Art Fag City at The L Magazine: Juergen Teller’s Naked Night in The Museum

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON



Juergen Teller, Paradise, 2009, c-print, 50 x 70 inches. Image via Lehmann Maupin

This week at The L Magazine I discuss Juergen Teller’s exhibition at Lehmann Maupin. As a point of reference, earlier this week Mr. Teller edged out Matt Held at the top point of NY Magazine’s approval matrix under “high brow” and “brilliant.” (Held rated very high in the low brow field and ranked sort of brilliant.) I’m not sure I’d rate Teller the same.

“Why do press releases so frequently describe art as something that 'blurs distinctions?'” a friend asked me this weekend. The question was prompted by photographer Juergen Teller's show “Paradise” at Lehmann Maupin. The gallery described his work as “blurring the distinction between commercial and non-commercial work.” “It seems like an odd purpose for art to have,” my friend continued. “It begins from the position that those distinctions need to be blurred.” In Teller's new exhibition, which features 14 large-scale photographs of two nude models in the Louvre, blurring of one sort or another occasionally becomes clear, but I question if genre-transcendence is lasting enough to be its purpose.

To read the full piece click here.