Stefanie Schneider Photography

Leaving II (Sidewinder) - 2005 60x110cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 3436. Not mounted. 2005 SIDEWINDER - Director / Artist / Camera / Editing - starring JD Rudometkin, Stefanie Schneider, music by JD Rudometkin 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 where subjectivity of an ontological doubt uses a poetics of pastische as a vehicle for an intertextual journey towards the truth and the authenticity of primary emotions. here time is immersed in a nostalgic suspense of oneiric dimension, a sort of ambiguous coma of silence and comfort, and open space embraces a psychotic landscape of solitude and accidental pleasure. fetishisized surface of extreme feelings gives a stage for an unsolicited promise of unconditional love and unlimited freedom, a promise framed by sensual tension between fulfillment and expectation. (Adam Budak, Kunsthaus Graz, Oct 2005) Sidewinder There’s blood on the dress that hangs in the Airstream trailer outside 29 palms. With the pistol in her sweat palm touching at his temple. Tell me what god’s gonna do for me and you now Stevie’s saying while Brother John Baptiste looks there across to where her cat seems weak and fed. All the good that comes to me from my believing man, I wanna hear about it said to me like that. Just the way you breathed it like you did 10 minutes ago when I was wrapped so well around your head. Silence then. A baby screams his mother out in the dessert night who wakes so late. Orion is a belt John Baptiste looks at through the torn-screen trailer window. There, touching his calf are vipers crawling now across her feet between his knees in front of her he kneeling for his life and they are full of venom with their broken fangs. A gun at head, where even his breath, so short, is preaching. He’s in a wheat field. John Baptiste. Counting birds on telephone wires hung low in afternoon where his mother’s call cannot now reach him. There she stands a weeping willow with the sidewinder underneath the trailer step a drop of blood upon her ankle with the bullet through its head. A scar follows sweat palm to wrist. Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California 16 years ago but who’s counting 6 bullets for the barrel wait beside the temple. The long white shaft of tissue hemmed together gods tattoo along her ribs, hip to breast. She wants to fuck the preacher in her trailer with his bible on the alter front row Stevie asks forgiveness holy father from the car that shook her bones apart. John Baptiste asks to pray before she leads his temple head...

Felix and Dominique (California Blue Screen) - 1997 44x59cm, sold out Edition of 5, Artist Proof 1/2, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid, Mounted o...

'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...

'Oilfields I' (Stranger than Paradise), 1999, 60x60cm, Edition 5/10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory Nr. 1214.05, not mounte...

Heather’s Dream (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 50x60, Edition of 5 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Artist...

"Palm Springs Palm Trees II" (Stranger than Paradise) - 2016 20x20cm, Edition 3/10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, Not mounted , Artist ...

Airstream (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition 4/10, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper (matte), based on the original Polaroid A...

Dugong (Stay), from Ryan Gosling's memory sequence - 2006, 57x70cm, Edition 3/5, analog C-Print, printed by the artist on Fuji Archive Crystal Paper, based on a Polaroid. Certific...

Palm Springs Palm Trees V (Californication) - 2019 50x50cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory Number 22169. ...

Penny Lane (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2017 20x24cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Artist inventory 21327B. Signature...

Young Duke (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2017 20x24 cm, Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Edition of 10 Artist inventory 20047. Signature label and Certificate....

Letham House (Stay) - 2006 Edition of 10, 6 pieces 82x80cm each, installed 174x260cm. 6 archival C-Prints, based on 6 Polaroids. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventor...

Calliope (Haley and the Birds) - 2013 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. Stefanie ...

Untitled Sequence (Stranger than Paradise), 2005 30x38cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. artist Inventory No. 844. Not m...

Till Death do us Part (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2007 Edition of 5, 160x125cm. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Sig...

Boccia VIII (Beachshoot) - 2005 30,7x30cm, sold out Edition of 68, Artist Proof 4/5 Lambda Print, based on a Polaroid Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory # 1467. Not...

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. 355...

Untitled (Olancha) - 2006 38x37cm. Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 890. Not ...

The other day I was sure I knew what is good and what is bad (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2015 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Digital C-Print, based o...

Blue Mountains (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid, Not moun...

I am leaving! (Till Death do us Part) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label....

Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 50x48cm each, 50x102cm together with gap. 2 Archival C-Prints, based on 2 Polaroids....

Stefanie Schneider's Mini Making out in Car (Till Death do us Part) signed in front, not mounted. Digital Color Photographs based on a Polaroid. Polaroid sized open Editions 1999...

Leaving Town (Sidewinder) - 2005 80x80cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 346...

'Enchanted' (Saigon) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition 1/5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte Surface, Vintage Print, ...

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. 202...

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. 202...

Childhood Memories (Stay) from the Ryan Gosling's memory sequence, 2006, 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, matte surface, based on the Polaroid. ...

Silence and their words (Till Death do us Part) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 8...

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 ...

Through the looking Glass (Deconstructivism) - 2015 - about the narrative potential of images. 20x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid, Artist Inventory 20270...

Salton Sea Palm Tree (California Badlands) 2016, 20x24cm, Edition 2/10, digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 19400.09. not mou...

INSTANTDREAMS - Monograph - signed Hardcover Edition, 62 pages. published by Avanso, Berlin, 2014 ISBN 978-3-935971-69-0 This book comes with a 20x20cm Edition of 10 plus 2 artist ...

Radha Leopard Dress II (29 Palms, CA), 1999, 102x100cm, sold out Lumas Edition of 100, Artist Proofs 3/3. Lambda Print, based on an expired Polaroid. Certificate and Signature lab...

A Vision you can't Capture, no 03 (29 Palms, CA) - 2007 125x172cm, Edition 1/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Mounted on Aluminum with matte...

'Penelope' from the movie Immaculate Springs - 1998 Edition of 10, 20x30cm, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature Label and Certificate. Artis...

Untitled (Paradise) - 1999, 50x50cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 20459. No...

Untitled (Traintracks) - The last Picture Show - 2004 50x50cm. Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Arti...

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Winter - 2001, 20x29cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the 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...

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 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...

The Farmer and his Wife (American Depression) - 2004 48 x 46 cm, Edition of 10 plus two artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. A...

Afternoon Daze (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 38x36cm each, 38x120 installed, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. 3 Digital C-Prints, based on 3 Polaroids. Signature label and Ce...

Desert Bike Biscuits riding in the Folly of Illusions (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x24cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature la...

Stefanie Schneider's Minis Salt'n Sea (California Badlands) - 2010 Signed and signature brand on verso. Lambda digital Color Photographs based on a Polaroid. Sandwiched in between P...

If I could fly (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2017 50x50cm, Edition of 10. Digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Artist inventory 20058. Signature label and Certificate. ...

The Tiara (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 20x24cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, based on an expired Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory...

'True Colors' (Cyndi Lauper) from the 'Bring Ya to the Brink' record Album) - 2009 20x20cm, Edition of 5, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, Not mounted, Certificate and si...

Last Season - so I walked away from my valley (Wastelands), diptych - 2003 Edition of 3/5, 57x117cm installed 57x56each. analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on 2 Pol...

Playing (Suburbia) - 2004 20x24cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No. 1665. Not mounted, This project "Su...

A Vision you can't Capture (29 Palms, CA) - 2007, Edition 1/5, 125x150 cm each, 3 pieces, installed 125x470cm. 3 Analog C-Prints printed on Fuji Archive Paper, hand-printed by th...

Memory Lane (Haley and the Birds) - 29 Palms, CA - 2013 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Ar...

Stefanie Schneider's Mini Daisy in Trailer (Till Death do us Part) signed in front, not mounted. Digital Color Photographs based on a Polaroid. Polaroid sized open Editions 1999-...

Salton Sea Life (American Depression) - 1999 58x56cm. Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 1 analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature Label an...

Meeting in front of Church (Sidewinder) - 2007 Edition 2/5, each 30x37cm, installed 30x160cm. 4 analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist, based on the 4 oirginal Polaroids. Ce...

'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...

A piece of art from the movie 'Stay' by Stefanie Schneider Stefanie created the art for both main actors Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling in the movie 'Stay' directed by Marc Forster. S...

Listening (Chicks and Chicks and sometimes Cocks) - 2017 - 20x20cm, Edition of 10. Digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Artist inventory 20248. Signature label and Certificate. No...