Santa Monica Palm Trees (Stranger than Paradise)

View Similar Items

Stefanie Schneider - Wonder Valley (Sidewinder) - Polaroid, 21st Century, Contemporary

Christophe Pouget - Enigma in Shinjuku

Haik Kocharian - Lucy's Place, East Village, New York

Helen Howells - Mountain Pathway

Stefanie Schneider - Blue Bridge - Analog, Mounted, Vintage, Contemporary, Landscape, Polaroid, Color

Stefanie Schneider - Untitled (Olancha) - Stranger than Paradise - analog C-Print based on a Polaroid

Stefanie Schneider - Untitled (Traintracks) - based on a Polaroid

Stefanie Schneider - Blue Bridge - Analog, Mounted, Vintage, Contemporary, Landscape, Polaroid, Color

Stefanie Schneider - Untitled (Traintracks) - based on a Polaroid

Stefanie Schneider - Cups III (Suburbia) Contemporary, Polaroid, Analog, Color, Photography

Want more images or videos?

Request additional images or videos from the seller

1 of 5

Stefanie Schneider
Santa Monica Palm Trees (Stranger than Paradise)

Name: Santa Monica Palm Trees (Stranger than Paradise)
Brand: Stefanie Schneider
Rating: 4.9 (35 reviews)

About the Item

Santa Monica Palm Trees (Californication) - 2016, 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory Number 19084. 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 openheartedness 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!

Creator:
Stefanie Schneider (1968, German)
Dimensions:
Height: 18.9 in (48 cm)Width: 18.51 in (47 cm)Depth: 0.04 in (1 mm)
Medium:
Photographic Paper,C Print,Polaroid,Archival Paper
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
2010-
Condition:
Mint, new, perfect.
Gallery Location:
Morongo Valley, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU652310556642

$870 Sale Price

50% Off

Untitled (Traintracks) - based on a Polaroid

By Stefanie Schneider

Located in Morongo Valley, CA

Untitled (Train tracks) - The Last Picture Show - 2004 38x37cm. Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Art...

Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

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

This is an original gouache painting layered over an original archival pigment print using alternative process photography. Image measures 18.5" x 9.25" on 20.5" x 12.25" Hahnemühle German Etching 100% rag paper. Ava Blitz...

Category

2010s Abstract Landscape Paintings

Materials

Gouache, Archival Pigment, Rag Paper

Ava Blitz
Elliptical: original abstract painting on altered color photograph, 2020

$2,675

More Ways To Browse

Sx 70

Vintage Erotic Watch

Vintage Hockey Photographs

Vivienne Westwood 2001

50 Fathoms

Ball Watch Used

Frank Sinatra Color Photos

Slim Aarons Penthouse Pool

Santa Monica Palm Trees (Stranger than Paradise)

View Similar Items

Stefanie Schneider
Santa Monica Palm Trees (Stranger than Paradise)

About the Item