Juergen teller photography. Photographer Juergen Teller. Life according to the principle “enjoy your life! Series «Le Louvre»

For the German photographer Juergen Teller, such legendary personalities as Kurt Cobain, Kate Moss and Herbert Grönemeyer once posed. He himself, however, calls portraits of celebrities self-portraits. Even photographs that depict inanimate objects are also images of himself. Teller's art is self-centered. "The main motive is me," he says. And he explains: "All my subjects are one way or another self-portraits."

Paying tribute to its specific interpretation visual arts, the federal exhibition hall of the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, which shows about 250 works by this famous German photographer until September 25, has placed a giant poster in the foyer depicting not famous actors, not cult musicians, and not even supermodels, which are many in his pictures. The poster depicts Juergen Teller himself watching football on TV.

Symbolic props

Teller photographed for fashion labels and published photo essays in magazines. He is best known for his unusual portraits of celebrities. "Teller works at the intersection of commercial and artistic photography," says Susanne Kleine, co-organizer of the exhibition in Bonn.

Photographs by Juergen Teller give the impression of spontaneous snapshots, but this "accident" is thought out and carefully staged. For advertising campaigns for fashion labels, he shot models in unusual interiors for the glamorous business, focusing on the beauty of imperfection.

American reality TV star Kim Kardashian poses for him not in an evening dress on the red carpet, but in her underwear on some sandy embankment in France (see photo gallery - Ed.). Designer from England Vivienne Westwood photographer sat naked on the sofa. In his video, British actress Charlotte Rampling plays the piano while a naked Juergen Teller caresses the instrument. The artist does not see anything strange in his artistic method: "I do not consider it exotic. For me, this is a natural way of expressing myself."

The 52-year-old photographer also expresses himself through football, for which he has the most reverent feelings. For one of his series of photographs, he accompanied the Spanish coach Josep Guardiola and the Bayern Munich club headed by him at that time to China. Works from this session in the exposition are placed next to the poster, on which the photographer himself watches the football. This sport, which evokes the widest range of emotions, from jubilation to sadness, touches the souls of many people, says curator Klein. "We thought it would be good to welcome visitors to the exhibition in this way."

Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller (b. 1964, Erlangen, Germany) is a fashion photographer and artist known for his "amateur" aesthetic.

Iconic photographer Juergen Teller is known for his portraits shot in a deliberately "random" manner. His "amateur" aesthetic has had a huge impact on fashion photography.

Teller is not at all interested in where the line is between high art and craft, or even between art and “not art”. Born into a family of artisans - tuners musical instruments, Juergen Teller inherited a great capacity for work. Above abstract reasoning, so painful for many creators and critics, for him there is always a quality work done.

Teller is not at all interested in where the line is between art and "not art."

The question is what to count quality work. For the German artist, in the first place is the ability to capture the very essence of the characters: their soul, mood and emotions, their temperament and charisma. At the last - the quality of the shooting itself. Teller managed to expose what we love photography so much for - its ability to seep into the very depths. From his pictures, like from a crack in the earth's crust, hot magma of the human core falls on us.

Moving to London in the mid-1980s after studying at the Munich School of Photography, Juergen Teller began his career shooting for music magazines - it was through the prism of the rock scene that he perceived both fashion and art. His portrait shots are published in publications such as Face and i-D. Unfamiliar with fashion iconography, Juergen Teller puts his own unique optics into fashion photography. As a result, his grunge “raw” and anti-glam shots are increasingly appearing in London publications.

Jurgen Teller's intentionally "random" photographs are created exactly as it seems to the viewer - quickly and unexpectedly. The photographer shoots with two cameras at once, so as not to wait for a pause between flashes and not to lose precious "live" moments. In order to establish the personal contact with the model that he needs for maximum honesty of photography, Teller uses as little equipment and as few people as possible on the set. Teller shoots almost intuitively, without thinking through every step, and painstaking work begins already at the selection stage.

Jurgen Teller's intentionally "random" photographs are created exactly as it seems to the viewer - quickly and unexpectedly.

Series «Le Louvre»

From Kurt Cobain to Lara Stone, Juergen Teller has photographed many rock stars, famous actresses and top models, always showing their unique image, lively and liberated. In order not to miss the situation in which the character of a person will be revealed in all unpredictability, the artist is always armed with a camera.

His most canonical works are portraits of models. A picture of Kate Moss, for example, is not just an image of a model having fun, it is her essence.

