Skip to main content

California - Photography

to
939
5,003
3,377
1,242
1,595
2,515
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
1
86
4,268
9,651
3
4
38
75
121
646
830
758
646
634
6,766
476
390
333
275
260
42
19
17
11
5
2
5,932
4,250
3,508
5,309
2,859
2,372
2,073
2,042
1,659
1,617
1,154
1,088
907
734
613
565
532
527
512
477
467
453
430
6,701
5,026
4,687
3,976
3,697
2,796
2,141
584
506
357
1,067
4,418
14,041
55,279
28,735
Item Ships From: California
Poolside Waiting, Palm Springs, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
By Slim Aarons
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This 1970s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features a waiter by the pool at Nelda Linsk's desert house in Palm Springs, January 1970. The house was...
Category

1970s Realist California - Photography

Materials

Lambda

"Fluidity Nr 13" Photography 40" x 30" inch Edition of 10 by Lika Brutyan
By Lika Brutyan
Located in Culver City, CA
"Fluidity Nr 13" Photography 40" x 30" inch Edition of 10 by Lika Brutyan Original photography by Lika Brutyan from the ""Fluidity" series Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Ph...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Rag Paper, Archival Pigment

Thirst (Bombay All Day) - Contemporary, Portrait, Women, Polaroid, 21st Century
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Thirst (Bombay All Day) - 2019 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid, not mounted. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventor...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Heath Ledger, Casanova, Venice 2004, Contemporary, Celebrity, Photography
By Greg Gorman
Located in München, BY
Edition 10 Also available in 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 inch, Edition 25 Black and white portrait of actor Heath Ledger in young age. From personality portra...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Don't Give up on Us Baby (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, Polaroid
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Don't Give up on Us Baby (Till Death do us Part) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Champagne - underwater nude photograph - print on aluminum 32" x 48"
By Alex Sher
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
An underwater photo of a naked young woman wrapped in air bubbles. The photograph depicts only her body, the face is not visible. A very bright eye-catching artwork. The pool was f...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Metal

Yoda 60x45 Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, 80's toys, Photography Pop Art Jedi
By Destro
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This is a pop art print of the original Yoda toy from Kenner "The Toys" by LA based Pop Artists DESTRO. They encapsulate an era instantly transporting the viewer to another time. P...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary American Modern California - Photography

Materials

Ink, Color, Archival Pigment

Rose Bowl - Urban Landscape Photography Painting Art on Paper
By Pete Kasprzak
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Pete Kasprzak’s passion for city life is expressed in his dynamic urban artworks. Kasprzak’s artworks express energy and life with animated brush strokes. He adds dynamic movement an...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Mixed Media, Acrylic, Photographic Paper

New York Debutante, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
By Slim Aarons
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This mid-1950s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features a New York debutante having her headpiece pinned. This is an estate stamped and hand numbe...
Category

1950s American Realist California - Photography

Materials

Black and White, Lambda

Actor Girl II (29 Palms, CA)- including the book 'A Half Forgotten Dream'
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Actor Girl II (Stage of Consciousness) - 2008 including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 2024....
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Isaac Hayes, LA, Contemporary, Celebrity, Photography, Portrait
By Greg Gorman
Located in München, BY
Combined Edition 25 Also available in 50 x 60 cm/ 20 x 24 inch and as combined Edition 10 in 76 x 101 cm / 30 x 40 inch 101 x 127 cm / 40 x 50 inch Portrait of American singer, song...
Category

1980s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Wave I - large format abstract liquidscape in azur and lapis blue color palette
By Christian Stoll
Located in San Francisco, CA
Wave I by Christian Stoll a mesmerizing photographic rendering of blue acquatic surface 58 x 58 inches (147 x 147cm) edition of 7 signed 48 x 48 inches (122 x 122cm) edition of 7 s...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Archival Ink, Giclée, Archival Pigment

Cold Song III - underwater photograph - archival pigment print 35x56"
By Alex Sher
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
'Cold Song III' exemplifies the avant-garde evolution of underwater fine art photography, merging contemporary conceptual art with technical mastery. This ethereal composition captur...
Category

