dwindle down into any size whatever, but also to expand to a great extent, from Germany by way of Luxembourg right through to Japan? Now it is certainly true that the figures of Thelma and Louise in the desert do not represent an American reality, not even after their resurrection as Radha and Max in the series 29 Palms from 1999. Strangely enough, it is nature which allows this utterly artificial scene to grow into an American verity. The harsh sunlight in the barren landscape establishes the fundamental tone out of which the women emerge in excessive hysteria from beneath their colored wigs. It is inherently absurd to celebrate the feminine aspect in the middle of a mercilessly inhospitable environment. The image of the two women is a monument of resistance, the meaningful assertion of a lifestyle which stands in contradiction to each and every convention. The pictorial structure and the captured movement along the edge of the format are a means of blending the glaring luminosity with the plot in a manner which perhaps functions successfully only in the “simple” instant technique of the Polaroid. Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives are striking in their formal elegance. She utilizes the chemical faults of the Polaroids, their tendency towards overexposure and double-images as a sovereignly controlled means of artistic design. The defects become, as it were, metaphorical levels which plumb depths lying far beneath the surface. The overly bright colors and schlieren seek out the uncanny; they provide a counterweight to a narration that is deliberately kept superficial. They tell of an invisible strand. They illuminate, in the truest sense of the word, underground processes. Although we are familiar with a series featuring American flags which could not indicate the site of its narrations any more clearly, nevertheless there remains a fundamental doubt as to whether the initially described association with America is identical with that which we deem to be America in a geographical sense. Although I have in the meantime been in America several times, in both South and North America, deep down I remain uncertain as to whether the New World actually exists. Columbus’ error of continuing to believe, even when having arrived on land, that he was encountering the India which was the actual goal of his journey has burrowed down deep into the European unconscious as a cultural convention. Peter Bichsel’s amusing story “Amerika gibt es nicht” (There is no America) still remains today an undeniable truth: America’s northern half is a film, not a continent. Everything which signifies the U.S.A. – from the Indians, whose most noble savages were invented in Europe, all the way to September 11th and the subsequent war in Iraq, the aliens and the revival of the dinosaurs, the terminators as governors and presidents as actors and vice versa, the electric chairs, the godfather Marlon Brando and the eternal singer Bob Dylan, the neurotic Woody Allen, Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol – all this is an invention of the media. Everything that I know about America has been conveyed to me by Hollywood films. My trip into this fictional wonderland, this country where nothing seems impossible, began with a landing at Kennedy Airport, along with a list of questions investigating my existence up to that point in time and inquiring whether I belonged or belong to any Communist organization. There went by three long hours of waiting, without my having seen anything that was actually real, among variously colored passengers until there was a call to board my flight to Houston, Texas, the destination of my first trip to America. The airplane traveled for an endless stretch of time just to reach the take-off runway and thereby crossed bridges under which dense auto traffic flowed ceaselessly towards somewhere, like a never-ending caravan. My little onboard window was nothing more than a monitor tuned to one of the many road movies at which I gazed in boredom. Finally the machine came to a standstill and the massive doors were opened, warm air hung heavily amid functional concrete buildings and a few palms: I was in the southern region of North America. In front of the airport was the usual scene from the beginning of a film viewed hundreds of times: yellow cabs with black drivers. Along the highway to Houston, seen from car windows that were once again nothing more than monitors, there rose up upon high poles to the right and left vastly oversized, widescreen-formatted billboards advertising everything that for a long time now we in Europe have