Juergen Teller often shoots nudity (sometimes naked himself). In the famous Le Louvre series, Teller portrayed nude models (including actress Charlotte Rampling) in a famous French museum. Against the background of classical works, the naked female body does not look like a provocation or a sexual object, but as a natural continuation of the artistic tradition.

Juergen Teller often shoots nudity, including himself.

He hugged CharlotteRempling, listened as Kate Moss playing the guitar, swimming with and her son, laughing with Victoria Beckham and talking about the benefits of tomatoes with Javier Bardem. Juergen Teller— a photographer who lives by the principle "enjoy your life!".

It all started in London. Music magazines, fashion magazines and more serious press believed in Jurgen Teller's simple, slightly ironic, and most importantly, not boring manner. Pictures appeared steadily here and there, with an enviable young photographer periodicity. An unpreserved eccentric moved forward his vision, never made concessions, and in 1991 he got what he deserved. The photo shoot made a guy out of Teller, getting into the lens of which became not a desire, but a basic need. Hops from success made the young German dizzy, but only in the right direction. Filming has become bolder, more provocative, but one thing has remained unchanged in them - honesty. Maybe not a sober, but definitely a clear look at things and at the individuals who present them.

In his photo history lit up Marc Jacobs, brands Helmut Lang,Hugo Boss,. In them every now and then appeared and entailed Kate Moss, choosing Jürgen as his portrait painter. He recognized her as a green, slightly naive British woman who was destined to become a generational model, he shot her at the peak of her career and continues to shoot her now. Moss for Teller, like the change of day and night, will happen again and again, by itself as a process, as a change that is in the order of things. But it is impossible to predict her mood. The only thing that can definitely be expected from this union is consciousness. Everything that happens in the frame is desirable and mutually desirable for both the model and the photographer.

With women, Jürgen is generally very special. He will remove them for 20 years. Routine? No. In an interview with the German newspaper Welt in 2010, Teller admits that he still feels a certain nervousness during the filming process, they are his trigger. First of all, he needs to get close to the hero. Age, gender, the reason for the photo shoot is not important, initially Jürgen tries to build a confidential dialogue. Dine together, because not only spiritual food brings together, take a walk together, exchange thoughts together. First, he will show what it's like to be a subject. So Teller is a kind of Mel Gibson in What Women Want, only in the world of photography. He will try everything on himself, if necessary, he will be naked, however, he will do it easily. He is not a shy guy - maybe in the Louvre, in which his mother gave birth to take a walk, and spend the whole day in the sun among the thorny thickets of Palm Springs. His character will not have a feeling of misunderstanding. He knows that his photographer went through everything himself. For shooting, Teller always has two cameras ready - “you can’t interrupt, take pictures”, his principle in which the comma is inviolable.

Jürgen is a photographer who has received and continues to receive interesting offers. One night, the art director of Paradis magazine called him and asked him point-blank: “Do you want to shoot nudes at the Louvre?” Teller replied that the idea was stupid and unrealistic. Two days later, the aforementioned person called again and asked to select a model. She became Charlotte Rampling. They already had a story with permissible tenderness in the suite of the Grillon Hotel, filmed as part of a campaign for Marc Jacobs. But what these two did at the Louvre was pure madness. Very honest, 100% cool madness. Louis the Fourteenth, perhaps, would have invited this couple to his court.

Mobile fantasy and girls. That's what fuels Teller's nervousness and points his lens in the right direction. Sofia Coppola walks around Central Park and shows the new it-bag by Jacobs squirrel. But this is what actually happens in life with a bag after its purchase. It does not stand on the shelf as an exhibit. The adventures of the hostess and her adventures too. And here is the honesty you want to see. Participated in another story. More specifically, her legs. Vicki, celebrating the heel in all its manifestations for the first decade of the 2000s, is the perfect candidate to represent Jacobs' revolutionary shoe fantasies. SS 2008 broke their applause. Teller photographed activists for Pop Magazine Pussy Riot, without slogans and appeals. They are two friends for him, two random passers-by walking the streets of Paris. He was naughty with and annoyed Georgia May Jaeger, releasing her wild energy to capture her for Sonia Rykiel's brand campaign. Teller persuaded Lara Stone to show a combination of imperfection and beauty in shooting for System Magazine. In support of the brand's "no time and no distance" philosophy Celine, he combined the laconic Joan Didyon and soulful Daria Verbova. Jurgen has his own story with each girl, but he loves them all - for nothing, for variability and inconstancy, for trying to take heights, for the ability to pause and do stupid things.

