I hate art - Juergen Teller critique

Today we had to present a piece of art that we are not the most fond of. I chose German photographer Juergen Teller. In recent years his photographs become more and more famous and his art could be seen many times on the covers of 'Vogue' or 'W' magazines.

His style can be described as 'intentionally bad' which is hate even more than his art itself. What is worse it is not even so bad, that it is good. It is just bad. Intentionally, because Teller is actually a very talented photographer but his art is deliberately bad in order to create attention around it.



To be fair, sometimes his photographs in this 'style' are actually good. But at this point it feels like they are good by accident.

I love the composition in this. The branches of the tree and straight street create a crazy amount of leading lines all connecting in the middle where is our subject. Yet still the colour grading is very uneven. The oversaturated greens with blown out highlights are something you do not want to see in professional photographs.


The defense for this kind of photographs are that 'they are capturing the moment'. It is a decent excuse however truly talented photographers can capture a random moment in much more professional way. As an example we can look at photographs made by British photographer Greg Williams.

Tilda Swinton photographed by Greg Williams


In these photographs we can see all the emotion behind each character. They feel real and pure and at the same time they feel thoughtful and well crafted. They spark joy, empathy and they make you feel what the artists presented on those photographs felt. In photographs of Juergen Teller, on the other hand all you can feel is irritation. Photographs produced by Teller are a cheap and easy way of creating attention around the image.

_____________________
Sources:

O’Reilly, M. (2019). Photography tips from celebrity photographer Greg Williams. [online] British GQ. Available at: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/bc/greg-williams-photography-tips?image=5d13aa00533a23689bc637b8 [Accessed 15 April 2021].
Instagram.com. (2018). W Magazine (@wmag) • Instagram photos and videos. [online] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/wmag/ [Accessed 15 April 2020].

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