Vegas (Stranger than Paradise), 2000

by Stefanie Schneider

Photography : photo, Polaroid 38 x 50 x 1 cm 15 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch

$775
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About the artwork

Type

Numbered and limited to 30 copies

3 copies available

Signature

Signed artwork

Authenticity

Sold with certificate of Authenticity from the artist

Invoice from the gallery


Medium

Photography: photo, Polaroid

Dimensions cm inch

38 x 50 x 1 cm 15 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch Height x Width x Depth

Framing

Not framed


Tags

Urban Landscape

Suburbs

Sky

City

Yellow

Artwork sold in perfect condition

Artwork location: United States

Vegas (Stranger than Paradise)
Edition 1/30,
digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid
Certificate and Signature label,
artist Inventory No. 537.08,
not mounted


The Greater The Emptiness The Grander The Art – Stefan Gronert

Not “Twenty-six Gasoline Stations” but “29 Palms, CA”! Forty-two years after Ed Ruscha’s legendary book, there is no gasoline station at the beginning of the book that is here at hand. Instead it is the open hearted Radha – with orange hair, pink-colored overalls and a bashful, or rather cunning, gaze that is directed downward – with which this book begins! And with her and with Max – attention: a woman –, one whose appearance is in accordance with the same styling, it comes to an end as well – after Radha has in the meantime colored her fingernails pink, again endowed with the same open heartedness and the same look which now, however, reveals in combination with her altered facial expression an “old-maidish” turning away from the viewer. This may serve as an example for a vivid and understandable transformation which flows into a large-scale representation of a cheerless settlement beneath a shining, blue sky – there a figure, lost straightaway, becomes overwhelmed.

Pictures which in 1998/99 play in the harsh California sunlight or in spaces that are not exactly cozy and comfortable. “Play” is the correct word in this regard, for precisely in view of the pictures of persons, there remains more than just doubt as to whether we are looking at staged scenes or have simply happened upon the high-strung “reality” of a (wannabe) film world. Yet not all the pictures have the same character of a glaring, plastic world. Upon flipping through the pages, we also encounter unpretentious, literally “colorless” scenes in undefined interiors, or unspectacular views resembling a still life and opening out onto a nowhere land. That which connects all participants in these picture-worlds is the observation that they appear to be exhausted, lost, empty or uncertain about their existence. One is almost reminded of the empty gazes and loneliness of the protagonists in the pictures of large cities painted by Manet or Degas in the era of Early Modernism.

With one exception, all the photographs which are reproduced here, which originally measure 60 by 70 cm but which here, in their present size and configuration, make productive use of the possibilities presented by the medium of the book, manifest several elements of B-movies: smoking, naked, made-up and muscular persons who are not inclined to conform entirely to the vision of Hollywood dreams. Beauty and vexation, eroticism and loneliness enter into a mixture which reveals the rift between desire and truth. From a distance, one is reminded of the “Untitled Film Stills” of Cindy Sherman, which in this regard are not nearly as drastic. Yet whereas her photos from the seventies are characterized by a cool, objective mode of representation in historicizing blackand-white, the photographs of Stefanie Schneider evince a soft, sometimes seemingly pictorial visual language with a coloration ranging from the pale to the artificial-glaring. As in many other pictures of Stefanie Schneider which often present themselves to us as sequences, these photos refer back as well to the perceptual stereotypes of film. Making use of instant photography, proceeding from which significantly enlarged C-prints come into being, her pictures summon up the impression of a narration without ultimately becoming part of a plot that is readable in a linear fashion. The illusion of the narrative element, however, simply enhances the experience of a renunciation of just this aspect. For the picture titles as well – and also the title of this publication – provide no real help with the imaginary construction of a story.

Nevertheless, names return which include the first name of the artist herself: hence is everything not in fact a game but rather a series of authentic and instantaneous images, or is it after all nothing other than a staging, a game – how real is life? The paucity of plot elements, which contradicts all expectation of a cinematic style, as well as the emptiness and loneliness of the persons, enters into a peculiar, sometimes seemingly surreal association with the magic of the sun-drenched expanses of the dreamlike landscape. Just as the fantasy and imagination of the viewer are stimulated, so to the same great extent does the redemption of these visual figures of love founder on a void whose glaze is created, not least of all, by the peculiar blurriness of the photographic representation. The seemingly amateur character of these pictures, which have in no way been treated with any excessive scrupulousness, leaves us with a stimulating incertitude as to their interpretation, one in which the spheres of reality, fiction or dream are scarcely capable any longer of being differentiated. Thus the gaps and the scenic openness of what is presented ultimately set in motion a self-appraisal.

So what remains after “29 Palms, CA”? Perhaps that hope which deviates from the saying of Ruscha that is quoted in the title: The stronger the photography the better the reality will be!

