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HOME STILLS
Bastienne Schmidt

Traveling Exhibition Information

EXHIBITION SPECIFICATIONS Presentation Fifty-two (52) dye-coupler (type C) images, matted. All flat prints are presented in black metal anodized frames with Plexiglass glazing. Frames are not wired. Images and sizes as per checklist (available upon request). Required Space Two Hundred and Forty to Three Hundred (240-300) linear feet. Loan Fee A low to moderate loan fee applies to this exhibition and is based on the loan period requested. The participating institution will be required to pay insurance and two-way shipping costs. Loan Period 6-10 weeks Insurance All tour venues will be contractually required to carry appropriate and adequate wall-to-wall insurance coverage and to provide suitable documentation of such prior to shipment to that venue. Shipping The Exhibition Coordinator of the Southeast Museum of Photography will coordinate all shipping arrangements. Security Security, environmental and fire systems required. Facility report must be provided. Itinerary The exhibition will be available through 2012. Publication Home Stills: Bastienne Schmidt with an essay by Vickie Goldberg, Jovis Press (2010). Contact Juliana Romnes, Exhibition Coordinator. romnesj@DaytonaState.edu or phone (386) 506-3350. Southeast Museum of Photography, 1200 W International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114				"One can observe a certain amount of stillness and contemplation in my female characters, when they stand next to the window looking towards the outside. These quiet interiors take the enlightened time and light observation from the Dutch still life painters such as Vermeer into account. In these paintings women are depicted in poses of housework, in small quiet gestures, illuminated by the outside light, through the single source of a window. Time inside the "Home" is hard to measure, as daily tasks can be repetitive (laundry, cleaning the house, etc.) and through their repetitive nature, may seem endless. In a lot of these photographs there is feeling that belongs to a woman's world: to feel invisible and to feel muted." —Bastienne Schmidt This traveling exhibition combines self-portraits and film stills to explore female gender identity as it is refracted through popular culture. Schmidt challenges our visions of a domestic utopia with "tableaux" photographs of herself in the role of a "housewife" that re-stage many disconcertingly familiar scenarios and circumstances. Working strictly in her own home environment of suburban Long Island, Schmidt takes on the social context of a world of suburban fragmentation and loneliness with the presentation of the housewife character as a wandering, rootless protagonist. With subtle directorial control of the mood, mise-en-scene, lighting and art direction for each image, Schmidt creates ambiguous and quietly moving meditations on the theme of self, identity and "home." Drawing from such diverse visual influences as the French "nouvelle vague," or New Wave cinema, the paintings of Hokusai, Sigmar Polke, Vermeer and Hopper and commercial illustration from the 1950's; Schmidt draws the viewer into a complex evocation of ambivalence and emptiness. The Film Stills section reproduces symbolically-charged and emotionally resonant domestic scenes captured and excerpted from the constant daily flow of such imagery from our television screens. The women in the screen images are refracted through semi-transparent overlays of drawn gestures, patterns, doilies, fabrics and embroideries. The multitude of ever-shifting perspectives and narratives in the stills underscores the dichotomy of the home as the scene of domestic bliss.
				"Home Stills - leave home or stick around. Bastienne Schmidt wanders, metaphorically or on foot, in and out of a woman's life and imagination — her own and by inference many others. At home and not-home, amid order and disorder, roaming and staying put, hiding out in plain sight, she builds narratives where multiple meanings glimmer below the surface and ambiguities fill the frame." —Vickie Goldberg Bastienne Schmidt was born in Munich, Germany and studied art, painting and photography in Germany and Italy after studying Anthropology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet. She lived and worked for many years in Greece and Italy before moving to New York, where she is now based. Schmidt's art and photography have been widely published and exhibited throughout the US and internationally including at the National Museum for Photography, TV and Broadcasting in Bradford; the Brooklyn Museum; International Center of Photography; Houston FotoFest; Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi, Belgium; Museum of Photography, Rotterdam; Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow; and the New Museum, New York. Schmidt's publications include Vivir la Muerte (1996), American Dreams (1997) and Shadow Home (2005), which was awarded the German Best Photo Book Prize. She is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Corcoran Gallery of Art; Center for Creative Photography, Tucson; Worcester Art Museum; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Museet Fotografiska, Stockholm; International Center of Photography, The Brooklyn Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.
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