Juergen Teller - Fame, Fashion and Photography Artsnight


Juergen Teller - Fame, Fashion and Photography

Similar Content

Browse content similar to Juergen Teller - Fame, Fashion and Photography. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

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

:00:00.:00:13.

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

:00:14.:00:16.

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

:00:17.:00:18.

His documentary style images were unlike anything the fashion

:00:19.:00:20.

Deliberately showing models unadorned with physical flaws.

:00:21.:00:32.

And they questioned our modern-day demands of perfection.

:00:33.:00:42.

Despite Juergen Teller's often brutal style, famous people

:00:43.:00:48.

still line up to be photographed by him.

:00:49.:00:50.

In my role as museum director, photography has

:00:51.:00:52.

And I'm especially interested in difficult photographs.

:00:53.:01:00.

In this way, I do believe Juergen Teller truly turned

:01:01.:01:02.

celebrity photography into something else.

:01:03.:01:06.

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

:01:07.:01:13.

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

:01:14.:01:24.

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

:01:25.:01:40.

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

:01:41.:01:45.

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

:01:46.:02:11.

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

:02:12.:02:18.

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

:02:19.:02:24.

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

:02:25.:02:33.

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

:02:34.:02:36.

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

:02:37.:02:38.

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

:02:39.:02:43.

So you are not really after a celebration of fame?

:02:44.:02:48.

The fame doesn't interest me whatsoever.

:02:49.:02:58.

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

:02:59.:03:01.

The way you photograph these famous people is very,

:03:02.:03:14.

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

:03:15.:03:21.

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

:03:22.:03:27.

in a way, do these things come together.

:03:28.:03:31.

in a way, do these things come together?

:03:32.:03:33.

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

:03:34.:03:35.

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

:03:36.:03:42.

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

:03:43.:03:45.

I photographed food, I photograph my mum,

:03:46.:03:52.

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

:03:53.:04:00.

of photographing landscapes and of photographing a naked woman

:04:01.:04:02.

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

:04:03.:04:10.

Not contradiction, but sometimes you, like the picture

:04:11.:04:18.

of Victoria Beckham disappearing in this oversized bag,

:04:19.:04:21.

Victoria Beckham moved to America because of David Beckham,

:04:22.:04:26.

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

:04:27.:04:29.

And that was Marc Jacobs fashion show.

:04:30.:04:34.

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

:04:35.:04:37.

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

:04:38.:04:41.

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

:04:42.:04:46.

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

:04:47.:04:52.

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

:04:53.:04:55.

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

:04:56.:05:06.

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

:05:07.:05:10.

Some woman's doctor scenario, then these fashionable shoes

:05:11.:05:17.

sticking out. She was not afraid that she would,

:05:18.:05:19.

you know, that people would laugh at her?

:05:20.:05:21.

That she would truly become an object?

:05:22.:05:22.

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

:05:23.:05:39.

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

:05:40.:05:42.

She is obviously going into this bag.

:05:43.:05:52.

Sometimes you also portray these famous people

:05:53.:05:53.

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

:05:54.:06:10.

Because the clown, the tradition of the clown is somebody

:06:11.:06:30.

who we like to warmly embrace because he or she,

:06:31.:06:33.

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

:06:34.:06:37.

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

:06:38.:06:43.

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

:06:44.:06:55.

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

:06:56.:06:57.

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

:06:58.:07:02.

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

:07:03.:07:09.

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

:07:10.:07:17.

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

:07:18.:07:20.

and hate relationship But how can you work within that

:07:21.:07:22.

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

:07:23.:07:27.

you to work within the system? Because you are inside

:07:28.:07:36.

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

:07:37.:07:41.

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

:07:42.:07:50.

within this fantasy, what I'm doing, it

:07:51.:07:53.

looks incredibly real. My way of photographing,

:07:54.:07:59.

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

:08:00.:08:02.

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

:08:03.:08:21.

of a new aesthetic in the fashion industry, which was

:08:22.:08:23.

dubbed anti-fashion. Its poster girl was

:08:24.:08:30.

