Juergen Teller: Handbags

Description

"In 1999 I did a book called Go-Sees where girls came knocking on my door over a one-year period to show their portfolio and themselves. Recently, walking through Paris, I found myself thinking what work I would exhibit in my upcoming museum show in Naples. Handbags, I'm just gonna do a handbag book and a show. It felt like another Go-Sees book to me. Friends of my girlfriend were asking me what kind of a photographer I am, what I photograph. I replied: 'Actually, come to think of it, mostly handbags.' I always like their astonished and disappointed faces! I realized through the 30 years of my career, I photographed a hell of a lot of handbags within my fashion work. And as the Americans once said to me, 'Where's the money shot?' I looked at them puzzled. 'Show me the money shot!' they repeated. Here they are: the money shots in this collection of images for my new book." Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller, born in Erlangen, Germany, in 1964, studied at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt fur Photographie in Munich. His work has been published in influential magazines such as Vogue, System, i-D, POP and Arena Homme+, and has been the subject of solo exhibitions including those at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris and Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. Teller won the prestigious Citibank Photography Prize in 2003, and from 2014 to 2019 held a professorship at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Nurnberg. His books with Steidl include Louis XV (2005), MarcJacobs Advertising, 1998-2009 (2009), Siegerflieger (2015) and The Master IV(2019)

[Juergen Teller: Handbags'] recurring theme is a perfect motif to highlight Teller's approach to the image: humorous, provocative, narrative driven and very alive.--Francesca Gavin "AnOther" Consider this the natural successor to Us Weekly's "What's In My Bag?" series. Teller, the king of minimalist style, has dedicated his latest monograph to the item he believes he's photographed the most of everything: Bags, baby!--Devon Ivie "Interview" Demonstrating how Teller has reshaped the field of fashion photography since he first emerged in the 1990s, Handbags will delight the aficionado of contemporary fashion and of photography alike.-- "L'Oeil de la Photographie" Removed from their original commercial context and viewed now from a slight chronological distance, his images, especially when seen in aggregate, have taken on aesthetic and psychological dimensions.--Amy Collins "Introspective" The master fashion photographer makes a gorgeous typology of the ultimate accessory.-- "Interview"