2010s Photorealist California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Groundwork - Contemporary, Polaroid, Nude, 21st Century, Joshua Tree
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Groundwork 2019, 20x20 cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2019-762...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Kowloon by Gleb Derujinsky, Vintage Fashion Photography
By Gleb Derujinsky
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Selected from Derujinsky: The Around The World Portfolio, shot in Kowloon, Hong Kong for Harper's Bazaar Artist: Gleb Derujinsky Title: Kowloon Year: 1957 Estate Edition: signed, stamped and numbered on verso. Signed by Andrea Derujinsky. Archival pigment print on 100% cotton paper, baryta finish. Worldwide authorized edition: 24X24 from a portfolio edition of 20 36X36 from an edition of 5 Gleb was raised in a home dedicated to the arts. His father Gleb Derujinsky Sr. was a renowned sculptor, and his mother, Alexandra Micholoff Derujinsky, a classic pianist. By the age of 6 Gleb’s life long passion for photograph blossomed as he began to shoot, develop and print his own photographs. At 15 he became the youngest member of the famed New York Camera Club where he met and was influenced by the legendary photographers in the club including Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz. Gleb’s fashion photography...
Category

1950s Naturalistic California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Nirvana, Rock Photography Print by Jeffrey Mayer
By Jeffrey Mayer
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Artist: Jeffrey Mayer Limited Edition: Signed and hand numbered in the margin, archival pigment print on 100% cotton paper with a Baryta finish. Authorized worldwide release of 100 ...
Category

1990s Performance California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Circle of Magic - Shazam (29 Palms, CA)
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Circle of Magic - Shazam (29 Palms, CA) - 2009 20x24cm, Edition 6/10. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #2823.06. Not m...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Freddie Mercury, Queen#3, Rock Photography by Jeffrey Mayer
By Jeffrey Mayer
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Artist: Jeffrey Mayer Limited Edition: Signed and hand numbered in the margin, archival pigment print on 100% cotton paper with a Baryta finish. Authorized worldwide release of 100 ...
Category

1980s Performance California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Apriel - underwater black & white nude photograph - archival pigment 43"x52"
By Alex Sher
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
"Apriel" captures a serene underwater moment in striking black and white. This fine art underwater photograph showcases delicate interplay between light, shadow, and movement as hair...
Category

2010s Photorealist California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

"Joy" Black and White Landscape Photography 48 x 36 In Ed. 1/7 by StillVika
Located in Culver City, CA
"Joy" Black and White Landscape Photography 48 x 36 In Ed. 1/7 by StillVika Medium: Canson Platine 310GSM Print only. Ships rolled in tube. Amidst a chaotic world filled with dis...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Digital

Bath Time Story II
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Bath Time Story II' 2016, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs Based on a Polaroid, digital C-Print, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Arti...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Misty Poppies (20 x 14 inch cyanotype)
Located in Oakland, CA
These are the silhouettes of the native Californian Matilija Poppy also known as giant tree poppies and Coulter's Poppy. They grow over 4 feet tall and appear each year in summer. Al...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Paper, Archival Paper, Rag Paper, Monotype, Photogram

Seascape I Diptych (framed) - abstract photograph of water color cloud horizon
By Frank Schott
Located in San Francisco, CA
SEASCAPE I Diptych ( framed ) by Frank Schott from a series of photographic works capturing the sea blue color palette of the ocean 2 Panels 86.75 x 58 inches / 220.35cm x 147.3cm ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment, Plexiglass, Archival Paper, Giclée

SPIN Pink's Hot Dogs - Chili Dog, Please - Urban Landscape Painting
By Pete Kasprzak
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Pete Kasprzak’s passion for city life is expressed in his dynamic urban artworks. Kasprzak’s artworks express energy and life with animated brush strokes. He adds dynamic movement an...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Gesso, Canvas, Mixed Media, Oil

Rapture (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary, Color
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Rapture (29 Palms, CA) - 2022 48x46cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 218829. Signature label and Certificate...
Category

1990s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid, Archival Paper

Duality - Contemporary, Polaroid, Black and White, Women, 21st Century, Nude
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Duality - 2020 48x60cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-982. Not mo...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Moonlight Magnolia Triptych (Set of three 8.5 x 11" hand-printed cyanotypes)
Located in Oakland, CA
These are three 11 x 8.5 inch (45 x 60 cm) original hand-printed original cyanotype photographs sold together. Cyanotypes are an antique photographic process dating back to the nine...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Paper, Archival Paper, Rag Paper, Photogram

