Juergen Teller exposes his selfie

He is one of the most celebrated photographers of his generation.

Now, Germany’s Juergen Teller has his first solo show in Athens, entitled – MACHO.

The exhibition underlines a desire on the part of Teller to be ironic and perhaps poke fun at the modern narcissistic male.

The curator of exhibition Marina Fokidis said it is a significant exhibition: ‘‘This is the first time Juergen Teller has shown his self portraits here together. These pictures span 25 years. This exhibition, is like getting into his head. It would be a sin to describe Juergen Teller’s work. The main element is absolute freedom. This freedom has resulted in him breaking every rule in photography.’‘

Teller’s recent series, ‘Masculine’ is also on show.

It puts classic works of art and sculpture which idealise the male form alongside the photographer’s self-portraits.

Teller argues it is a dig at the fallacy of modern man.

‘‘When you look at these Greek sculptures here and everything, or Leni Riefenstahl, or Herbert List, or Robert Mapplethorpe, you always see men, perfectly… They look perfect. But they never sweat. You never see the action of how difficult is to lift something. The word ‘MACHO’ has a lot of negative connotations. For me it is an ironic title,’‘ Teller explained.

For Teller, the self-portraits are also a way of exposing social and lifestyle issues concerning contemporary society.

‘‘People are getting more and more vain. Everybody has more and more Botox, everybody has more and more plastic surgery. Everybody is taking more and more care of themselves. Eating healthy and everybody takes these stupid self-portraits, selfies. I thought, well, I’m gonna just use these three rooms and do this,’‘ Teller added.

On show at the DESTE Foundation in Athens, Macho runs until the end of October.