Juergen Teller - Fame, Fashion and Photography Artsnight

And we should say there is some strong language in this programme.

In the 1990s, Juergen Teller's shots for the music and fashion industries

turned him into 1 of the leading lights of commercial photography.

His documentary style images were unlike anything the fashion

Deliberately showing models unadorned with physical flaws.

And they questioned our modern-day demands of perfection.

Despite Juergen Teller's often brutal style, famous people

still line up to be photographed by him.

In my role as museum director, photography has

And I'm especially interested in difficult photographs.

In this way, I do believe Juergen Teller truly turned

celebrity photography into something else.

In this programme, I will meet the man behind some of the most

I'm privileged to have been granted access to Juergen Teller's studio

For a conversation about fame and celebrity. In the course of one year

he photographed hundreds of models on his doorstep. I guess I'm

today's. Let's go down. There are a of pictures here famous

people. Also in people. I see family, yourself. Here is Lily Cole.

And Patti Smith. And Vivienne Westwood. What is your interest in

famous people, why so many famous people? That's a good question.

Well, you know, there's a thing about these famous people.

I'm not really interested in famous people, I'm interested

And all these people you mentioned, they do something which means

So you are not really after a celebration of fame?

The fame doesn't interest me whatsoever.

What I'm trying to say is, like, Kurt Cobain, I was so mesmerised

The way you photograph these famous people is very,

It's a celebration, both of what they stand for,

but also a celebration of your own view of your own life,

in a way, do these things come together.

in a way, do these things come together?

Yeah, that's why they are all, in a way, mixed up.

They all kind of, for me, sit happily next to each other.

People ask me, do you photograph so many nudes, do you photograph

I photographed food, I photograph my mum,

If I'm interested in it I do it and I find the same pleasure

of photographing landscapes and of photographing a naked woman

But when we go to the next wall here, there's an interesting...

Not contradiction, but sometimes you, like the picture

of Victoria Beckham disappearing in this oversized bag,

Victoria Beckham moved to America because of David Beckham,

to LA, then she started to go to fashion shows.

And that was Marc Jacobs fashion show.

And the fashion world was outraged about, what the hell is she suddenly

Marc called me up and said, what do you think about using her

I was like immediately, that's a brilliant idea,

but we've got to do something, we can't laugh at, we've got to make

but we've got to do something, we can't laugh at her,

And we both came up with the idea to build a huge shopping bag.

And put her in this big bag with her legs dangling down,

Some woman's doctor scenario, then these fashionable shoes

sticking out. She was not afraid that she would,

you know, that people would laugh at her?

That she would truly become an object?

Or there is no limit at all? Well, the thing is, it's pretty obvious

in this photograph that she is part of it, right, I'm not

She is obviously going into this bag.

Sometimes you also portray these famous people

I'd probably have to admit I have maybe quite a brutal,

Because the clown, the tradition of the clown is somebody

who we like to warmly embrace because he or she,

the clown, tells us something, that our life is maybe not

Well, I think I see this in a way, the absurdity of life.

Life throws us so many obstacles and sadness and difficult...

You know, my father killed himself early on, that really scarred me

but I don't want to talk about it much now.

But I want to see, also, have a bit of fun with life.

