by Finding Juergen Teller’s studio is no difficult task. On a west London road, among rows of two-up, two-down beige terraced houses, his 60-metre deep plot stands in light concrete glory. An assistant opens the door to a garage space where, in 2016, Teller was exposed on a donkey to celebrate the completion of construction (the following year, his studio was nominated for the Stirling Prize and won the Riba London Building of the year award) . I turn up to the second floor to sit and wait with the 60-year-old and his creative collaborator and wife of three years, Dovile Drizyte, 41, surrounded by relics of Teller’s nearly four-decade career. Contact sheets go back to 1997, there are stacks of Docs and Pop magazines, and there are excellent coffee table books full of his famous fashion commercials, from Barney’s to countless handbag brands.
When the two arrive it starts to rain. Teller, not known for his instant warmth, laughs. Wearing his signature fluro-pink trousers and Asics trainers, he starts taking photos of the wet window and now growing deciduous trees in the central courtyard below. ‘It’s nice,’ he says, flicking his iPhone screen at Drizyte. Here’s Teller in action. He is not one for faffing around and his results can look – well, as they are taken quickly on his iPhone, even if the subjects are the elite elite. When he shot Riz Ahmed with a tree for W Magazine’s annual awards season portfolio in 2021, the actor tweeted that it was ‘the fastest of my life. 20 seconds, two clicks’. After the 2024 iteration of the W question – see, Natalie Portman wearing a Dior dress in a tourist shop – the debate was on again. People call him lazy, others idolize his wit.
Either way, it’s earned new fans—Gen Z is obsessed. A flood of new work memes follows, often gruesome paparazzi shots with the caption: ‘Photo by Juergen Teller.’ Is it exciting a new audience? He pauses, staring blankly. He is not. ‘I don’t do my work thinking about what the younger generation will think,’ he says. ‘That’s what I’m interested in. And when my heart is fully in I’m always on a winning streak.’
He is certainly in the midst of a winning streak. At the end of last year he unveiled I Need to Live, his biggest solo show at the Grand Palais Éphémère in Paris. It ran for a month, until the 9th of January this year, and is now on display at the Triennale Milano until the 1st of April. Endorsed by Saint Laurent, it includes over 1,000 works and covers his life ‘starting with a photograph of me as a child’. It traces his move to London as a 22-year-old who avoided military service in 1986 and is full of famous portraits including Kate Moss, Björk, Yves Saint Laurent and Joan Didion (‘People I admire,’ he says six, in moderation). He doesn’t shy away from personal insights, either: ‘My father’s suicide, mine almost getting robbed at gunpoint. These things are of course unpleasant, but I use them in my work,’ he says.
There are just a few shots of him, too. The cover of the catalog (and this magazine) sees Teller horizontal, legs splayed in his signature short shorts, holding a bunch of balloons. An accompanying shot (not printed) sees him in the same place, sans shorts. Interesting, I say. ‘It’s quite simple,’ says his opposition. ‘My work is about my thoughts, ideas and experiences. I’m obviously involved in some way. I take photos of the environment around me and the people who are important to me, so it’s not that long ago that I’m taking photos of myself.’
His eye contact fluctuates between boring and unattainable, but he is unflappable when it comes to the world outside his lens. ‘We are living in the most uncertain times since the Second World War,’ he says. And he also has strong opinions: people who ignore climate change ‘like Hitler’. Everyone knew this wasn’t right but it keeps going,’ he says. Brexit was a very bad decision made by the people of England. Now the rest of Europe is moving to the right,’ and he worries about the escalation of the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East. ‘Everything is terrible, what can I say,’ he says.
