Frenzy (Sidewinder )- 2005 -

Edition of 30, 38x48cm,
digital C-Print based exactly on an expired Polaroid photograph.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No. 3048.
Not mounted.

Stefanie Schneider: A German view of the American West

The works of Stefanie Schneider evoke Ed Ruscha's obsession with the American experience, the richness of Georgia O'Keefe's deserts and the loneliness of Edward Hopper's haunting paintings. So how exactly did this German photographer become one of the most important artists of the American narrative of the 20th and 21st century?

Born in Germany in 1968, photographer Schneider divides her time between Berlin and Los Angeles. Her process begins in the American West, in locations such as the planes and deserts of Southern California, where she photographs her subjects. In Berlin, Schneider develops and enlarges her works.

What is most striking about Schneider's images is the colour which evokes the appearance of expired Polaroid film. Her role in preserving the use of Polaroid is one aspect of her work that has gained great respect from her contemporaries and the critics, as her work came about during a time when the Polaroid, a symbol of American photography, was on the road to extinction.

This theme of preservation and deterioration is a core part of Schneider's oeuvre. In an interview in October 2014 with Artnet, the artist explained how her own experiences of pain and loss inspire her. ''My work resembles my life: Love, lost and unrequited, leaves its mark in our lives as a senseless pain that has no place in the present.''

''The ex-lover experiences the residues of love as an amputee experiences the sensation of a ghost limb.'' - Stefanie Schneider

Schneider's subjects are often featured in apocalyptic settings: desert planes, trailer parks, oilfields, run-down motels and empty beaches, alone, or if not, not connected with one another. ''It is the tangible experience of ''absence'' that has inspired my work,'' explained Schneider.

This sense of absence runs deep through Schneider's work, the fact she even uses expired film means there is a sense of the unknown. Long before Valencia, Mayfair and Amaro, or any other Instagram filters, Schneider was creating this otherworldliness the image sharing network tries to create.

Barnebys, May 3rd, 2017

Field of Dreams (Sidewinder) - 2005

38.5 x 38 cm,
Edition 2/5,
analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a original Polaroid.
Artist Inventory 3131.10.
Signature label and Certificate.
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.

'Whisky Dance' (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

8 pieces installed including gaps 172x338cm, 82x80cm.
Edition 1/5, analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection, based on 8 expired Polaroids, signed on verso, artist Inventory No. 3175.

'Whisky and Water VI' (Sidewinder), diptych, 2005, 45x36cm each, installed 45x80cm including gaps. Edition 1/5, analog C-Prints, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on a Polaroid, mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection, signed on verso, artist Inventory No. 3380.01

Analog C-Prints are rare in today's digital world.
They have a different aesthetic then digitally produced works.
That an artist hand-prints in her / his own studio is hardly ever seen anymore.

Waiting (Sidewinder), 2005,

Both Sizes Edition of 10.
Print on Velvet Watercolor, 310gsm, No OBAs, Bright White, Acid Free.
Signature label and Certificate.
artist Inventory No. 3173.

Gospel (Sidewinder) - 2005 -
Edition of 10, 38x48cm,
digital C-Print based on a Polaroid.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No. 3067.
Not mounted.

2005 SIDEWINDER - Director / Artist / Camera / Editing - starring JD Rudometkin, Stefanie Schneider, music, intro and poems by JD Rudometkin -

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.

For twenty minutes darkness hides the accidents in trailer shade her childish screams a preacher underneath her shimmer blue bled dress. The prayers he said beside the bed with mother for relatives with tumors, brand new bicycles, and rain. Stevie takes the whisky in her mouth to wash him out the sidewinder skids across her wounded foot of scars. John Baptiste asks the Lord to heal her in the new day that is breaking mouth of whisky spits it laughing father forgive the trigger finger for the viper he gives thanks.

And takes the barrel toward his lips through mumbling supplication kiss it Brother Stevie offers, please, but doesn’t wait him there. Copper penny Sunday School upon the tongue. And closed his eyes. A blur of her and mother. Other bodies. Women, gently crushing spirits. Prayers. His han under her weight in grams. The fingernail fang and fucks it. So slid the pull of metal out As god can answer. And into her mouth then. Settles. And wet the metal. He touches her, his finger. Viper like. And fuck it sore. Believers. Repentant whore forgiven preacher leaving town in that old ragtop down and left a rag dress bleeding in the Airstream soft, again. (JD Rudometkin)

Please (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

Both sizes Edition of 10.
Digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid.
Certificate and Signature label.
Artist Inventory No. 3391.
Not mounted.

Blue Dress (Sidewinder), triptych -
2005, Edition of 1/10, 38x38cm each, 38x125cm installed.
Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on a 3 Polaroids.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No. 3017.01.
Not mounted.

Dashboard Palm Trees (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

All three sizes Edition of 10,
digital C-Print, based on an expired Polaroid.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No. 3031.
Not mounted.

The series 'Sidewinder' was used by the Salzburger Festspiele 2008 for the main image campaign: Exhibit • Galeries of the City of Salzburg • Galerie am Mozartplatz
July 16 – August 29, 2008

Blurry and Hot (Sidewinder) - 2005

128x125cm, Edition 2/5,
analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label.
Artist Inventory No. 3102.02.
Mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection.

This piece ships in a crate.

Sucking / Brushing (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

50x200cm, including white frame, Edition of 10,
digital C-Print, based on 7 original expired Polaroids.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No 3121.08. -

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.

The Shack (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

Edition of of 10, 38x48cm,
digital C-Print based on a Polaroid.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No. 3227.
Not mounted.

Meet me in front of Church 2 o'clock sharp (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

18 pieces, installed 154x379cm installed including gaps, 48x59cm each,
Edition 4/5, 18 analog C-Print,s hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, based on 18 expired Polaroids. Certificate and Signature labels.
artist Inventory No. 30568.04, not mounted.

29 Palms Oasis (29 Palms, CA) - 2013 -

100x120cm, Edition of 10,
analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid.
Certificate and Signature label.
Artist Inventory No. 8578.
Not mounted.

Maria Magdalena (Sidewinder) - 2005 -
Edition of 1/10, 50x40cm,
digital C-Print based on an expired Polaroid photograph.
Signature label and Certificate.
Not mounted.

Sunday Afternoons (Sidewinder) - 2005 -
Edition of 1/10, 24x20cm,
digital C-Print based on an expired Polaroid.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory # 3765.01.
Not mounted.

Miss America (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

Artist Inventory No. 3039.

Edition 1:
39x38cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive paper in the Berlin 'labudio' laboratory, based on an original expired Polaroid photograph. Certificate and Signature label. Not mounted.

Edition 2:
100x98cm, Edition of 5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive paper in the Berlin 'labudio' laboratory, based on an original expired Polaroid photograph. Certificate and Signature label. Not mounted.

Edition 3:
20x20cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print, not mounted. Shipping $50.

Leaving II (Sidewinder) - 2005

60x110cm, Edition of 10.
Digital C-Print based on a Polaroid.
Signature label and Certificate.
Artist Inventory No. 3436.
Not mounted.

Bells Ringing (Sidewinder) - 2005 -

Edition 2/5, 104 x 424cm (installed), each piece has the measurement of 48x46cm,
16 analog C-Prints, enlarged and hand-printed by the artist and printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on 16 original expired SX-70 Polaroids.
Artist inventory Number 3333.02.
Signature label and Certificate.
Not mounted.