Juergen Teller Opens Onassis Ready in Athens With a Soul-baring Show

Juergen Teller, fashion’s most subversive photographer, known for his dark wit and stark images, has been plumbing the depths — of love, religion, friendship and family. Gazing inward, and taking a closer-than-ever look at the outside world, has been cathartic, emboldening — and absolutely refreshing.

At 61, he’s born again.

His latest show, “you are invited” at Onassis Ready, a new exhibition, performance and studio space housed in a former plastic bottle factory on the fringes of Athens, is much more than a midcareer survey dotted with shots of Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Charlotte Rampling from unexpected angles.

It’s also a look at his work since he married his second wife, and collaborator, Dovile Drizyte, and became a father for the third time; the photographs he took on behalf of Pope Francis for the 2024 Venice Biennale, and his reportage of Auschwitz marking the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation earlier this year.

The show, which marks the official opening of Onassis Ready, and runs until Dec. 30, includes older work, videos and formerly unpublished images, including lighthearted ones of his baby daughter Iggy, who’s named after Iggy Pop, another celebrity who appears in the exhibition.

“I see it as a very exciting moment of ‘now,’ of what I’m interested in, the political situation, what’s happening in the world, what’s happening to myself and where I am,” says Teller in a video interview from the show space, which he transformed with help from 6a architects, his longtime collaborators.

“It’s the impact of what’s hitting me, and what touches me in the world. That is certainly my marriage to my wife and how we do things together, my child — and certain other influences. It’s the most powerful and best exhibition I’ve ever done,” he adds.

Teller sees himself as a storyteller, and is hoping visitors will vibe with the personal, philosophical and geographical journey he’s traced in the show, which also takes in a sandy spit in western Lithuania, views over the Aegean Sea and side trips to London and Venice.

Greek Revival

Greece and its ancient thinkers play a big role. Teller took to heart the classic Greek playwright Aristophanes’ myth of love — that humans were born as a fusion of two bodies and later separated as punishment from the gods, only to spend their lives looking — and longing — for their other half.

He responded to the myth with images of his and Drizyte’s naked bodies superimposed on one another. Legs, arms and other body parts fly in all directions as they tumble down a sand dune on the Curonian Spit in Lithuania, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Baltic Sea. 

Teller said Aristophanes’ myth had been on his mind for a while. “My wife and I are always together and it feels like we’re moving into each other. I wanted to do some work that was interesting, work showing how our two bodies and minds become one,” he says.

He sees the sand dunes as a metaphor. “I thought that’s how one tumbles through life, through the difficulties, the funniness, the beauty, the complications — and the easiness — of life. I got Dovile rolling down, and then I got myself tumbling down, and she photographed me, and then I put them together,” he says.

There are nods to modern Greece, too, in the shape of an abandoned soccer goalpost on a rocky cliff overlooking the sea on the island of Sifnos. It’s a stark, lonely picture set against the backdrop of an island paradise, laying bare Teller’s sense of the absurd.

“That field is ridiculous, you can’t even play football on it with all of those stones. And if you hit the ball hard, it goes into the sea. That’s how life is,” he says.

Nature and Faith

He captures Lithuania (where Drizyte grew up and where her parents still live) in the freezing winter, too, with images shot on the Curonian Spit when it’s covered in snow.

“There’s a beautiful forest, the air is so clear, and there are these beardy things hanging from the trees, like frozen frost. There are these huge elks walking around, and foxes, too,” says Teller, who photographed the animals going about their daily lives.

He speaks with similar fascination about his experiences with Pope Francis, whom Teller photographed at the Giudecca Women’s Prison in Venice during the 2024 Biennale.

Although Teller’s not a practicing Catholic, he considers himself a man of faith, and describes Drizyte as devout. He says she stops to pray in every church she visits, and had been keen for him to photograph the pope.

The prison photographs went on display at the Holy See Pavilion at the Biennale, and were included in the related catalogue published a few months later.

Teller says the prison visit with the pope was overwhelming. “I think I spent two hours with him, and was so exhausted when it ended that it felt like six or eight hours had passed. It was a very, very, very, very intense experience.”

He adds: “The women prisoners were there for a reason — they didn’t just steal your car — and they were quite harsh. But when the pope arrived in the courtyard, the whole atmosphere completely changed. They became like little lambs, like little angels. To experience that was incredible.”

Those few hours with the pope — and his life with Drizyte, whom he married in 2021 — also led him to do a series of portraits of women in Italian churches, some of which appear in the show. He shot some of them for the Italian Harper’s Bazaar’s Jubilee Issue, which came out this summer.

The women are pictured with, or without, veils and against the backdrop of Baroque and modern churches. Some are praying, others are posing and the grandeur of the churches makes even the most dramatic of designer clothing look small — and spare.

Teller was wowed by what he saw inside those churches, including St. Peter’s Basilica. He talks about “the power, beauty and absolutely exquisite artworks, the marble and the woodworks and the paintings,” and marvels how “architects made the light fall into these churches. It’s a powerful thing.”

Growing Up

The Athens show is a big sweep — across time, geography and the generations. It’s emotional, too, and marks a coming of age — if that’s even possible at 61.

Asked how he’s evolved since he met Drizyte and become a father again, Teller says he’s a bolder man.

“I’m more brave, I’m more direct, I’m more sincere, I know exactly what I want to do. I want to really take risks, believe in my gut and jump into the cold water when I have a feeling that something is going to work,” he says.

The artfully fused portraits of him with Drizyte on the Lithuanian sand dunes could have backfired and looked stupid, he admits. But he persisted because he wanted to explore the Aristophanes myth in relation to his marriage, and his new sense of self.

He says that evolving — as a person and an artist — means there are certain things “you want to concentrate on. I think it has to do with being older and wiser. But then sometimes I click and I find something suddenly interesting. I think you always have to be very sensitive and very aware that things can change, and become newly exciting.”

Asked what he wants to telegraph with the Athens show, Teller has an answer that’s fitting for a moment when people are grouching about U.S. President Donald Trump; despairing about politics, war and the environment, and jittery about how rapid developments in tech and AI are changing the world.  

“I want somebody to see this show, and to be confident in their choices and inspired by taking risks. I want them to be fully alive within the world and really see smell, taste and feel everything that’s around them — and what the world can give,” he says.

He sums up his attitude to life right now.

“I don’t want to be harping on about negativity, about everything being really bad in the world right now. I want to go far beyond that, and show that I have a responsibility to take control of my life, to see the small things in life, to [appreciate that] I have a wife that I love and that we’re building something together.”

Teller adds: “I want to talk about having love, peace and confidence in yourself, and [warn against] being like a sheep, following stupid people who tell you what’s good, what’s bad and what’s possible. Anything can be possible. Make mistakes, learn from your mistakes, take your time and take things slowly. I’m at the height of my life, of my career, and of what I want to say, and it took me 61 years to do that.”