California - Portrait Photography

Side Effects (The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence) - 2013 20x24cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and certificate. Artist Inventory #13303. Not mounted. Offered is a piece from the movie: The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence. Written and directed by Stefanie Schneider A tale told with blemished and expired Polaroid film about the hopes and dreams of a newly orphaned girl after losing her parents who lived in the Californian desert in an old travel trailer. -filmed with Polaroid film stock and Super-8 footage, overlaid with poetic voice-over monologue - this feature film creates a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick, Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl's journal. (Palms Springs life magazine / Caroline Ryder) Stefanie Schneider By Caroline Ryder Inside the trailer are period accents—a vintage radio, vintage fridge, little crocheted doilies, and dusty gilt-framed photographs. It’s a surreal home-sweet-home, an Americana fantasy as imagined by German artist and experimental filmmaker Stefanie Schneider whose work is so inspired by the desert landscape, she made it her home in 2005. “There’s a completely different light here than in Germany, a beautiful light,” says Schneider, whose property in Morongo is dotted with vintage trailers. They surround her midcentury home and serve as sets for her photoshoots or as guest lodgings for her friends from Hollywood and Berlin. “But what I really love about the desert is the desolation,” she continues. “The sense of hope for something that might or might not come. It’s easy to see our dreams projected in the desert.” Famed for shooting trailer park chic fine art photographs exclusively on vintage Polaroid film, Schneider recently completed her most ambitious project to date—a feature film made entirely of Polaroid stills (4000 images in total), the story set around her magnificent 1950s trailer. The film, called “The Girl Behind The White Picket Fence” tells the story of a broken-hearted girl who lives in the trailer. Her name is Heather, and she is played by model Heather Megan Christie, girlfriend of actor Joaquin Phoenix, and former partner of Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis, with whom she has a son. Heather stars opposite Kyle Larson (who plays ‘Hank’), a real-life gypsy fisherman who catches crab in Alaska when he’s not surfing in Southern California. Neither of the two had ever acted before, and never in the history of movie-making has a director shot a film entirely on Polaroid film. “There was great difficulty shooting a film this way,” says Schneider, who, with her long straight hair, wide innocent eyes, and thick-framed glasses, conjures an art-house Gretel. “If I had used a regular camera I would have had 36 exposures per minute, much faster and easier than using the old Polaroid camera which takes a long time to shoot one frame. Also, sometimes it doesn’t shoot at the exact moment you think it’s going to—but that’s really great because then you miss the perfect moment…and often those are the best shots.” Individually, the Polaroid photographs that comprise 29 PALMS, CA stand alone, but together and in sequence, filmed with super 8 and 16mm film stock and overlaid with poetic voice-over monologues, they create a dynamic kaleidoscope of words and pictures, a dreamy tale that channels Terrence Malick. Gus Van Sant, and pages torn from a lonely girl’s journal. The idea to shoot a movie in this way came about in 2004 when Schneider was working with leading German director Mark Forster (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) on his film Stay. She had met Forster at director Wim Wender’s birthday party in Hollywood. A few years later, Forster asked Schneider to shoot Polaroids of scenes from Stay as he filmed; he used those photographs for dream and memory sequences in the movie. For the first time, Schneider saw her Polaroids strung together in sequence, moving with rhythm like a flipbook, in the context of a story. When Forster urged her to consider making a feature film using that technique, the seed of 29 PALMS, CA was sown. She mentioned the idea to her good friend German actor Udo Kier, who also gave the idea a big thumbs up, and agreed to play the part of a mysterious shaman in the film. Thanks to her strong reputation in the art world and her Hollywood connections, getting talented people on board was the easy part (for a while, Charlotte Gainsbourg was pegged to play the starring role, although she pulled out two weeks before shooting commenced because she was pregnant and not fit to travel to the desert.) The hard part was finding the perfect trailer—and bringing it to the desert. “This trailer almost killed us,” says Schneider’s partner Lance Waterman, who lives and works with Schneider in Morongo Valley. After finding it on eBay, the couple drove to Utah to pick it up, the plan being to tow it all the way back to the high desert themselves. Bad idea. “We were driving down a hill with this enormous trailer behind us when we realized that if we wanted to stop, there would be no way to do so without the trailer crushing us,” says Waterman. Adds Schneider: “Lance was even giving me instructions on how to jump out of the truck if we needed to.” Thankfully the road leveled and as soon as they were able to slow down and pull over, they called a professional towing company, which transported the trailer the remaining distance to Morongo Valley. Filming took place in Spring 2011 and 2012. Schneider recently submitted the film to major film festivals in Europe and the US, and it will be broadcast in 2013 by leading German television channel, Arte. While Schneider may come from a long tradition of photographers-turned-filmmakers—Stanley Kubrick started out as a photographer, as did Ken Russell (Tommy, Women in Love) and Larry Clark, who was a controversial fine art photographer before directing smash hit Kids—she does not see her future in Hollywood, directing blockbusters. Not necessarily. “I don’t think I want to make more films,” she says. “The actors were saying they would love to work with me again, and were asking if I would like to make other movies. But being on movie sets is far too stressful, and at least with this, I was in complete power of what was going on creatively. That said, if this gets a lot of acclaims…we can always think again. One should never say never.” Film features original soundtrack with songs by Adam Weiss, Daisy McCrackin, Billy Harvey, Sophie Huber, Zoe Bicat, Max Sharam, Cheyenne Randall...