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Autumn
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Autumn - 2001, 20x29cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid Slide. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) by Mark Gisbourne Projection is a form of apparition that is characteristic of our human nature, for what we imagine almost invariably transcends the reality of what we live. And, an apparition, as the word suggests, is quite literally ‘an appearing’, for what we appear to imagine is largely shaped by the imagination of its appearance. If this sounds tautological then so be it. But the work of Stefanie Schneider is almost invariably about chance and apparition. And, it is through the means of photography, the most apparitional of image-based media, that her pictorial narratives or photo-novels are generated. Indeed, traditional photography (as distinct from new digital technology) is literally an ‘awaiting’ for an appearance to take place, in line with the imagined image as executed in the camera and later developed in the dark room. The fact that Schneider uses out-of-date Polaroid film stock to take her pictures only intensifies the sense of their apparitional contents when they are realised. The stability comes only at such time when the images are re-shot and developed in the studio, and thereby fixed or arrested temporarily in space and time. The unpredictable and at times unstable film she adopts for her works also creates a sense of chance within the outcome that can be imagined or potentially envisaged by the artist Schneider. But this chance manifestation is a loosely controlled, or, better called existential sense of chance, which becomes pre-disposed by the immediate circumstances of her life and the project she is undertaking at the time. Hence the choices she makes are largely open-ended choices, driven by a personal nature and disposition allowing for a second appearing of things whose eventual outcome remains undefined. And, it is the alliance of the chance-directed material apparition of Polaroid film, in turn explicitly allied to the experiences of her personal life circumstances, that provokes the potential to create Stefanie Schneider’s open-ended narratives. Therefore they are stories based on a degenerate set of conditions that are both material and human, with an inherent pessimism and a feeling for the sense of sublime ridicule being seemingly exposed. This in turn echoes and doubles the meaning of the verb ‘to expose’. To expose being embedded in the technical photographic process, just as much as it is in the narrative contents of Schneider’s photo-novel exposés. The former being the unstable point of departure, and the latter being the uncertain ends or meanings that are generated through the photographs doubled exposure. The large number of speculative theories of apparition, literally read as that which appears, and/or creative visions in filmmaking and photography are self-evident, and need not detain us here. But from the earliest inception of photography artists have been concerned with manipulated and/or chance effects, be they directed towards deceiving the viewer, or the alchemical investigations pursued by someone like Sigmar Polke. None of these are the real concern of the artist-photographer Stefanie Schneider, however, but rather she is more interested with what the chance-directed appearances in her photographs portend. For Schneider’s works are concerned with the opaque and porous contents of human relations and events, the material means are largely the mechanism to achieving and exposing the ‘ridiculous sublime’ that has come increasingly to dominate the contemporary affect(s) of our world. The uncertain conditions of today’s struggles as people attempt to relate to each other - and to themselves - are made manifest throughout her work. And, that she does this against the backdrop of the so-called ‘American Dream’, of a purportedly advanced culture that is Modern America, makes them all the more incisive and critical as acts of photographic exposure. From her earliest works of the late nineties one might be inclined to see her photographs as if they were a concerted attempt at an investigative or analytic serialisation, or, better still, a psychoanalytic dissection of the different and particular genres of American subculture. But this is to miss the point for the series though they have dates and subsequent publications remain in a certain sense unfinished. Schneider’s work has little or nothing to do with reportage as such, but with recording human culture in a state of fragmentation and slippage. And, if a photographer like Diane Arbus dealt specifically with the anomalous and peculiar that made up American suburban life, the work of Schneider touches upon the alienation of the commonplace. That is to say how the banal stereotypes of Western Americana have been emptied out, and claims as to any inherent meaning they formerly possessed has become strangely displaced. Her photographs constantly fathom the familiar, often closely connected to traditional American film genre, and make it completely unfamiliar. Of course Freud would have called this simply the unheimlich or uncanny. But here again Schneider almost never plays the role of the psychologist, or, for that matter, seeks to impart any specific meanings to the photographic contents of her images. The works possess an edited behavioural narrative (she has made choices), but there is never a sense of there being a clearly defined story. Indeed, the uncertainty of my reading here presented, acts as a caveat to the very condition that Schneider’s photographs provoke. Invariably the settings of her pictorial narratives are the South West of the United States, most often the desert and its periphery in Southern California. The desert is a not easily identifiable space, with the suburban boundaries where habitation meets the desert even more so. There are certain sub-themes common to Schneider’s work, not least that of journeying, on the road, a feeling of wandering and itinerancy, or simply aimlessness. Alongside this subsidiary structural characters continually appear, the gas station, the automobile, the motel, the highway, the revolver, logos and signage, the wasteland, the isolated train track and the trailer. If these form