internamericalized: Coca-Cola in an immediate love-hate relationship to Pepsi, the successful taste plagiarizer, McDonald’s, cornflakes. Concrete streets above and below me, in the distance the skyline of Houston set against the background of the desert: high-quality Cinemascope. Spontaneously there came to mind the first scenes of Tarkovsky’s Solaris, that never-ending stretch of concrete, filmed from within the automobile which, remotely controlled, brings its passenger somewhere, anywhere, just not into reality. I didn’t understand the first Texan whom I met; the ponderous dialect, spoken in the interior of his mouth, was not compatible with my knowledge of English. America was not only a film but also a collection of clichés. In the evening I attended the opening of an museum exhibition, which was the actual reason for my journey: rich women wearing fur coats in approximately thirty degrees Centigrade; first the buffet, then the art; no wordily wandering speeches, but rather everything economically tailored to momentary pleasure and external appearance. Modern Houston was nothing more than a city of offices; the last skyscrapers in the series already end in the desert sand; some are nailed up and carry signs of warning: “Contaminated with Asbestos.” In the bus I am the only white person among variously hued immigrants from South America or scions of long-established families of former slaves, and I myself am marveled at like a strange, stray soul. In search of the DeMenil Collection amid endless single-family dwellings, there was the usual action scene: an identity check, police vehicles outfitted with sirens and sporting double, revolving lights upon their roofs, the role of the sheriff well cast, a successful sequence filmed on the first take and put right in the can. I am not given any trouble with my status as a European, such as can easily be seen from my passport. The whole atmosphere is friendly, suffused with an almost unbelievable amicality. The colleagues in the Museum of Fine Arts, an astounding universal museum with artworks ranging from antiquity all the way to the present and a Mies van der Rohe building extension, are enthusiastic about my idea of traveling on to California as soon as possible. Beneath me a nature film presented by National Geographic, the Grand Canyon, red cliffs of incredible dimensions, somewhere Death Valley and Hollywood, to which I owe so much. In San Francisco friends are waiting for me at the airport, two American biographies such as are only written here. Everything is just as I know it, the soundtrack is right on the money: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and up further in the surf, the Beach Boys. The Golden Gate Bridge in fog, the wonderful district of Sausalito, and far across the bay the city of Oakland. A paradise of hippies, twenty degrees Centigrade as the average annual temperature. William Seward Burroughs is reading in a bookshop, Alan Ginsburg, and somewhere Patti Smith is singing. I do not intend to write here about my next destination, New York City, not about the wonderful people who were my hosts, not about Mildred the pianist, who worked with John Cage, not about her husband, the painter who was friends with Alexander Calder… When I recall this first trip to America, my images are strangely blurred in their colors, and the sharply focused photographs which I have kept among many useless ones convey nothing of that which remains in my head. I think back to the magical places, just like to the inhospitable ones, from a certain aesthetic perspective, and it is this very aesthetic which I rediscover in the pictures of Stefanie Schneider. Tales of America, a discovery on Polaroid. Basically we know nothing about how our remembered images in fact look; we believe that we recall pictures and we tell of images which nocturnal dreams implant in our brains, but we would have great difficulty in specifying their actual form. From time to time we consider ourselves to have seen distinct pictures, but mostly we think of blurred appearances, more of shadows than of sharp contours. For her part, Stefanie Schneider as a native German sees her chosen country of residence as if in a dream. She stages a land which does not exist, a land of visions and spirits. During 2005 in the film Hitchhiker and in the photo series Sidewinder, she tells about love in terms of the hippie clichés of the 1960s: the long-haired girl with no makeup together with the preacher in a trailer amid the eternal heat, God’s warm canopy above California, Jack Daniels as the celebratory wine of the mass, the Colt revolver...

