Exhibition: ‘Juergen Teller: Woo!’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

23rd January – 17th March 2013

When the wall text introduction to an exhibition boldly states in the very first sentence, “Juergen Teller is one of the most important photographers of our time,” you know you’re in trouble. I think the word that springs to mind when I look at these photographs is vapid.

Blanched, empty photographs that have an inane void at their centre. I really don’t want to look at them any longer.

Marcus

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Many thankx to the ICA for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Juergen Teller
The Keys to the House No.39, Suffolk 2010
2010
© Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller
Kate Moss, No.12, Gloucestershire, 2010
2010
© Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller
Smiling Ed, London 2005
2005
© Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller
Teenager, Suffolk 2010
2010
© Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller
Sigmund Freud’s Couch (Malgosia), London, 2006
2006
© Juergen Teller

“The ICA is delighted to present a major solo exhibition of photography by Juergen Teller from 23 January to 17 March 2013. The exhibition marks the first survey presentation of Teller’s work in the UK in a decade and will include new and recent work.

Considered one of the most important photographers of his generation, Teller is one of a few artists who has been able to operate successfully both in the art world and at the centre of the commercial sphere. This exhibition will provide a seamless journey through his landmark fashion and commercial photography from the 90s, presenting classic images of celebrities such as Lily Cole, Kate Moss and Vivienne Westwood, as well as more recent landscapes and family portraits.

Teller entered the London photography scene throughh the music industry taking photographs for record ccovers. Photographing amongst others Björk, Cocteau Twins, PJ Harvey and Courtney Love, it was Teller’s photograph of Sinéaad O’Connor for her single Nothing Compares 2 You that marked an important moment in his career. In 1991 he photographed Nirvana back stage when they toured Germany. Teller’s photographs first appearred in fashion magazines in the late 80s, and included portraits of Kate Moss when she was just fifteen years old. It was also in the aarly 1990s that Teller shot behind the sccenes at Helmut Lang’s fashion shows capturing the models, clothes and atmosphere with a deceptively casual aesthetic. Teller’s images could be described as the antithesis of conventional fashion photography seen perhaps most markedly in his campaigns for Marc Jacobs.

Picture and Words introduces a series from a weekly column in the magazine of Die Zeit. For over a year the photographer presented a new image each week with an accompanying text. Like his images the texts are often controversial and provoked outcry amongst reaaders. The exhibition will feature many of the letters that the magazine received and some of which Teller included in his book. Irene im Wald and Keys to the House are Teller’s most reecent bodiess of work. These series reveal the photographer’s more personal world in his hometown in Germany and family home in Suffolk.

Teller’s provocative interventions in conventional celebrity portraiture are apparent in works such as a photograaph of Victoria Beckham for a Marc Jacobs ad in which we only see her bare, high-heeled legs flopping over the side of a shopping bag. Vivienne Westwood reclines nude on a floral settee in a startling triptych whilst Björk and her son swim in the Blue Lagoon in an intimate portrait. Subverting the conventional relationship of the artist and model, Teller himself often figures as the naked muse in his photographs, seen for example in the Louis XV series with Charlotte Rampling. Whatever the setting, all his subjects collaborate in a way that allows for the most surprising poses and emotional intensity. Driven by a desire to tell a story in every picture he takes, Teller has shaped his own distinct and instantly recognisable style which combines humour, self-mockery and an emotional honesty.

“Whether Juergen Teller’s photography is art, or whether he is an artist or photographer, or both, or none of the above, or anything cconnected with such thoughts, can only lead us astray. Teller’s work is about great images.” Gregor Muir, Executive Director ICA.