See the absurdity of, like, how beautiful but also how absurd the

fashion industry is, you know. That means you have a love

and hate relationship But how can you work within that

system if you have a love Or is that why people keep asking

you to work within the system? Because you are inside

and outside at the same time? Fashion is a wonderful vehicle

to create a certain fantasy world. But that's the funny thing,

within this fantasy, what I'm doing, it

looks incredibly real. My way of photographing,

it's very harsh and very real. Juergen Teller arrived in London

from his native Germany in 1986. In the 1990s became part

of a new aesthetic in the fashion industry, which was

dubbed anti-fashion. Its poster girl was

the young Kate Moss. What I like about Kate is that

she's really lively, I really like her, she's very quirky

and very full of energy. I've always liked what he does,

what he makes the pictures look like and, you know,

what he makes you feel What was your attraction

with Kate Moss? She didn't fit the role

of supermodel, she was shorter, quirky, she had super energy,

she was super exciting. She wasn't sort of untouchable,

like Linda Evangelista was. Somebody has called your work

an example of dirty realism. Do you recognise your own work

in these kinds of descriptions? There's also an incredible

romanticism in my work, you know, and a beauty

in it, you know? Teller became one of the most sought

after fashion photographers in the world with a string of

high-profile advertising campaigns. In 1998 he began photographing

aspiring models on his doorstep. It was both an innovative

photographing project and a subtle critique of the fashion

industry itself. I had clients flying me Concord

to photograph these supermodels. These pictures came out

and other pictures I did, so it became sort

of known in industry. Agencies started

sending me these girls. And because of Kate Moss,

model agencies thought, it's going to be really easy to find

a new Kate Moss and make The stream of strange looking girls

who came flooding was enormous. It was all over a period of one

year and when there was, In summer less, but when there

was London Fashion Week for example You opened the door,

they knocked, they rang the bell, Then I asked them to come

in and have a cup of tea or coffee Then I'd look at their

portfolio and talk to them. And then I asked, can

I take a picture of you? Here's a release form,

I'm trying to do this and this. And then within the

parameter of my door. So it's like, maybe, two meters into

my house. Even one metre into my house only. Around the door. And

then just hear opposite. It established his reputation as a high

concept experimental photographer who challenged the fashion

industry's very notion of itself. In 2004 he embarked upon an even more

radical advertising campaign with an actress who over a number of years

had become his muse. In an extraordinary shoot for the fashion

house Marc Jacobs at a Paris hotel, Juergen Teller cast himself in the

role of her young lover, wearing a pair of satin shorts or nothing at

all. There's one exception in your body of work, a truly amazing story,

there is one person who you feel so close to. And you treat completely

differently from everybody else. Which is Charlotte Rampling. Why

Charlotte Rampling? You know, I was so in all of her. Image wise. For

some reason or another. I remember I photographed her for Liberacion

newspaper. My first book came out in 1996 by Taschen. She comes in,

really harsh with the way she looks, she is not forthcoming whatsoever

when you meet her at the beginning, she can be really frightening. She

says, you've got, five or ten minutes, she said, to photograph me.

I was like... That's not very long, right? I was like, oh my good, I

thought fuck it, I'm going to take a chance. I said before I photograph

you, can I take five minutes, you looking at this book. I knew I have

five minutes left to photograph you, doesn't matter, I'll take it, look

at this book. She looks at this book, then looks at pictures of your

smiling with her son, and of Kate Moss, Nirvana and everything. She

closes the book and says, take out whether long you want. There's

another aspect in these photographs when I look at Kate Moss, when I

look at especially when we look at Charlotte Rampling, there is a form

of intimacy you establish with these so-called famous people. Maybe is

that they were matters as you are talking about? We feel like we know

them suddenly much better. You are capable to give us an intimacy that

is not the foyer, you are not the foyer. They completely trust me,

these people. -- voyeur. When I'm in the room doing it I'm fully there,

fully occupying this room, talking to them, doing things with them.