a loosely defined structure into which human characters and events are cast, then Schneider always remains the fulcrum and mechanism of their exposure. Sometimes using actresses, friends, her sister, colleagues or lovers, Schneider stands by to watch the chance events as they unfold. And, this is even the case when she is a participant in front of camera of her photo-novels. It is the ability to wait and throw things open to chance and to unpredictable circumstances, that marks the development of her work over the last eight years. It is the means by which random occurrences take on such a telling sense of pregnancy in her work. However, in terms of analogy the closest proximity to Schneider’s photographic work is that of film. For many of her titles derive directly from film, in photographic series like OK Corral (1999), Vegas (1999), Westworld (1999), Memorial Day (2001), Primary Colours (2001), Suburbia (2004), The Last Picture Show (2005), and in other examples. Her works also include particular images that are titled Zabriskie Point, a photograph of her sister in an orange wig. Indeed the tentative title for the present publication Stranger Than Paradise is taken from Jim Jarmusch’s film of the same title in 1984. Yet it would be dangerous to take this comparison too far, since her series 29 Palms (1999) presages the later title of a film that appeared only in 2002. What I am trying to say here is that film forms the nexus of American culture, and it is not so much that Schneider’s photographs make specific references to these films (though in some instances they do), but that in referencing them she accesses the same American culture that is being emptied out and scrutinised by her photo-novels. In short her pictorial narratives might be said to strip films of the stereotypical Hollywood tropes that many of them possess. Indeed, the films that have most inspired her are those that similarly deconstruct the same sentimental and increasingly tawdry ‘American Dream’ peddled by Hollywood. These include films like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990) The Lost Highway (1997), John Dahl’s The Last Seduction (1994) or films like Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise with all its girl-power Bonny and Clyde-type clichés. But they serve no more than as a backdrop, a type of generic tableau from which Schneider might take human and abstracted elements, for as commercial films they are not the product of mere chance and random occurrence. Notwithstanding this observation, it is also clear that the gender deconstructions that the characters in these films so often portray, namely the active role of women possessed of a free and autonomous sexuality (even victim turned vamp), frequently find resonances within the behavioural events taking place in Schneider’s photographs and DVD sequences; the same sense of sexual autonomy that Stefanie Schneider possesses and is personally committed to. In the series 29 Palms (first begun in 1999) the two women characters Radha and Max act out a scenario that is both infantile and adolescent. Wearing brightly coloured fake wigs of yellow and orange, a parody of the blonde and the redhead, they are seemingly trailer park white trash possessing a sentimental and kitsch taste in clothes totally inappropriate to the locality. The fact that Schneider makes no judgment about this is an interesting adjunct. Indeed, the photographic projection of the images is such that the girls incline themselves to believe that they are both beautiful and desirous. However, unlike the predatory role of women in say Richard Prince’s photographs, which are simply a projection of a male fantasy onto women, Radha and Max are self-contained in their vacuous if empty trailer and motel world of the swimming pool, nail polish, and childish water pistols. Within the photographic sequence Schneider includes herself, and acts as a punctum of disruption. Why is she standing in front of an Officers’ Wives Club? Why is Schneider not similarly attired? Is there a proximity to an army camp, are these would-be Lolita(s) Rahda and Max wives or American marine groupies, and where is the centre and focus of their identity? It is the ambiguity of personal involvement that is set up by Schneider which deliberately makes problematic any clear sense of narrative construction. The strangely virulent colours of the bleached-out girls stand in marked contrast to Schneider’s own anodyne sense of self-image. Is she identifying with the contents or directing the scenario? With this series, perhaps, more than any other, Schneider creates a feeling of a world that has some degree of symbolic order. For example the girls stand or squat by a dirt road, posing the question as to their sexual and personal status. Following the 29 Palms series, Schneider will trust herself increasingly by diminishing the sense of a staged environment. The events to come will tell you both everything and nothing, reveal and obfuscate, point towards and simultaneously away from any clearly definable meaning. If for example we compare 29 Palms to say Hitchhiker (2005), and where the sexual contents are made overtly explicit, we do not find the same sense of simulated identity. It is the itinerant coming together of two characters Daisy and Austen, who meet on the road and subsequently share a trailer together. Presented in a sequential DVD and still format, we become party to a would-be relationship of sorts. No information is given as to the background or social origins, or even any reasons as to why these two women should be attracted to each other. Is it acted out? Are they real life experiences? They are women who are sexually free in expressing themselves. But while the initial engagement with the subject is orchestrated by Schneider, and the edited outcome determined by the artist, beyond that we have little information with which to construct a story. The events are commonplace, edgy and uncertain, but the viewer is left to decide as to what they might mean as a narrative. The disaggregated emotions of the work are made evident, the game or role playing, the transitory fantasies palpable, and yet at the same time everything is insubstantial and might fall apart at any moment. The characters relate but they do not present a relationship in any meaningful sense. Or, if they