Juergen Teller: Young Young - White White

Juergen Teller brings new light to Chinese urban life with his distinctive humanizing aesthetic

Renowned German fashion photographer Juergen Teller (born 1964) offers a new collection of work from a trip that he and his creative and life partner, Dovile Drizyte, undertook to the major metropoles of the Yangtze River (Shanghai, Wuhan and Chongqing). Teller photographed Chinese models Xiao Wen Ju, Lina Zhang and Christina Chung, who pose in instinctive yet playful ways to inhabit their unfiltered urban surroundings: alleyways, parking lots, escalators, restaurant kitchens, even reclining before slabs of meat hanging at a butcher's. Teller is well known for such seemingly spontaneous compositions in unconventional settings, yet his work is always based on thorough preparation, in this case with a dedicated local production team. For Teller life is art and art is life, so among these fashion photos originally commissioned by T magazine, it is no surprise to find self-portraits, images of Drizyte and his team, as well as still lifes and cityscapes. The irresistible mix finds a new home in this book, embracing real life over perfection, recasting traditional notions of beauty and, perhaps most importantly for Teller, celebrating individuality.