Julie Saul Gallery

South African born Gary Schneider moved to New York City in 1977 after receiving a BFA from the University of Capetown. He received his MFA from Pratt Institute, NY. His first solo performance and installation, “Naming”, was presented at Artist's Space in 1977. From 1981 his primary medium was film, returning exclusively to photography by 1987. He claims that he moved to New York because he was drawn to a community involved with issues of the self and privacy through ritual. He cites “Seedbed” by Vito Acconci as one of his early influences. Schneider explains: "I am attempting to explore the most private emotions and bring them into a public place". He first made painting then performance and film but always used photography. He discovered that for him photography always presumes fact. Since 1987 he has explored the historic relationship between photography and science, remaking it in contemporary language. He continues to question the authority of the document. Schneider's portraits do not look like their subject other aspects of that person is laid bare. His biological images carefully depict their subject but the author's hand predominates.

He has exhibited internationally in both group and solo exhibitions. In 1997 Schneider produced Genetic Self-Portait which is an installation of 55 photographs that comprise a portrait of the artist. The images are derived from both forensic, purely scientific and pseudo scientific sources. These include images of Schneider's DNA, genes, chromosomes, as well as his hands, ears, teeth, sperm and blood. Among the venues that exhibited this work were: The International Center of Photography, NY; MassMoCA, MA; The Musee de l' Elysee in Lausanne, Switzerland; and The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. A catalogue/book of this work was published in 1999 by Light Work.

His most recent work consists of large color nude portraits of people exposed while the shutter remains open for an extended period of time. The artist works his way around the face and body with a flash light, highlighting certain areas and leaving others in shadow. By making images in this way Schneider is referring back to his own beginnings in film and performance as well as his interest in the work of Julie Margaret Cameron and Vito Acconci.
In 2004 the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University published a monograph and presented a retrospective survey of Schneider’s work, and in 2005 Aperture published a mongograph of the nudes and presented the exhibition.