Juergen Teller: Fashion Photography for America

Fashion, for me, should be fun—it should be light and happy, but fashion photography is so deadly serious and manufactured. It just doesn't live in real life. My thing was that I wanted to bring it into the world and make it more human. - Juergen Teller

This book celebrates Juergen Teller's long-term collaboration with creative director Dennis Freedman for W magazine and later for luxury department store Barneys in New York. Between 1999 and 2016, the pair created a sweep of iconic series, all captured in Teller's trademark realistic style.

In his photographs for W, Teller consistently went against the grain, resisting large-budget shoots and seeking out authentic, anti-commercial narratives and pared-down locations—as in his unforgettable first editorial in 1999, which features Stephanie Seymour, Shalom Harlow, and Naomi Campbell (among other supermodels) as office workers at the magazine. Seen as a whole, Teller's W commissions reveal the evolution of his creative freedom, from shooting Haute Couture clients, Kate Moss at the Monaco Grand Prix, and Tilda Swinton as a socialite collector, to portraits of William Eggleston and Roni Horn.

Teller and Freedman's work for Barneys catalogues between 2011 and 2016 epitomizes their risk-taking approach in unusual fashion locations such as Belgrade, Panama City, and Tirana. The resulting images show playful juxtapositions and unexpected scenarios, as models and actors explore their environments in comic poses, producing a kind of non-conformist advertising.

Throughout Fashion Photography for America 1999-2016, Teller has photographed original W magazines and Barneys catalogues from his archives, a low-fi method that emphasizes the physical process of looking over his past work and allows us to share in the surprises of his retrospection.