JUERGEN TELLER Shows Off MACHO at Deste

For more than 30 years, Teller has created highly original, informal, and often humorous images that span the average and extraordinary, the hard-hitting and the fragile. A pioneer of working in multiple channels, Teller’s pictures have been produced for fashion and public advertising and exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. “I am just producing works and try to find channels where I can express myself,” Teller remarks. “It may be a magazine, poster, book, or billboard … whether it is art or photography, I really don’t care.”

Self-portaits are central to Teller’s work, resulting from a role-playing experiment where model and photographer swap places. Like incremental additions to an endless performance that spans his career, they might show Teller collapsed face-down into a half-eaten platter of roast pig, or, more recently, posing in a restaurant with his crew, flaunting the imperfections of his half-naked form. The images on view at Deste comment on and poke fun at the narcissistic male. “I rarely aim to show off my masculinity, or proclaim myself the ideal male,” confesses Teller. “On the contrary, I am often to be seen in effeminate or ridiculously funny poses.”