do, it is one driven the coincidental juxtaposition of random emotions. Should there be an intended syntax it is one that has been stripped of the power to grammatically structure what is being experienced. And, this seems to be the central point of the work, the emptying out not only of a particular American way of life, but the suggestion that the grounds upon which it was once predicated are no longer possible. The photo-novel Hitchhiker is porous and the culture of the seventies which it might be said to homage is no longer sustainable. Not without coincidence, perhaps, the decade that was the last ubiquitous age of Polaroid film. In the numerous photographic series, some twenty or so, that occur between 29 Palms and Hitchhiker, Schneider has immersed herself and scrutinised many aspects of suburban, peripheral, and scrubland America. Her characters, including herself, are never at the centre of cultural affairs. Such eccentricities as they might possess are all derived from what could be called their adjacent status to the dominant culture of America. In fact her works are often sated with references to the sentimental sub-strata that underpin so much of American daily life. It is the same whether it is flower gardens and household accoutrements of her photo-series Suburbia (2004), or the transitional and environmental conditions depicted in The Last Picture Show (2005). The artist’s use of sentimental song titles, often adapted to accompany individual images within a series by Schneider, show her awareness of America’s close relationship between popular film and music. For example the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, becomes Leaving in a Jet Plane as part of The Last Picture Show series, while the literalism of the plane in the sky is shown in one element of this diptych, but juxtaposed to a blonde-wigged figure first seen in 29 Palms. This indicates that every potential narrative element is open to continual reallocation in what amounts to a story without end. And, the interchangeable nature of the images, like a dream, is the state of both a pictorial and affective flux that is the underlying theme pervading Schneider’s photo-narratives. For dream is a site of yearning or longing, either to be with or without, a human pursuit of a restless but uncertain alternative to our daily reality. The scenarios that Schneider sets up nonetheless have to be initiated by the artist. And, this might be best understood by looking at her three recent DVD sequenced photo-novels, Reneé’s Dream and Sidewinder (2005). We have already considered the other called Hitchhiker. In the case of Sidewinder the scenario was created by internet where she met J.D. Rudometkin, an ex-theologian, who agreed to her idea to live with her for five weeks in the scrubland dessert environment of Southern California. The dynamics and unfolding of their relationship, both sexually and emotionally, became the primary subject matter of this series of photographs. The relative isolation and their close proximity, the interactive tensions, conflicts and submissions, are thus recorded to reveal the day-to-day evolution of their relationship. That a time limit was set on this relation-based experiment was not the least important aspect of the project. The text and music accompanying the DVD were written by the American Rudometkin, who speaks poetically of “Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California.” The mix of hip reverie and fantasy-based language of his text, echoes the chaotic unfolding of their daily life in this period, and is evident in the almost sun-bleached Polaroid images like Whisky Dance, where the two abandon themselves to the frenetic circumstances of the moment. Thus Sidewinder, a euphemism for both a missile and a rattlesnake, hints at the libidinal and emotional dangers that were risked by Schneider and Rudometkin. Perhaps, more than any other of her photo-novels it was the most spontaneous and immediate, since Schneider’s direct participation mitigated against and narrowed down the space between her life and the art work. The explicit and open character of their relationship at this time (though they have remained friends), opens up the question as the biographical role Schneider plays in all her work. She both makes and directs the work while simultaneously dwelling within the artistic processes as they unfold. Hence she is both author and character, conceiving the frame within which things will take place, and yet subject to the same unpredictable outcomes that emerge in the process. In Reneé’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are increasingly autonomous and subversive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring their own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates. I began this essay by speaking about the apparitional contents of Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives, and meant at that time the literal and chance-directed ‘appearing’ qualities of her photographs. Perhaps, at this moment we should also think of the metaphoric contents of the word apparition. There is certainly a spectre-like quality also, a ghostly uncertainty about many of the human experiences found in her subject matter. Is it that the subculture of the American Dream, or the way of life Schneider has chosen to record, has in turn become also the phantom of it former self? Are these empty and fragmented scenarios a mirror of what has become of contemporary America? There is certainly some affection for their contents on the part of the artist, but it is somehow tainted with pessimism and the impossibility of sustainable human relations, with the dissolute and commercial distractions of America today. Whether this is the way it is, or, at least, the way it is perceived by Schneider is hard to assess. There is a bleak lassitude about so many of her characters. But then again the artist has so inured herself into this context over a long protracted period that the boundaries between the events and happenings photographed, and the personal life of Stefanie Schneider, have become similarly opaque. Is it the diagnosis of a condition, or just a recording of a phenomenon? Only the viewer can decide this question. For the status of Schneider’s certain sense of uncertainty is, perhaps, the only truth we may ever know.