Spare Parts (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 78x76cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inventory 320....

The DJ (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 50x50cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Mounted on Dibond with matte UV-Protection. Signed on back and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 16346. In Stefanie Schneider's evocative piece "Her Last Call," she presents a poignant scene featuring the talented actor Heather Megan Christie. The composition centers around a captivating image of Christie holding a red rotary phone...

Her last Call II (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 78x77cm, Edition 3/5, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory # 16495.03. Not mounted. Featuring Heather Megan Christie. Offered is a piece from the movie: The Girl behind the White Picket Fence A tale told with blemished and expired Polaroid film about the hopes and dreams of a newly orphaned girl after losing her parents who lived in the Californian desert in a vintage Spartan travel-trailer. -filmed with Polaroid film stock and Super-8 footage, overlaid with poetic voice-over monologue - this feature film creates a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl's journal (Palms Springs life magazine / Caroline Ryder) Stefanie Schneider By Caroline Ryder Travel up a bumpy dirt road in Morongo Valley, the trail strewn with rocks, and you’ll come upon a gigantic 1950s trailer in pristine condition, ringed by a white picket fence, with cottontail rabbits hopping among neat little rose bushes that bloom in spite of the broiling desert heat. Inside the trailer are period accents—a vintage radio, vintage fridge, little crocheted doilies and dusty gilt-framed photographs. It’s a surreal home-sweet-home, an Americana fantasy as imagined by German artist and experimental filmmaker Stefanie Schneider whose work is so inspired by the desert landscape, she made it her home in 2005. “There’s a completely different light here than in Germany, a beautiful light,” says Schneider, whose 10-acre property in Morongo is dotted with vintage trailers. They surround her midcentury home, and serve as sets for her photo shoots or as guest lodgings for her friends from Hollywood and Berlin. “But what I really love about the desert is the desolation,” she continues. “The sense of hope for something that might or might not come. It’s easy to see our dreams projected in the desert.” Famed for shooting trailer park chic fine art photographs exclusively on vintage Polaroid film, Schneider recently completed her most ambitious project to date—a feature film made entirely of Polaroid stills (4000 images in total), the story set around her magnificent 1950s trailer. The film, called “The Girl Behind The White Picket Fence” tells the story of a broken-hearted girl who lives in the trailer. Her name is Heather, and she is played by model Heather Megan Christie, girlfriend of actor Joaquin Phoenix, and former partner of Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis, with whom she has a son. Heather stars opposite Kyle Larson (who plays ‘Hank’), a real-life gypsy fisherman who catches crab in Alaska when he’s not surfing in Southern California. Neither of the two had ever acted before, and never in the history of movie making has a director shot a film entirely on Polaroid film. “There was great difficulty shooting a film this way,” says Schneider, who, with her long straight hair, wide innocent eyes and thick-framed glasses, conjures an art-house Gretel. “If I had used a regular camera I would have had 36 exposures per minute, much faster and easier than using the old Polaroid camera which takes a long time to shoot one frame. Also, sometimes it doesn’t shoot at the exact moment you think it’s going to—but that’s really great because then you miss the perfect moment…and often those are the best shots.” Individually, the Polaroid photographs that comprise 29 PALMS, CA stand alone, but together and in sequence, filmed with super 8 and 16mm film stock and overlaid with poetic voice-over monologues, they create a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick. Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl’s journal. The idea to shoot a movie in this way came about in 2004, when Schneider was working with leading German director Mark Forster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) on his film Stay. She had met Forster at director Wim Wender’s birthday party in Hollywood. A few years later, Forster asked Schneider to shoot Polaroids of scenes from Stay as he filmed; he used those photographs for dream and memory sequences in the movie. For the first time, Schneider saw her Polaroids strung together in sequence, moving with rhythm like a flipbook, in the context of a story. When Forster urged her to consider making a feature film using...

Harmony Motel (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper (matte) based on an expir...

Everything put Together (Suburbia) - 2004 50x50cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label with Certificate. Artist inventory #19313. Not mounte...

'Penny and Sweet Pee' - 2017 (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) Edition 2/10, 20x20cm, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid Artist inventory 20216.01 Not mounted Signature label and certificate The 'Chicks and Chicks' series is part of my Desert Living Project, which encompasses all aspects of organic living including growing your own organic food, self sustainability and regarding the beauty and personality of farm animals and their welfare in an endeavor to connect human needs back to the sources of living. The full circle of Industrialization returns to the homestead. 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) 2017 BLICKFELD Analoge Fotografie, Kommunale Galerie Steglitz-Zehlendorf (G) (catalog), (upcoming)
 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 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, Olafur Eliasson, Pipilotti Rist...

'Waiting II' (Sidewinder) - 2004 80x80cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. artist Inventory # 303...