Melanie Schiff: Sun Land

Essay by Shamim M. Momin, poem by Kristen VanDeventer, interview with Schiff by Kendra Paitz.

Los Angeles-based photographer Melanie Schiff (born 1977) is recognized for compositions characterized by subtle geometries and penetrating natural light. She has consistently employed an economy of means, achieving dramatic effects with everyday objects, simple gestures, or found landscapes and interiors. Schiff first received critical attention for photographs that featured either the artist performing gestures in the landscape or still lifes of record albums, CDs, and beer bottles that embraced the defiance, playfulness, and melancholy of the lifestyle of someone in their early twenties. Schiff has become increasingly more invested in making references to the history of photography through portraits and landscapes that draw on an awareness of her art historical forebears, notably Harry Callahan, Edward Weston, Ana Mendieta, and Valie Export. With her most recent photographs, Schiff is interested in outdoor sites that collectively conjure a narrative of past and future.

Sun Land, the first published survey of Schiff’s photographs, includes works from 2002-2012. Published in conjunction with her exhibition, The stars are not wanted now at University Galleries of Illinois State University and traveling to CAM Raleigh, the book features an essay by Shamim M. Momin, a poem by Kristen VanDeventer, and a conversation between Melanie Schiff and exhibition curator Kendra Paitz.

Hardcover | 8.5 x 10 inches 84 pages | 54 color reproductions | 2013