Juergen TellerCritiques

A special supplement to Index Magazine, Nov/Dec 2000

In 1992, Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm started the magazine Purple Prose as a reaction against the superficial glamour of the 1980s; much as a part of the global counterculture at the time, inspired by magazines like Interview, Ray Gun, Nova, and Helmut Newton's Illustrated, but with the aesthetics of what usually is referred to as anti-fashion. Based on their personal interests and views; Purple was, and in a sense still is, made much in the same spirit of the fanzine. The magazine became associated with the "realism" of the new fashion photography of the 1990s, with names like Juergen Teller, Terry Richardson, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Mario Sorrenti.

Two legendary photographers meditate on death, memory and ritual

The latest collaboration between these two seminal photographers, Leben und Tod is the culmination of their joint exhibition at artspace AM, Tokyo, in 2019. This intensely personal project concentrates on Juergen Teller’s (born 1964) series Leben und Tod (Life and Death), which reflects upon the death of his uncle and stepfather Artur, juxtaposing photographs of his mother and homeland in Bubenreuth, Bavaria, with symbolic images of fertility and life on holiday in Bhutan with his partner Dovile Drizyte.

Inspired by this series, Nobuyoshi Araki (born 1940) asked to photograph Teller’s “childhood memory objects,” items of particular emotional significance to him and his parents. Teller eagerly collected such personal gems, among them toys, a porcelain figurine and bridges made in the family’s violin workshop; the resulting images by Araki are haunting yet playful, creating an intriguing narrative alongside the original story.

Spawned by a commission from fashion designer Marc Jacobs for an advertising campaign, 'Ohne Titel'is a collection of largely unpublished images of Juergen Teller and Cindy Sherman which derived from the initial concept. Both artists are known for blurring boundaries: film and fashion, advertising and art, public and private, real and fictitious. In Sherman`s well known series, Untitled Film Stills series (1977-1980), she played a number of mysterious characters vaguely reminiscent of scenes in international cinema. Sherman`s long career has included several fashion series in 1983 and 1993.

Juergen Teller`s debut was marked by the front cover of Sueddeutsche Zeitung featuring a nude model with the word "Versace" drawn in a heart across her chest. Teller epitomises the shift away from formal fashion photography to the more raw, apparently spontaneous look perfected in his Marc Jacobs campaigns and his personal work.

Marc Jacobs` ads have often reflected his close relationships with artists, and in this instance he invited Cindy Sherman to work with Teller. Over the years Sherman has regularly used fashion in her work -always working alone in her studio as the photographer, model, stylist and consumer etc. This is her first collaboration with another photographer.

The Teller family business produces small parts for string instruments. Juergen Teller has taken photographs of company employees, his uncle and his uncle's collection of hunting trophies. He has also shot pictures in dripstone caves, of Kate Moss during her pregnancy and of himself. In the world of Juergen Teller, it somehow all fits together. Werkstatt--a studio or creative environment--collects, as Juergen Teller does, people and places. It combines scenes from the world he grew up in with selections from the world of beautiful images that he travels in today. Candid, subjective and completely without superficial affect, Teller offers a peek or two into his world. How it all fits together is left up to the viewer.

An integral element of Vivienne Westwood's Spring/ Summer 2009 advertising campaign, Juergen Teller's Election Day features an unlikely collaboration between the doyenne of British street style, Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and Westwood's former assistant/current husband Andreas Kronthaler. Employing Teller's signature theatrical mis-en-scene, these images--shot on location in Los Angeles--include Vivienne and Andreas' friends, members of the band Queens of the Stone Age. Escaping all efforts at narrative or categorization, the volume features shots of the protagonists in a golf buggy, Anderson reading Plato's Republic with a nipple visible through sheer fabric, Westwood and Anderson frolicking in clothes baskets at a launderette and the two beaming in front of a television announcing Barack Obama's imminent victory.

For over a year Juergen Teller contributed a column to the magazine of Die Zeit, Germany's most respected news paper. Given free creative rein, Teller presented a new image each week with an accompanying text he had written. Combining pictures and words in this way was new for Teller, and has since intensified the autobiographical element of his work. Like his images the texts are blunt, often controversial and irresistibly Telleresque. From the very beginning the column was greeted with enthusiasm but also elicited outcry - the magazine received piles of letters each week, most of them complaining that such poor photo graphs were being published in such a respected magazine. Book two Literature contains the best of these letters.