1 Kerry Brougher (ed.), Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, ex. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 1996) 2 Im Reich der Phantome: Fotographie des Unsichtbaren, ex. cat., Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach/Kunsthalle Krems/FotomuseumWinterthur, (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997) 3 Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish – Sigmar Polke, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zürich-Berlin-New York, 1995) 4 Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Occasional Papers, no. 1, 2000. 5 Diane Arbus, eds. Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel...
Category

1990s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Untitled (Amber) - large scale photographic details of baroque Italian palazzo
By Frank Schott
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale abstract photograph of mesmerizing monochromatic color space and tactile marble stone and velvet textures captured in Roman palazzo Untiltled (Amber) by Frank Schott 72...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Giclée

Andy Warhol, Photograph of Barbara Allen and an Unidentified Man, circa 1978
By Andy Warhol
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
This is a unique photographic work of Barbara Allen with an unidentified man taken by Andy Warhol. 1977's "Girl of the Year," Barbara Allen de Kwiatkowsk...
Category

1970s Pop Art California - Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Into the dark (Deconstructivism) - Contemporary, Expired Polaroid
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Into the dark (Deconstructivism) - 2020 - about the narrative potential of images. 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, Artist Inventory 4600. Signat...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

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

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Rag Paper, Archival Pigment

Born to be Wild - 21st Century, Polaroid, Nude Photography, Contemporary, B&W
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Born to be Wild - 2018, 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2018-40...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Bombay Nights - Contemporary, Nude, Women, Polaroid, 21st Century
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Bombay Nights' part of the series 'A girl called N.' 2019, 20x20cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with c...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Boschereccia Palazzo, Hercolani, Bologna
By Reinhard Görner
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Boschereccia Palazzo Hercolani, Bologna, Italy 2022 50 x 62.5 inches ed. of 10 $6,000 60 x 75 inches ed. of 7 $9,000 70 x 87.5 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on labe...
Category

2010s Conceptual California - Photography

Materials

C Print, Lambda

Skindeep - 21st Century, Polaroid, Nude Photography, Contemporary
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Skindeep - 2018, 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2018-4...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Verbier Vacation, Estate Edition, Swiss Alps Mountain Snow Landscape Photograph
By Slim Aarons
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Swiss Alps, 1964: This landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features holiday-makers taking in the sunset on a white snowy mountain top in Verbier, Swit...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist California - Photography

Materials

Lambda

Charis On Dune 237N Platinum Printed Later by Tom Millea
By Edward Weston
Located in Carmel, CA
This photograph printed in platinum is exceptional. The image suits the color and style of a platinum print. Printed by a master of the medium under the guise of Kim Weston...
Category

Mid-20th Century California - Photography

Materials

Platinum

Charis Nude, 1934
By Edward Weston
Located in Carmel, CA
Hand printed by Edward Weston's son Cole Weston. Stamped and signed on verso. Framed with a grey mat and black wood frame. I have inspected the photograph and it is in pristine cond...
Category

1930s California - Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Charis Nude, 1934
Charis Nude, 1934
$3,500 Sale Price
30% Off
Pristine - underwater nude photograph - archival pigment print 35х50"
By Alex Sher
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
An underwater photograph of a young naked woman in a pool. Original gallery quality archival pigment print signed by the author. Limited edition of 24 Paper size: 36 x 52" Image...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Read my mind - Polaroid, Color, Women, 21st Century, Nude
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Read my mind - 2020 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2020-880. Not ...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

