STEFANIE SCHNEIDER

ABOUT THE ARTIST

WORKS

ABOUT THE ARTIST

INTRODUCTION

Dreams set in Polaroid A pool, a chain link fence, a dark car in a dusty parking lot. Most of us have heard enough about cheap porn flick productions to have our ears prick up when we hear “Max by the Pool.” What kind of water games is the scene triggering? This type of girl-woman, decked out with quick temptation’s classic attention-grabbers, suggests a bit of a fantasy film script. The impression is broken through the model’s absent, lost-in-thought bearing. We get this impression not through action but in a moment of calm nearly next to the camera. The out-of-focus, over-exposed snapshot provokes curiosity in its intimacy and raises the question of what happened before and after the shot. Even in a nine-part work with a couple on the beach, Stefanie Schneider doesn’t provide much more information. With a few props, she rouses associations with the glamorous 1950s and the Hollywood dream factory with its goddess-like divas and failed marriages. But also mingling into the observation are shreds of reminders of contemporary music videos and fashion spreads. The single pictures don’t stand in any chronological context. They’re more readable when one jumps from one to another. Each placement summarizes the feeling of events, brings new facets and nuances. They unfold their underlying basis in communication with the viewer, who reacts to them through his own experiences. The reference to America, to film and, not least of all to films as a motif, is not coincidental. Schneider is familiar with American film history and echoes of particular films and references to the medium’s technique are frequent. Many works appear like stills from old flickering Westerns or from jarring road movies. At times one thinks he’s observing narrative flash backs and dream sequences cut loose from their contexts, and with that idea, you’re on the track of the artist’s method. Then one is misled again by supposedly recognizable scenes from famous films and one tries to bring the memories and the happenings into mind. Schneider’s works are fed by reminiscences of the American dream, of bygone Wild West myths and the box-office elements that producers add to their low-budget productions: dressed-to-kill blondes in miniskirts, peeks into the world of the rich and beautiful, or desolate scenes of the vastness of the American West. This makes them quickly accessible which is why one feels a familiarity with them so quickly. Schneider skillfully interweaves our realities and collective (film) fictions with her own images and thus occupies a gray zone of reality. One succumbs to the seduction of cinema and recognizes, only upon second glance, that appearances are deceiving. Nevertheless, the scenes took place, just as we see them. Fractured Idylls Schneider’s photographs are youthful, attractive, and in an infatuating way, gorgeous. They breathe atmosphere and convey an awareness of life. The strong emotionalism inherent in them makes them not dissimilar to advertising. They imitate advertising strategies in such a comely manner, but there’s always the moment in which they abruptly step to the side and steer the viewer’s attention towards the unexpected - because Schneider’s pictures are more than just pretty reveries. The bizarre, enraptured scenes and stagings, full of melancholy and longing, effuse languidness and exude a leisure that ensnares, enchants and attracts. A veil of dreaminess and changeability lies over everything. Purposefully deployed props and the use of symbol-rich details determine the direction of the separate fantasies. Telephone poles, airplanes, vast wastelands, a railway trestle, or a big fat American car tell stories in the same manner garish wigs, children’s toys, a kerchief, or an outdated Super-8 camera does. Schneider’s work draws on anecdotes and stories but also from her specifically European perspective of America. The world of her photography is full of narrow-chested boys and fragile girls who don’t appear to be aware of the vibrancy of their youth and beauty. The world of adults trespasses only as a light-hearted threat, which one has to resist with the no-comprises stance of youth. Actually, the works also have an autobiographical facet, because the artist mostly puts herself and her friends before the camera’s lens. Schneider shoots her set-ups with a Polaroid camera. This method that in general adheres to the pretense of documentary immediacy is wielded to the point of absurdity here. After all, the locations, poses and fancy clothes - and not least of all the striking picture framing - are sought out and planned ahead of time. What’s more exceptional and more technical is that the device she uses reflects the method and her intention: the Essen Folkwang School graduate exclusively uses expired Polaroid film whose disintegrating chemical substances react totally unpredictably. Streaks, shimmers, black empty spaces and to some extent, massive color variations lay like a second reality over the motifs and question the validity of picture worlds, of symbols, and the relevance of one’s own memories. The feigned amateur-like and casual picture cropping furthermore creates the impression of authenticity, over whose truth one stumbles across again in the next moment. Petra Prahl