He's crazy, but loyal, and a good listener. That's why Nicolas Gesquir trusts him to visualize his ideas in pixels. Lookbooks, campaigns, new look Louis Vuitton created by Jürgen in the eyes of the press and already loved by millions. In the work, the photographer has long found his niche and clearly outlined his position. It lies in the conscious distance from glamor and the tactile touch of the image with the aesthetics of "people sensation". Sensuality, naturalness and empathy - these are the knives of the photographer. Do not embellish the real, do not fake. Maybe less effort, but it turns out sincerely and curiously. Everyone says that he has a manner, recognition, or maybe he just doesn’t play stage, doesn’t live imitations. For him, the frame is as real as it is behind him.

Today in the heading "uncle with a camera" we have Juergen Teller, a man who valiantly refused to photograph Miley Cyrus, and in general a person not without other virtues. Originally from Germany, he moved to London in the mid-80s, helped Kate Moss become famous and picked up a bunch of celebrities in between. Jürgen has a reputation as a provocateur, periodically strips his models naked, but he has never heard anything about post-processing. To accusations of all kinds of mortal sins, he answers something like this - “everything human is deeply not alien to me,” and then continues in the same vein. Although Jurgen himself considers himself just a diligent photographer who tries to "do his job well."

I never focus on money, the most important thing is to do a good job. If you do some work, then it happens because you yourself want it. Everything is elementary. But if you work under a commercial contract, then other rules apply!

For fans of psychoanalysis, we inform you: as a child, Jurgen liked to watch TV for a long time and idolized his elder cousin, an amateur photographer. It is not known exactly how his passion for television influenced him, but with the elevation of the brother-photographer to the rank of saints, everything is quite clear. Teller also has great respect for Robert Mapplethorpe, William Egglestone and Boris Mikhailov.

Jurgen's career began with shooting backstage shows for Helmut Lang and Versace. Some time later, Jurgen already shot for famous magazines (Vogue, W Magazine, Purple, i-D). On Teller's account advertising campaigns for Marc Jacobs, Celine, Moschino, Vivienne Westwood. Celebrities such as Helen Mirren, Charlotte Rampling, Kurt Cobain, Yves Saint Laurent, Milla Jovovich, Cate Blanchett fell into the Teller camera lens, the list goes on, if not indefinitely, then at least for a very long time.

I instantly feel a person, intuitively understand him. Then, I am a simple and open guy, and people, feeling this, quickly open up in response. I do not burden a person - stand up like this, look here, we often take breaks, chat, and at this time the best images are born. It doesn't really matter how long it takes, but usually it doesn't take long.

In the end, it depends on me how someone will look - a wonderful person or a complete idiot.

In response to the offer to strip in front of the Mona Lisa, Rampling said: "Cool, this happens once in a lifetime."

There is an opinion that Teller removes trash. Of course, his photos are very different from what people are usually used to seeing in glossy magazines: Jurgen's works are uncomfortable, in them celebrities usually polished by Photoshop look like ordinary people. In fact, in most cases it turns out that it is even more interesting to look at them this way. At the same time, it cannot be said that Teller feels like some kind of desperate truth-seeker, a fighter against soulless gloss and an anarchist from the fashion world. He's just trying to do his job well. It just so happens that he cares more about the side of people that tends to go off-screen.

It doesn't matter how much time I spend - five minutes or a month. Until my soul and my lens are inside a person, I cannot do my job.

A few years ago, an exhibition of Teller's work was held in Moscow. Jürgen visited Russia in honor of such an event and even managed to hold something like a master class, during which he remarked that the Russians “want everything at once, and I just tell my tiny stories.”

You Russians should not take yourself so seriously. It's good to look at yourself with irony sometimes. A sense of humor in creativity is necessary, because, damn it, life is already terribly boring.

The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art has opened an exhibition of photographer Juergen Teller "Jitters on the Couch" (yes, timed to coincide with the World Cup, which Russia is hosting this year). Teller makes works that go beyond the notions of beauty and ugliness. At the same time, he is one of the most famous fashion photographers whose shoots for advertising companies brands Marc Jacobs and Céline are fully consistent with the principles of dispassionate personal aesthetics. Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov documented the fall Soviet Union. In his ruthless Case History series, he portrayed a crude and cruel image of a poverty-stricken post-Soviet society and its new martyrs. Teller and Mikhailov always admired each other's work and communicated with pleasure. The two great photographers and Mikhailov's wife Victoria met at Teller's London home.

Fragment of Jürgen Teller's exposition "Jitters on the Couch" at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Moscow, 2018. Photo: Ivan Erofeev. © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art

Boris Mikhailov: What's this? How did it happen? (Mikhailov is flipping through Teller's album, a photograph of a Las Vegas tiger tamer named Roy catches his attention. Roy has huge nipples.)

Juergen Teller: I think he enlarges them with a breast pump - you know, that kind of thing for nursing mothers. And here is his tattoo.

B.M.: Excellent series. Very successful, very thoughtful.

01Boris Mikhailov. Football. 2000. C-prints, aluminum composite panel. Courtesy artist Boris Mikhailov / Barbara Weiss Gallery

Yu.T.: Do you know the German newspaper Die Zeit? I worked with them for almost a year. Once a week they printed mine new photo and small text. Readers simply flooded the editorial office with letters. They all hated my photos! They wrote that they are terrible, but I myself am fixated on myself.

B.M.: Fiction! The same reaction was to my work in the Soviet Union.

Yu.T.: At first, reading these reviews, I squeezed into a chair and thought: “God, am I really such a bad person?”. Then I got used to it.

B.M.: When you shoot, do you put pressure on the model?

Yu.T.: Sometimes I have to push, and sometimes I'm soft and shy.

B.M.: What is it?

Yu.T.: Contacts.

B.M.: Do you shoot on film?

Yu.T.: Yeah.

Boris Mikhailov. From the project "When my mother was young." 2012-2013. The project was carried out in cooperation with the film crew of the film "Dau" using the artist's personal archive. Courtesy Sprovieri Gallery, London

B.M.: Is this the old Contax? Do you only shoot on it? (looks at Teller's camera with interest)

Yu.T.: Yes, only for him. I don't work with numbers.

B.M.: It's easy for me to switch from film to digital... I've never seen such a flash before.

Yu.T.: It's really fast flash (takes a camera and starts taking pictures).

B.M.: Fiction!

Yu.T.: That's why I like her.

B.M.: Do you get large format photos?

Yu.T.: Oh yes, very big.

B.M.: (pointing to a photo on the wall) Araki!

Yu.T.: This is what I bought. Great photographer!

B.M.: And I have Lee Ledara's work! A very young boy and at the same time absolutely amazing! I made a project about my mother, about the last taboo modern man. The figure of the mother is considered inviolable and sacred, and he showed her as a woman and as a sexual object.

Yu.T.: Maybe we can take a couple of photos?

(Mikhailov puts the camera between his legs and pretends to masturbate the lens. Teller takes a picture of him. As everyone sits around the table to dine on seafood pasta, Boris under the table takes a picture of what is under Jurgen's shorts.)

B.M.: How did Ukraine seem to you when you first got into it for the first time?

Yu.T.: I was delighted. I immediately thought that Kyiv is such a Moscow on Prozac.

Left: Boris Mikhailov. Untitled. From the series "History of the disease". 1997-98. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 2011 Boris Mikhailov
Right: Boris Mikhailov. Untitled. From the series "Case History". 1997-98. Berlin Gallery. 2011 VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

B.M.: What is Prozac?

Yu.T.: Prozac is such a sedative. Moscow, of course, is more insane.

B.M.: Yes, Kyiv is a more relaxed city, but at the same time more strange. Once upon a time I didn't like him. All the money flocked to Kyiv, he fattened, and the rest of Ukraine did not live so well. But in the late 80s, Kyiv was badly damaged during the Chernobyl accident. Strange, but this did not affect the character of the people of Kiev, they remained the same optimistic and cheerful people as before the accident. This circumstance reconciled me to this city.

Yu.T.: Traveling to places like Ukraine is refreshing for me. In Western Europe, in Berlin or London, you are forced to live by rules that cannot be broken. Cameras are following you everywhere. If, for example, you are driving, then, if something happens, you are immediately issued a fine, and so on in everything. And in Ukraine, you can see a motorcycle sliding down the stairs or speeding along the sidewalk. But it doesn't look dangerous. Although it still shocks me how much they drink there. In the morning businessmen go to a stall and drink a glass of warm vodka.

V.M.: You can imagine what kind of things they then turn over!