"On the Go" 40x60 Wild Horses, Mustangs Unsigned Print Western Art Shane Russeck
By Shane Russeck
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Wild Mustangs just Carson Nevada 40x55 Printed on archival paper using archival inks Unsigned print Framing available. Inquire for rates. Shane Russeck is a modern day photograp...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Once We Were Warriors (Stage of Consciousness) starring Radha Mitchell
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Once We Were Warriors (Stage of Consciousness) - part of the 29 Palms, CA project - 2007 - featuring Radha Mitchell 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. digital C-Print, ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Polaroid, Archival Paper

Welcome to Alcatraz (San Francisco) - 21st Century, Polaroid, Landscape
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Welcome to Alcatraz (San Francisco) - 2023 40x40cm, Edition of 7, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signed on back with Certificate. Not mounted. The City San Francisco has always been a special place to me. I am overcome with romantic notions thinking about it. Some real, some imagined. Walking down to Market street feeling my heart skip a beat To see someone who looks like you, I guess that I'm not through Dreaming of the one I love, you know what I'm dreaming of San Francisco days, San Francisco nights San Francisco Days - Chris Isaak...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Black and White, Polaroid

Star me Kitten - Contemporary, Nude, Women, Polaroid, 21st Century
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Star me Kitten - 2017, 50x50cm. Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid, not mounted. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL201...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Breakdance - underwater nude photograph - print on paper 24”x 35”
By Alex Sher
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
Underwater nude photograph of a girl dancing in a swimming pool. The dark pool is filled with sharp sunbeams. Some mysterious light ornaments cover the pool bottom and inner water su...
Category

2010s Photorealist California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Lucky Catch - underwater nude photograph - archival pigment print 24x18"
By Alex Sher
Located in Beverly Hills, CA
Underwater photograph of a naked young woman wrapped in fishing net. The perfect body of the model has slight green tint; her perfect breasts are partial...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment, Archival Paper

East of Eden - Contemporary, Polaroid, Nude, Landscape, 21st Century
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
East of Eden 2019, 24x20 cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL2019 -...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Library Hall, Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences, Görlitz
By Reinhard Görner
Located in Los Angeles, CA
50 x 54 inches ed. of 10 $6,000 60 x 64.7 inches ed. of 7 $9,000 70 x 75.5 inches ed. of 5 $11,000 signed and numbered on label, verso Reinhard Görner, with his large format pho...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual California - Photography

Materials

Lambda

Offerings
By Shirin Neshat
Located in Calabasas, CA
Artist: Shirin Neshat Title: Offerings Year: 2019 Medium: Digital print on Fuji Crystal Archive Matte paper, hand signed (verso) Sheet: 6 × 6 in (15.2 × 15.2 cm) Condition: Mint Cert...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Digital

Eagle Club, Estate Edition, Midcentury Gstaad Ski Photography
By Slim Aarons
Located in Los Angeles, CA
In this midcentury snowscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, holidaymakers dining at the Eagle Club, Gstaad, Switzerland, March 1969. Slim Aarons Estate E...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Realist California - Photography

Materials

Lambda

Stay Safe Los Angeles III
By Pete Kasprzak
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Pete Kasprzak’s passion for city life is expressed in his dynamic urban artworks. Kasprzak’s artworks express energy and life with animated brush strokes. He adds dynamic movement an...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Gesso, Canvas, Oil, Mixed Media

Private Road With Clouds Extra Large Panoramic
By Roman Loranc
Located in Carmel, CA
Hand printed silver gelatin photograph by artist. Signed in pencil lower right recto by artist. Very rare size. Framed in black wood and Conservation Clear Glass Frame dimension ...
Category

1990s California - Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Belle Starr" 36x48 - Black & White Photography of Wild Horse Mustang Unsigned
By Shane Russeck
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This is a contemporary black and white photograph of a American Wild Mustang. "They represent the ultimate expression of American freedom" 36 x 48 Printed using only archival paper...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Untitled 20259 - silver gelatin print - male bodybuilder figure
By John Casado
Located in Burlingame, CA
John Casado - Untitled 20259, Unique silver gelatin print. image = 14 5/8 x 22 or 37 x 55.9 centimeters / ppr 20 x 24 horizontal Each photographic print from John Casado is sold as ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Sunrise Oak (8 x 10 inch hand-printed cyanotype)
Located in Oakland, CA
A solitary oak tree is backlit by the glow of sunrise at dawn along a trail. The scene is a hiking trail in the hills of Oakland, California. This is a one-off mini studio proof. A h...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Paper, Archival Paper, Rag Paper, Photogram

Cabazon Dinosaurs (Drive to the Desert)
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Cabazon Dinosaurs (Drive to the Desert) - 2000 44x59cm, Edition 5/5. Analog C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #155.05. Not mount...
Category