He is silly, uninhibited and likes people who talk. People like Gary Lineker. ‘He is excellent, I like his political contribution. I come from a very morally correct point of view, I am positive and I show the beauty of the world.’ For that reason, ‘without being overtly political, my work is, to a certain extent, political’. Still, it’s the fashionista’s thirst for his campaign shots that can’t be quenched. Check out the new season ads for Loewe, Victoria Beckham, Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs. It is because people are getting bored with luxury products as they are delivered artificially, without any heart. It’s just buy, buy, buy. With my work, there is a sense of reality,’ he says. As for the other, polished campaigns are being offered: they are ‘retouched, dead’ mannequins. I’m not interested in a stereotypical situation.’ Certainly, Maggie Smith, 88, was carrying her Loewe bag for the Spring/Summer 2024 campaign, far from what was expected and met with ‘iconic’ trainers.
It can be hard to tell where his paid gigs end and his personal gigs begin. His four latest books, along with an exhibition catalog, prove as much: moving from More Handbags and Fashion Photography for America 1999–2016 (commissioned) to JurgaiÄ iai (photographs of Hill of Crosses in Drizyte’s native Lithuania, placed side by side images of his late collaborators Dame Vivienne Westwood and the gallery Suzanne Tarasieve) and The Myth, documenting Drizyte with her legs propped up and the couple trying for a child. In conversation, however, it’s clear that the self-driven works are what make Teller tick. ‘Nobody wants you to take a photo of this, that or the other,’ he says. ‘You work on it and you have a partner who is totally interested in following your ideas. You go on a journey together.’
For that reason, many love it. ‘His ability to capture your “sense”, despite what you’re wearing or doing, makes him amazing,’ says actor Dakota Fanning, who he first photographed with when he was 12. age. ‘I look back at the photos of me he took and I see me.’ Iggy Pop says, ‘Juergen is like a comedian. For some reason, he reminds me of Louis Prima,’ and former British Vogue editor Edward Enninful explains, ‘He sees the magic in the ordinary and that’s what makes one of the great masters of our time’.
The art establishment respects him. Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of Serpentine Galleries in London, says, ‘There doesn’t seem to be any fear of failure in the practice. He wants to photograph people as they are.’ And fashion designers are eager to continue the collaboration — Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello compares his relationship with Teller to the legendary duo Yves Saint Laurent and [photographer] Helmut Newton. These two artists fostered an incomparable creative partnership,’ and Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood’s husband and collaborator, provides the following: ‘Vivienne used to say, “He always gets the picture.” He is a magician because he sees something that he is able to carry into the pictures that you were not aware of yourself.’
Other celebrated pairings include actors Charlotte Rampling (watch him roll on top of the grand piano while she plays, in Louis XV, 2004) and Alexander Skarsgård (the film Luelå, 2023, Teller sees poo in the Arctic snow and the Succession actor playing an actor. stick). But Teller is clearly most concerned about his work with Drizyte today. For their 2021 wedding, the invitations saw them in hard hats and work boots, and read: ‘We are building our future together, come to our wedding.’ They provided two demonstrations of the same type of construction.
He and Drizyte named their daughter Iggy – after Iggy Pop, ‘who I loved and thought was brilliant’. She is Teller’s third child after Lola, 26, and Ed, 19. Speaking of Iggy, Teller is usually very cold. When Document Journal got her name, after commissioning it to capture Pop for its 2018 cover, the magazine said: ‘Oh my God. We had Iggy Pop on the cover, now we want Iggy Teller.’ To do that, Teller recreated his most famous pictures, with his daughter modeling. ‘I have to say my wife, our daughter and I – we had a lot of fun doing it,’ he says.
He just doesn’t shoot anyone. ‘There are people I’m not interested in photographing… it’s just taste,’ he says. And he always prefers continuous connections. ‘I love to have relationships and collaborations – when it goes over the years and something becomes deeper,’ he says. ‘Not only, ok I have a photo of Madonna, click. I sun Kim Kardashian, click. I have taken a photo of Pelé, click.’ Of course, he has already captured all of them.
When I ask if anyone is left on his wish list, he is dismissive. ‘No,’ he says, staring out at the ceiling. ‘I don’t work like that.’ That’s when his wife steps in. ‘Juergen Teller’s shortlist of superstars still wants to be photographed…’ Oh, is it? ‘Okay, I’d love to take photos of the Pope,’ he admits, and lets out a small laugh. The teller is not dreaming yet.