They know, they can see from myself portraits how far I go. I'm

constantly in it. They They know what they might get

into themselves when I'm taking Some people don't even

want to go there. But when they get involved with me,

they have a sense of where When we look at photographs,

your own photographs but also photographs you make of other

people, famous and unfamous, The way you work with nudity

is quite something else from the nudity we know

through the history of art, It's not so much I would say

the elegance of nudity, it's not like nudity as a fetish,

it's not voyeuristic. I grew up in the countryside next

to the forest and we had a sauna and one of those cheap swimming

pools and it was always normal So that became, completely,

since I'm a child, Before anybody else,

I started photographing me naked, I wanted to do that as natural

and normal and pure as possible and I didn't want to deal

with a dress code. I didn't want to deal with fashion,

which is where my -- The first self portrait

I did was in the forest, at my swimming pool,

coming out of the sauna. And then I got really

attracted to the skin. Not only my skin, but also

the muscle, the fat, It's like how you look

at a tree or something Lily cold skin, so white

and unbrown. And this person has black skin

and they have white here. When you look really carefully,

it's all really interesting. When we look at your work,

it's almost like a continuation of an art canon which is called

the grotesque, starting in the 16th century, 17th century -

think about Goya - 18th century. The grotesque is like we know,

we recognise that our life is not all that ideal and we have

to give that recognition, that we cannot achieve this ideal

life, this ideal form. We have to give that a form,

and that's called the grotesque. Do you see your work

in the tradition of the grotesque? I guess you are right,

yeah, possibly. Are there any famous people

you refuse to photograph? Are there any famous people

who call up and say, Juergen, I want to have

a photograph of myself. That is a good example,

because that is a big question mark. I really thought, "Should I actually

go there and photograph him? He asked you if you

think he was guilty. I was photographing in a hotel room

with my two cameras - And then he suddenly

leans over and says, "Juergen, who do you

think who's done it?" And I knew I wanted to be

with him on my own. I thought somehow, I felt,

"I've got to face "this guy And I was so shocked

about this question. Certainly, he has a sense of needing

to say something. And then I used my cameras

to hide myself, and then I was still using film and suddenly

the film ran out and went... I was like, "It looks

good, stay like that." And then both cameras

were empty and I felt like, "I can't pretend to

photograph any more." And I just thought, "I need to get

the fuck out of here Earlier this year, Teller hit

the headlines with a new, audacious project involving

the world's most famous celebrity This was also a supplement made

for a sister magazine. He wanted to be photographed

for the cover of New York Times, which turned out a really good

experience and it was And then we met up again

in Paris and I thought, And I had this chateau like an hour

outside and I just thought, Wow, they are Americans

and there is this good looking That's where they got married,

in some nice place in Tuscany. I rather was attracted

to the sandpit, you know. And I thought that was more

obscure and weird. How did you explain to them

what you wanted to do? How did you explain,

"I'm not going to make fun of you, I always have this kind of way

of convincing people. And I have this complete urge

of doing it and I feel it I don't sit there and

intellectualise things That's why I probably can

convince people to do things I think, "What do you think

about that sandpit? They looked at me and thought,

"Oh, yeah." I thought, "Oh, God,

there is something missing And I remember when Kanye said

to Kim, "This is how it is to work with three A-listers",

which meant her, him and me. That's when I thought, "Actually,

what's missing is I'm missing Because some pictures got taken out,

I just thought, I'm going to go back there and get involved and walk

the countryside and go further. In this book, Kanye,

Kim And Juergen, you are playing, and the way you are dressed also,

you are playing a kind of Mr Normal. Do you want these famous

people to say, "Listen, "when you work with me,

there is a chance you can be In his most recent series

of photographs, The Clinic, Teller turns his uncompromising

gaze on his own life, looking back at his

troubled family history. There is a recent book about death

but also about resurrection, On my 50th birthday,

I made a big party at my mum's place and I invited just the widest family

members, from cousins and everything who I haven't seen for many

years and everything. Anyway, they all turned up

and they all came and my cousin, who I got into photography

in the first place, made me He looked at all these slides my dad

took when I was little. He made these incredible,

touching books, which you can do now He digitised all these recorder

chromes. And these are photographs

made by your father. And then I thought, this was totally

shocking, I nearly cried. This is me, but it

looks like my son. And it looks like many of the faces

in these photographs. And the way it's photographed

is so much like how I photograph, The new project combines

the old family photos with pictures Teller took on his recent stint

at a health clinic. The result is a powerful series

about family and memory. One of the most arresting images

sees him standing naked on his father's grave,

clutching an empty beer bottle. I didn't know exactly what to do

with it until I went It's called the Mayo Clinic

and that was last February. Where I kind of got tired

of smoking and drinking. I smoked like 30 cigarettes

and I thought I became Every time I needed to do some work

or made a phone call, I would have been constantly smoking

cigarettes in this interview. I just drank too much and I kind

of wanted to change, And a friend of mine said,

"I'm going to "stop drinking for a year", and I liked that idea,

to do something, to be... And that's what I'm

doing at the moment. OK, because you have to tell me

what to do. That's all from my

addition of Artsnight.