1990s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

'Smooth evening' Photography 64" x 44" framed by Karim
Located in Carmel, CA
Edition of 3 1/3 The photograph comes with a certificate of authenticity and a letter of appraisal. Karim - 'Smooth evening' Photography on paper. framed. Karim is a very unique, ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Almost Paradise (Wastelands) - Contemporary, Analog, Polaroid, Color
By Stefanie Schneider
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Almost Paradise (Wastelands) - 2003 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 894. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. For sale is a piece from the Wastelands series. Reality with the Tequila: Stefanie Schneider’s Fertile Wasteland by James Scarborough “How much more than enough for you for I for both of us darling?” (E. E. Cummings) Until he met her, his destiny was his own. Petty and inconsequential but still his own. He was cocksure and free, young and unaccountable, with dark hair and aquiline features. His expression was always pensive, a little troubled, but not of a maniacal sort. He was more bored than anything else. With a heart capable of violence. Until she met him, she was pretty but unappreciated. Her soul had registered no seismic activity. Dustbowl weary, she’d yet to see better days. A languorous body, a sweet face with eyes that could be kind if so inclined. Until she met him, she had not been inclined. It began when he met her. She was struck in an instant by his ennui. The sum of their meeting was greater than the imbroglios and chicaneries of their respective existences. He was struck by the blank slate look in her eyes. They walked, detached and focused on the immediate, obscenely unaware of pending change across a terrain of mountainous desert, their eyes downcast and world-weary, unable to account for the buoyant feeling in her heart. His hard-guy shtick went from potentiality to ruse. The gun was not a weapon but a prop, a way to pass time. Neither saw the dark clouds massing on the horizon. They found themselves alone in the expanses of time, unaware of the calamity that percolated even as they posed like school kids for the pictures. Happiness brimmed in that wild terrain. Maybe things were beginning to look up. That’s when the shooting started… Stefanie Schneider assumes that our experience of lived reality (buying groceries, having a relationship with someone, driving a car) does not correspond to the actual nature of lived reality itself, that what we think of as reality is more like a margarita without the tequila. Stefanie Schneider’s reality is reality with the tequila. She does not abolish concepts that orient us, cause and effect, time, plot, and storyline, she just plays with them. She invites us to play with them, too. She offers us a hybrid reality, more amorphous than that with a conventional subject, verb, and predicate. Open-ended, this hybrid reality does not resolve itself. It frustrates anyone with pedestrian expectations but once we inebriate those expectations away, her work exhilarates us and even the hangover is good. An exploration of how she undermines our expectation of what we assume to be our lived reality, the reasons why she under- mines our expectations, and the end result, as posited in this book, will show how she bursts open our apparatus of perception and acknowledges life’s fluidity, its density, its complexity. Its beauty. She undermines expectations of our experience of reality with odd, other-worldly images and with startling and unexpected compressions and expansions of time and narrative sequence. The landscape seems familiar enough, scenes from the Old West: broad panoramic vistas with rolling hills dotted with trees and chaparral, dusty prairies with trees and shrubs and craggy rocks, close-up shots of trees. But they’re not familiar. These mis-en-scenes radiate an unsettling Picasso Blue Period glow or the intense celestial blue of the cafe skies that Van Gogh painted in the south of France. Yellow starbursts punctuate images as if seen through the viewfinder of a flying saucer. At the same time, objects appear both vintage and futuristic, the landscape of a post-apocalyptic world. Landscapes change seemingly at random as do the seasons. Stefanie Schneider offers no indication of how time flows here, except that it conceivably turns in on itself and then goes its merry way. Time is a river whose source is a deep murky spring which blusters about with an occasional swirling eddy. That Stefanie Schneider thwarts an easy reading is obvious but why does she do this? Since she will not countenance anything linear, logical, or sequential, and because she does not relish anything concrete and specific, she has to roil things up a bit. Nor does she seem comfortable with a book of images that is settled, discrete, and accountable. Instead she wants to create a panoply of anxious moments...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The way we were - Contemporary, Polaroid, Nude, 21st Century, Joshua Tree
By Kirsten Thys van den Audenaerde
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The way we were 2019, 20x20 cm, Edition 1/7 plus 2 Artist Proofs, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, not mounted. Signed on the back and with certificate. Artist inventory PL201...
Category

2010s Contemporary California - Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Recently Viewed

View All