Fashion photography's enfant terrible Juergen Teller is back with his first solo exhibition in 10 years at London's ICA. German-born Teller is famous for his candid snaps of the stars - like this intimate, emotionally honest image of outlandish music icon Björk with her son Sindri. Taken near her home in Iceland in 1993, Teller said he was fascinated by how similar they looked.
After moving to London in 1986 at the age of 22, Teller broke into the scene shooting for über-cool British style magazines The Face and i-D in the late 1980s. The fashion iconoclast's provocative and unceremonious images are infused with a cheeky sense of humor - like this picture of a rather displeased dog in the sink. "I am just curious about life and things around me," Teller said.
What do you do on a shoot with the world's coolest supermodel? Dump her in a wheelbarrow of course! Well, that was Teller's characteristically flippant approach to a series of portraits of notoriously louche Kate Moss at her Gloucestershire home for Self Service magazine in 2010. Moss has been somewhat of a muse for Teller, who's photographed her in various states of undress for over two decades.
Teller is one of the most sought-after fashion photographers in the world, but he's also made the transition to credible artist on the high-brow contemporary art scene. His unvarnished, no-holds-barred approach has, however, attracted controversy, with some critics denouncing his imagery as juvenile, coercive, or simply being out to shock. Pictured: Smoking cat, Hydra, 2012.
But Teller has also shown his softer side with images of his family and domestic life. He took this photograph of his son in the bathtub following the funeral of friend and agent Katy Baggott in 2005. "It's good just to do normal things with the family. Only this morning I had to change the sheets because Ed had peed the bed. Normally that gets on my nerves, but today it was nice," Teller said.
The agent provocateur has photographed everyone from then little-known US grunge band Nirvana on tour in Germany in 1991 to a naked Vivienne Westwood sprawled across an antique sofa in 2009. For his 2012 series "Irene in the Forest," Teller went back to his roots to photograph his family - most prominently his mother, Irene - in the woods close to his old family home in Erlangen, Germany.
In the series 2012 "Keys to the House," Teller offers a glimpse of his private life in and around his home in Suffolk, England. In between candid portraits of the occasional familiar face, among them flame-haired British model Lily Cole submerged in muddy water, Teller offers a range of irreverent snaps and stunning landscapes far removed from the glamorous excesses of the fashion world.
Alongside celebrity friends and family, Teller also has a penchant for self-portraits - and he's usually naked in them. Some of the more memorable include Teller in bed with actress Charlotte Rampling and this selfie with his son in Bubenreuth, Germany, in 2005. The exhibition, Juergen Teller: Woo!, is running at London's ICA 23 through March 17, 2013.
Fashion photography's enfant terrible Juergen Teller is back with a bang with his first solo show in 10 years at London's ICA.
Fashion photography's enfant terrible Juergen Teller is back with a bang with his first solo show in 10 years at London's ICA.
