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Teller show rounds up the last 10 years

Vivienne Westwood`s famous shock of red hair, delicately framed with traditional floral fabric is one of the more striking images in a new exhibition of the work of Jürgen Teller The fact that Westwood chose Teller for this photo speaks volumes. So strong is his reputation that getting Teller to agree to a shoot is an incentive for many celebrities to turn up for a photograph. The ICA in London literally reveals all about Teller, as do countless Actors, actresses, models and, it seems, almost everyone else; happy to strip for Teller’s lenses. “I do portraits and I do fashion and I do my own work which is important to me and I kind of wanted to mix it up into my own kind of visionary world which only belongs to me,” he says. Teller’s first photographs were of record covers,. He believes he learned his fashion sense from what bands were wearing. He soon won favour from his models for his ability to send contradictory messages. His photographs are almost like snapshots, but they are thought out in great detail. The models sometimes look raw and edgy rather than beautiful, but their photographs are certainly artistic and stylish. Teller’s ability to mix the commercialism of fashion with the designer’s love of artistic detail has made him widely popular and successful. He insists the whole exhibition is aimed at giving the visitor a personal impression of him: “There’s no favourite picture. No, it’s about me as a whole, it’s not about one, there’s not one favourite picture and then I wake up one day and then I’m thinking, oh that’s my favourite picture, and then two days later it’s raining outside and I’m dealing with my son and suddenly the picture of my son is my favourite picture. You know it really, I don’t have a favourite picture. I have a lot of pictures I think are good.” Teller has also included many pictures of his family in the exhibition.. His photographs shock with their boldness yet entice the eye with their beauty. This is his first big exhibition for a decade, and the artist has put everything on show. Teller’s photos are on display at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) until March 17th 2013.