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

:08:31.:08:32.

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

:08:33.:08:40.

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

:08:41.:08:44.

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

:08:45.:08:47.

what he makes you feel What was your attraction

:08:48.:08:49.

with Kate Moss? She didn't fit the role

:08:50.:09:07.

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

:09:08.:09:14.

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

:09:15.:09:17.

like Linda Evangelista was. Somebody has called your work

:09:18.:09:26.

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

:09:27.:09:29.

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

:09:30.:09:32.

romanticism in my work, you know, and a beauty

:09:33.:09:42.

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

:09:43.:09:55.

after fashion photographers in the world with a string of

:09:56.:09:57.

high-profile advertising campaigns. In 1998 he began photographing

:09:58.:10:01.

aspiring models on his doorstep. It was both an innovative

:10:02.:10:12.

photographing project and a subtle critique of the fashion

:10:13.:10:15.

industry itself. I had clients flying me Concord

:10:16.:10:18.

to photograph these supermodels. These pictures came out

:10:19.:10:36.

and other pictures I did, so it became sort

:10:37.:10:39.

of known in industry. Agencies started

:10:40.:10:41.

sending me these girls. And because of Kate Moss,

:10:42.:10:45.

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

:10:46.:10:47.

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

:10:48.:10:50.

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

:10:51.:10:57.

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

:10:58.:11:06.

was London Fashion Week for example You opened the door,

:11:07.:11:18.

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

:11:19.:11:24.

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

:11:25.:11:31.

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

:11:32.:11:35.

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

:11:36.:11:38.

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

:11:39.:11:42.

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

:11:43.:11:57.

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

:11:58.:12:07.

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

:12:08.:12:10.

concept experimental photographer who challenged the fashion

:12:11.:12:16.

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

:12:17.:12:21.

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

:12:22.:12:25.

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

:12:26.:12:31.

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

:12:32.:12:37.

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

:12:38.:12:42.

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

:12:43.:12:48.

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

:12:49.:12:55.

differently from everybody else. Which is Charlotte Rampling. Why

:12:56.:13:04.

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

:13:05.:13:11.

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

:13:12.:13:24.

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

:13:25.:13:28.

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

:13:29.:13:32.

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

:13:33.:13:38.

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

:13:39.:13:44.

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

:13:45.:13:49.

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

:13:50.:13:53.

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

:13:54.:13:59.

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

:14:00.:14:04.

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

:14:05.:14:12.

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

:14:13.:14:16.

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

:14:17.:14:19.

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

:14:20.:14:25.

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

:14:26.:14:32.

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

:14:33.:14:39.

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

:14:40.:14:44.

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

:14:45.:14:48.

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

:14:49.:14:59.

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

:15:00.:15:02.

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

:15:03.:15:11.

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

:15:12.:15:12.

constantly in it. They They know what they might get

:15:13.:15:18.

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

:15:19.:15:21.

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

:15:22.:15:24.

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

:15:25.:15:28.

your own photographs but also photographs you make of other

:15:29.:15:38.

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

:15:39.:15:43.

is quite something else from the nudity we know

:15:44.:15:47.

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

:15:48.:15:50.

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

:15:51.:15:59.

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

:16:00.:16:03.

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

:16:04.:16:12.

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

:16:13.:16:15.

since I'm a child, Before anybody else,

:16:16.:16:22.

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

:16:23.:16:32.

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

:16:33.:16:37.

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

:16:38.:16:40.

which is where my -- The first self portrait

:16:41.:16:43.

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

:16:44.:16:53.

coming out of the sauna. And then I got really

:16:54.:16:55.

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

:16:56.:17:03.

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

:17:04.:17:06.

at a tree or something Lily cold skin, so white

:17:07.:17:12.

and unbrown. And this person has black skin

:17:13.:17:22.

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

:17:23.:17:28.

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

:17:29.:17:32.

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

:17:33.:17:35.

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

:17:36.:17:40.

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

:17:41.:17:45.

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

:17:46.:17:50.

to give that recognition, that we cannot achieve this ideal

:17:51.:17:56.