Yu.T.: I just flew in from New York yesterday. Filmed there for one magazine 32 film actors. Very tiring.

B.M.: Did you get a good shot?

Yu.T.: Hope.

B.M.: Haven't seen it yet?

Yu.T.: Not all. Do you work to order? Do you have clients or magazines that want you to do what they think is right?

B.M.: AT Soviet times many photographers, even almost all of them, were doing something else, for example, they worked as engineers or stood at the machine, and this, in fact, guaranteed their creative independence. Now the photographer often makes something that can be hung on the wall, sold. You are very good, Jürgen, you are invited to shoot for magazines, shoot for commercials and so on. I do not do that. I have to think about a wall, lately a big wall. But it's easier for us than for many other photographers, because each of us has a name, and a name can sometimes be used to impress a collector or a museum.

Yu.T.: But still, let's imagine that the magazine asks you to shoot me or David Hockney, would you be interested?

B.M.: It will be interesting to me, but at the same time very scary. Such an order requires a special approach.

Fragment of the exhibition "Manifesta 10" with the work of Boris Mikhailov from the project "Theater of War. Second act. Intermission". State Hermitage Museum, General Staff at the General Staff. Photo by Ekaterina Allenova/Artguide

Yu.T.: But I'm always scared. I am often told: “You have done this so many times in your life, why worry about it.” And every time I answer: “I still worry.” Every time is like the first!

B.M.: How much do you shoot in three months?

Yu.T.: Depends on the time of year. In spring and autumn I have a lot of commercial shoots, and in winter or summer there are more exhibitions and other similar stories. But I already want to work less. I need more time for myself. By the way, what were you doing in Japan? Was it your idea or someone invited you?

B.M.: I never plan anything in advance, I never build concepts in my head. I just arrive somewhere, and this place begins to influence me, or rather, we begin to interact with each other. Ideas are born at this very moment and in this very place. But the place often works harder than me. And Canon invited me to Japan. Then a German publishing house published my book about Japan.

Yu.T.: Don't you think there are too many photographers in the world?

B.M.: Too much.

Victoria Mikhailova: Put them poison in their pasta!

Yu.T.: Which photographer do you like?

B.M.: I really like Daido Moriyama and Eggleston is also very good! Cartier Bresson! Nobuyoshi Araki! I generally like a lot of people, because today bad photographer cannot become famous. All classic photographers are good, and new artists, in my opinion, are wonderful.

Yu.T.: Tell me what you do for GARAGE magazine.

B.M.: I made a story about the past when my mom was young. I wanted to revive the past and compare it with the present, compare life in the Soviet Union with modern life. I wanted to reanimate time and reproduce images that could, but for some reason were not created then. It was interesting for me to find something new in the old, to make a photographic story about life. It is interesting to try to make a collective portrait and convey the anxiety and fear of that time. But I did not try to imitate the "event" - rather to recreate the atmosphere of those years. I shot all this partly in the cinema hall in Kharkov, partly at home, I also supplemented this project with old photographs.

Yu.T.: Is it difficult for you to sell your work?

B.M.: Not easy.

Yu.T.: Have you ever been interested in taking pictures of the oligarchic world?

B.M.: It used to be interesting, now it's not.

Yu.T.: When was it interesting?

B.M.: In the early 90s, when they only had a lot of money and they were in the center of life and attention. Then they liked that they were photographed, they were interested in them, everything revolves around them. But today, photography is no longer something special for them, and the photographer is not. Then they stopped being shown to the public.

Yu.T.: You pay people to pose for your photos.

B.M.: I cry for everyone.

Yu.T.: Didn't pay me.

B.M.: A little bit of change ladies, I did not take pictures of the face!

Yu.T.: How much do you pay them?

B.M.: Little money. About five or ten dollars. But for a lot of the people I shot, it was good money.

Yu.T.: That is, you always walk around with a decent amount of money in your pocket!

B.M.: Sometimes I have problems. Lice once picked up from the homeless. And another one, I went to shoot the visitors of the pool in East Berlin, suddenly a policeman comes up and demands to give him the film, says that it is impossible to shoot, although there were no prohibition signs. The tape had to be given away. But then I decided to go to the police and demand my tapes back. And after some time, they were indeed given to me along with printed photographs and a certificate, which said that it was possible to shoot in places where photography is prohibited for the sake of art and for the sake of history. After that, my wife said to me: “This certificate is the only proof that you are an artist.”

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