Joshua Tree National Park (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 50x49cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label....

Slow Days (The Girl behind the White Picket Fence) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate....

Untitled (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. 40x48cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on t...

Déjà vu - 2020 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory - PL2020-881. Kir...

Promise Me (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005, 38x37cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventor...

The Letter (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005 Including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 2024. 2...

Little Darlings (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005 Including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 2024...

Waiting (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 20x24cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate, Artist inventory number: 99...

'Oxana and Hans' (Stage of Consciousness), part 6 - 2007, 41x52cm, sold out Lumas Edition of 147, Artist Proof 2/3, Lambda Print, Not mounted Certificate and signature label, art...

Jaunty (Beachshoot) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #1401. Not m...

This early 1960s landscape photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features skiers in St Moritz, Switzerland, March 1963. This is an estate stamped and hand number...

This late 1960s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features artistic denizens gathered in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel on W. 23rd Street, Manhattan,...

This late 1960s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features artistic denizens gathered in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel on W. 23rd Street, Manhattan,...

This late 1960s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features artistic denizens gathered in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel on W. 23rd Street, Manhattan,...

This late 1960s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features artistic denizens gathered in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel on W. 23rd Street, Manhattan,...

Sunset (Oxana’s 30th Birthday) - 2007 featuring Radha Mitchell including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 196 pages, hardcover, published by Snap ...

This 1970s photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features an exclusive gambling table at the casino in Deauville, France, 1970. This is an estate stamped and han...

This 1970s photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features an exclusive gambling table at the casino in Deauville, France, 1970. This is an estate stamped and han...

This 1970s photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features an exclusive gambling table at the casino in Deauville, France, 1970. This is an estate stamped and han...

This 1970s photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features an exclusive gambling table at the casino in Deauville, France, 1970. This is an estate stamped and han...

This 1970s photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features an exclusive gambling table at the casino in Deauville, France, 1970. This is an estate stamped and han...

A Vision you can't Capture (29 Palms, CA) - 2008 including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 196 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 20...

Fernweh - 2017 50x50cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory PL2017-108. Not m...

Precious (Chicks and Chicks and Sometimes Cocks) - 2019 20x20cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Ar...

New in Town (Oxana's 30th Birthday) - 2007, from the 29 Palms, CA project - 20x24cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signa...

This 1970 portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features guests by the pool at Nelda Linsk's desert house in Palm Springs, California, January 1970. The ...

'Stars in the Dance', 2009 30x30cm. Edition 1/10. Archival C Print based on a multiple exposure Polaroid, mounted under Plexi. Signed on back. 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars' - Oscar Wilde This piece will be exhibited at the Bombay Beach Biennale in the newly founded Polaroid Museum in it's permanent collection. The Museum opens its doors in March 23rd, 2019. AND in the "Instant Dreams" Polaroid curation by Stefanie Schneider at Saatchi's The Other Art Fair in Los Angeles 28/03/19 - 31/03/19. Urizen Freaza was born in Tenerife in 1982 and is based in Berlin since 2010. He's a self-taught photographer and film-maker. Self-taught meaning that this is a path he's still walking, while hoping there is always more path to walk. He's a member of the Film Shooters Collective and part of the team behind the analogueNOW! festival in Berlin. Vita: Group exhibitions: 2018 'Feel', Brooklyn Film Camera, New York, USA 2017 'The decisive light', Projekteria, Barcelona, Spain 2017 'The face', Darkroom Gallery, Vermont, USA 2017 'A surreal vision', Galería LoosenArt, Roma...

For Your Eyes Only (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005, 38x37cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist ...

The Bird Man (Haley and the Birds) - 2013 50x49cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventor...

Red Roses (Oxana's 30th Birthday) - 2007 from the 29 Palms, CA project 24x29cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label with ...

"Bent Sound" - An ethereal underwater fine art photograph that captures the intersection of music and movement through a portrait of singer Njomza Vitia. This submerged portrait tran...

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 British singer and s...

"She is Succulent 1" Photography 24" x 36" in Edition 1/15 by Larsen Sotelo Not framed. Ships in a tube Signed and numbered by the artist. Comes with COA issued by the artist. Ava...

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

Drowning the Noise - 2020 20x20cm, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid. Signature label with certificate. Artist inventory - PL202...

Toast is Ready (Cyndi Lauper) from the 'Bring Ya to the Brink' record Album) 2009 - 40x48cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print based on the original Polaroid....

The Preparation (Heather's Dream) - 2013 part of "The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence" starring Udo Kier 38x48cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based ...

Battlefield (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 44x59cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Invent...

Frozen XII (Stranger than Paradise) - 2001 50x49cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Invent...

Iconic portrait photograph by midcentury society photographer Slim Aarons, capturing young Jackie Kennedy (Jacqueline Onassis) (1929 - 1994) wife of Senator Jack Kennedy, at a 'April...

Time Out (Haley and the Birds) - 2013 40x39cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #1...

This 1970 portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features guests by the pool at Nelda Linsk's desert house in Palm Springs, California, January 1970. The ...

Big Girls don't Cry (Heavenly Falls) - 2016 80x80 cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist inve...

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 Al Pacino is smoking a cigar, a s...

Deserted (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 40x48cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist Inventory ...

'There is no Forever' (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 40x48cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. ...

Last Season I - so I walked away from my Valley (Wastelands), diptych - 2003 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Artist...

You're not taking care of me! (Till Death do us Part) - 2008 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signa...

There is no Solution (Till Death do us Part) - 2008 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature labe...

Feathered (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate Ar...

Hidden (The last Picture Show) - 1999 50x49cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist In...

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 Actor, Bodybuilder an...

Don't give up on us, Baby (Till Death Do Us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature...

Blown Away (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist Inventor...

Flying (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #7870. Not mounted. LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) 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...

This late 1970s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features (from left to right) Christine Camerana, Caroline Stoop, and Christine Semenenko Warrender...

This 1970 portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features former fashion model Helen Dzo Dzo (left) talking to Nelda Linsk, wife of art dealer Joseph Lins...

Randy and I (Wastelands) - 2003 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 1170. Signature label and Cer...

Backcasting (Stage of Consciousness) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature label. Artist Invento...