Translated by George Frederick Takis
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About the seller

Professional art gallery • United States

Artsper seller since 2019

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Collector’s Guide

Imagine it at home

Stefanie Schneider, Vegas (Stranger than Paradise)
Stefanie Schneider

Stefanie Schneider

Germany  • 1968

Masterpieces

Stefanie Schneider (1968) is a German photographer living in Berlin and Los Angeles. Schneider's photographs exhibit the appearance of expired Polaroid instant film, with its chemical mutations. It has been released in books and exhibition catalogs, and in her own feature film 29 Palms, CA (2014). Her work has also been used as the cover art for music by Red Hot Chili Peppers and Cyndi Lauper, and in the film Stay (2005).

Schneider's preferred choice of location is the American West (especially Twentynine Palms, California, which served as location and title to one of her books), and the mounting of sequential images in a panel, the photographs evoke the impression of faded dreamy film stills. She holds an MFA in photography from the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany.

Schneider completed 29 Palms, CA in 2014. A feature film, art piece that explores the dreams and fantasies of a group of people who live in a trailer community in the Californian desert. The project includes six films: "Hitchhiker", "Rene's dream", "Sidewinder", "Till death do us part", "Heather's dream" and the feature film "The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence". A defining feature is the use of still Polaroid images in succession and voice over. Characters talk to themselves about their ambitions, memories, hopes and dreams. The latest of these short film is "Heather's dream", starring Heather Megan Christie and Udo Kier, and was selected in May 2013 by the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and is also nominated for the 2013 German short film award.

In a review of her book Stranger Than Paradise, Daniel Kothenschulte writes in the German magazine Literaturen that:

Stefanie Schneider is an internationally known artist that takes analog photographs and makes experimental movies with them. Schneider has cribed some of the titles of the series of her enlarged Polaroids from her favorite movies: Red Desert, Zabriskie Point or The Last Picture Show. Even if most images remain connected to the genre of road movies—in one case one seems to get a glimpse of Ridley Scott's tragic runaways Thelma and Louise.

Collections

DZ Bank, Francfort, Allemagne

Dreyfuss, Bâle, Suisse

Schmidt Bank, Ratisbonne, Allemagne

Groupe d'édition Holtzbrinck, Stuttgart, Allemagne

Collection Sander, Berlin, Allemagne

Ocean Foundation, Zurich, Suisse

Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Allemagne

Impossible Collection, Vienne, Autriche

Collection Luc LaRochelle, Montréal, Canada

Collection d'art du canton de Zug, Suisse

Expositions

Expositions individuelles

2014 Motion Photography – 6 Finalists, Saatchi Gallery, Londres, GB

2014 Instantdreams, De Re Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2014 Stefanie Schneider, c.art-Galerie Bregenz, Autriche

2013 The girl behind the white picket fence, Galerie Catherine et André Hug, Paris, France

2012 Stranger than Paradise, Christian Hohmann Fine Art, Palm Desert, USA

2012 Stefanie Schneider, Gallery at Cliff Lede Vineyards, Napa Valley, USA

2011 California Dreaming, ROLLO Contemporary, Londres, GB

2010 Stefanie Schneider, Galerie Walter Keller, Zurich, Suisse

2010 Instant Dreams, Frank Picture Gallery, Santa Monica, USA

2009 29 Palms, CA, Moravian Gallery, Brno, République tchèque

2008 Sidewinder, Städtische Galerie am Mozartplatz, Salzbourg, Autriche

2007 Wastelands, Kunstverein Recklinghausen, Allemagne

2006 Wastelands, Zephyr / Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim, Allemagne

2005 Last Picture Show, Galerie Caprice Horn, Berlin, Allemagne

2004 Suburbia, Galerie Kuttner Siebert, Berlin, Allemagne

2004 Stefanie Schneider, Galerie Michael Sturm, Stuttgart, Allemagne

Expositions collectives

2014 Nude, Pop-up Art Gallery Berlin, Allemagne

2013 Images for Images, GASK – Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region, Kutná Hora, République tchèque

2013 The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, USA

2013 Road Atlas - Straßenfotografie, DZ Bank Collection, Kunsthalle Erfurt, Allemagne

2012 Polaroid (Im)Possible – The Westlicht Collection, Forum de la culture et de l'économie du land de Rhénanie du Nord-Westphalie, Düsseldorf, Allemagne

2010 Mapping Worlds: Welten verstehen – Aufbruch in die Gegenwart, 8ème triennale internationale de la photo, Esslingen, Allemagne

2009 True Lies, Kunsthaus Essen, Allemagne

2008 Les Rencontres d'Arles, organisées par Christian Lacroix, nominée pour le prix découverte

2007 Breaking the Waves, Arthaus, Los Angeles, USA

2006 Artists for Tichy - Tichy for Artists, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Passau, Allemagne

2006 Out of the Camera: Analoge Fotografie im digitalen Zeitalter, Kunstverein, Bielefeld, Allemagne

Land in Translation, Riverside Museum, USA.


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