NEWSLETTER

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Juergen Teller is, in large part, responsible for everything that you like about photography. He is a member of the holy trinity (along with Terry Richardson and Wolfgang Tillmans) that saved fashion photography from shittiness in the 1990s. Teller, totally unafraid to show humanity, ugliness, harshness, and humor in his photos, leavened the fashion-magazine standard of overblown sets and jacked-up, theatrical prom photos. His commercial work was, when it first appeared, a revelation.

But Teller blazed a trail which, unfortunately, was soon overrun by an unruly mob of jokers with battered Yashica T4 cameras and very little talent, and the mood and look that he and his contemporaries defined started to become a fashion- and portrait-photography cliché. Bright, bright flash? Check. Simple and “real” setting? Check. A general vibe of casual degradation or something like that? Check, check, check.

Teller, along with Richardson and Tillmans, avoided being overrun by their imitators with a novel and hard-to-duplicate strategy: They entered the gallery and museum worlds and became really successful artists. At first, Teller made art out of the weird things he witnessed in the fashion world. His 1999 book Go-Sees was a photo parade of casual model castings, taken at his studio’s front door in London. On the surface, it was just a bunch of girls. But what it really amounted to was one big portrait of all the different faces of pretty young women thrust into the fucking weird psychological space of making a living off their looks. Some were fun, some were awkward, some were creepy, and some were sublime. As Juergen Teller’s artwork progressed, he started going back into his German heritage and made photos out of it, as attested to by his brilliant recent book Nürnberg.

In a seemingly inexhaustible stream of new books, new exhibitions, and good ideas, Teller has become one of the most recognizable art photographers in the world now. And he still does fashion photography when he feels like it. He just makes it into weird and beautiful art at the same time.

Vice: Do you like the fashion industry? I know that’s a stupidly broad question, but I really want to know.

Juergen Teller: I do. For me it’s very light and fun and exciting. Like, I’m excited about these boots I’m wearing. I can’t wear the white, low-top Converse that I wore for 30 years anymore because they were hurting my feet and my lower back as I got older. So I’m wearing heels now. And I’m, like, really excited about it. These boots are transforming me. Suddenly I’m wearing a scarf and a Rolex watch and a jacket.

You’re a changed man.

I’m just getting lighter about fashion. It’s quite funny. But fashion, you know, it’s a huge business. If you have the right attitude and don’t take it too seriously, and if you can push the levels of commercialism, it can be fun.

What’s the right attitude?

Well, I just want to do what I want to do.

That’s pretty good. What kind of clothes do you like to wear the most? I’ve seen you a few times and you always have the most perfect worn-in old t-shirts on.

Actually, right now I’m smartening up a bit in my old age. [laughs] I’m really into these scarves from this old-fashioned British company called Turnbull and Asser. I have a cashmere scarf on right now. In orange!

Orange. That takes guts.

And I’m also getting into these Martin Margiela boots.

What are they, like motorcycle boots?

No, they’re Chelsea boots.

Beatle boots. Those are so British. What did you dress like when you were a teenager?

It hasn’t changed much. Back then it was still the washed-out t-shirts. I also wore quite a lot of pajama trousers.

That was like, a look that you wore out into the world?

Yeah. For years. I wore them to New York and everywhere. It sort of made sense at the time! [laughs]

As you got more involved in the fashion industry, did you start to appreciate design more? Did you start to pay attention to, I don’t know, silhouettes and who was doing what kind of stitching this season or whatever?

I was never interested in that stuff. But I would notice a girl who would be wearing a certain specific thing, and then that would make me interested in watching the girl. You know?

For sure. You would notice the way someone wore something not so much as what they were wearing.

Right.


TO BE CONTINUED:
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