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

:17:57.:18:02.

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

:18:03.:18:07.

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

:18:08.:18:13.

yeah, possibly. Are there any famous people

:18:14.:18:18.

you refuse to photograph? Are there any famous people

:18:19.:18:27.

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

:18:28.:18:30.

a photograph of myself. That is a good example,

:18:31.:18:32.

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

:18:33.:18:53.

go there and photograph him? He asked you if you

:18:54.:18:56.

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

:18:57.:19:03.

with my two cameras - And then he suddenly

:19:04.:19:10.

leans over and says, "Juergen, who do you

:19:11.:19:16.

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

:19:17.:19:19.

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

:19:20.:19:28.

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

:19:29.:19:34.

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

:19:35.:19:38.

to say something. And then I used my cameras

:19:39.:19:53.

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

:19:54.:20:00.

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

:20:01.:20:05.

good, stay like that." And then both cameras

:20:06.:20:08.

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

:20:09.:20:12.

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

:20:13.:20:15.

the fuck out of here Earlier this year, Teller hit

:20:16.:20:29.

the headlines with a new, audacious project involving

:20:30.:20:37.

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

:20:38.:20:40.

for a sister magazine. He wanted to be photographed

:20:41.:20:59.

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

:21:00.:21:12.

experience and it was And then we met up again

:21:13.:21:16.

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

:21:17.:21:22.

outside and I just thought, Wow, they are Americans

:21:23.:21:35.

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

:21:36.:21:40.

in some nice place in Tuscany. I rather was attracted

:21:41.:21:50.

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

:21:51.:21:55.

obscure and weird. How did you explain to them

:21:56.:21:59.

what you wanted to do? How did you explain,

:22:00.:22:06.

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

:22:07.:22:09.

of convincing people. And I have this complete urge

:22:10.:22:15.

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

:22:16.:22:28.

intellectualise things That's why I probably can

:22:29.:22:33.

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

:22:34.:22:43.

about that sandpit? They looked at me and thought,

:22:44.:22:57.

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

:22:58.:23:04.

there is something missing And I remember when Kanye said

:23:05.:23:11.

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

:23:12.:23:23.

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

:23:24.:23:28.

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

:23:29.:23:30.

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

:23:31.:23:38.

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

:23:39.:23:52.

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

:23:53.:23:56.

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

:23:57.:24:06.

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

:24:07.:24:09.

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

:24:10.:24:14.

of photographs, The Clinic, Teller turns his uncompromising

:24:15.:24:32.

gaze on his own life, looking back at his

:24:33.:24:35.

troubled family history. There is a recent book about death

:24:36.:24:39.

but also about resurrection, On my 50th birthday,

:24:40.:24:43.

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

:24:44.:25:06.

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

:25:07.:25:12.

years and everything. Anyway, they all turned up

:25:13.:25:16.

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

:25:17.:25:19.

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

:25:20.:25:24.

took when I was little. He made these incredible,

:25:25.:25:31.

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

:25:32.:25:36.

chromes. And these are photographs

:25:37.:25:44.

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

:25:45.:25:58.

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

:25:59.:26:03.

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

:26:04.:26:10.

in these photographs. And the way it's photographed

:26:11.:26:14.

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

:26:15.:26:18.

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

:26:19.:26:23.

at a health clinic. The result is a powerful series

:26:24.:26:26.

about family and memory. One of the most arresting images

:26:27.:26:33.

sees him standing naked on his father's grave,

:26:34.:26:36.

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

:26:37.:26:43.

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

:26:44.:26:46.

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

:26:47.:27:00.

of smoking and drinking. I smoked like 30 cigarettes

:27:01.:27:08.

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

:27:09.:27:11.

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

:27:12.:27:17.

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

:27:18.:27:23.

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

:27:24.:27:28.

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

:27:29.:27:34.

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

:27:35.:27:38.

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

:27:39.:27:45.

what to do. That's all from my

:27:46.:28:09.

addition of Artsnight.

:28:10.:28:18.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS