Juergen Teller’s retrospective is sharp, smart and mischievous in Athens

Victoria Beckham, the Pope, and nudes in the sand feature among the German photographer’s images in ‘you are invited’ at Onassis Ready, the latest arts space from the Onassis Foundation

Juergen Teller photograph from 'you are invited' exhibition, showing Victoria Beckham coming out of large white bag as he points camera at her
Self-portrait with Victoria Beckham 10 Years Anniversary campaign, London, 2018
(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

‘You only have the responsibility to yourself,’ says Juergen Teller, the much lauded German photographer sat opposite me in his trademark neon shorts, surrounded by the personal work that forms the physical centre of his new exhibition, ‘you are invited’ (the phrase is lifted from a religious pamphlet he encountered earlier this year; a photograph of the event features some metres away). ‘You want to be excited by yourself, to surprise yourself,’ he continues, relaying the weight (or not, as it transpires) of inaugurating Onassis Ready, the latest arts space from the Onassis Foundation. Three years ago, when he was first approached by artistic director Afroditi Panagiotakou, he was shown several potential venues, but Ready, at the time derelict, was the most exciting, says Teller.

Juergen Teller photograph f woman wearing T-shirt saying 'bring back god'

Katharine Hamnett No.1, London, 2025

(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

He returns to the sentiment of excitement multiple times within our allotted minutes: currently of paramount excitement is his series Symposium of Love, which is making its debut in Greece. Comprised of more than 100 images, uniformly sized just north of the standard 4x6-inch holiday snap, displayed here in a single-file configuration, the series was made in Lithuania – where Teller’s wife and creative partner, Dovile Drizyte, is from – and features the couple as one, limbs sprouting, against a sand dune. ‘It feels often like we’re becoming one, and I thought, how do I do this in my work?’ offers Teller. ‘I’ve never done that before, double exposure or superimposing things. The dunes were great; I photographed her rolling down, she photographed me. It’s like a metaphor for how you stumble through life, there’s something boring, something tragic, something beautiful…’

Juergen Teller photograph of topless man holding tree

Iggy Pop No.23, Miami, 2022

(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

Juergen Teller photograph of person's rear, painted like a zebra

Duran Autumn Winter 2025 campaign, Paris, 2025

(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

Woven into the rhythm of the nudes are landscapes and portraits of stuffed animals from a taxidermy museum they visited with their young daughter, Iggy. ‘Iggy really enjoyed it, but I super enjoyed it,’ shares the photographer. ‘Then in the studio it became clear that this work is about life on the planet, and love and nature.’ The series' title, a reference to Aristophanes’ speech from Plato’s Symposium, characterising love and the feeling of becoming whole, followed later. ‘Josselin [Merazguia], my exhibition manager, read me this text and I thought fuck me, this is exactly fucking brilliant for this show in Greece, it’s just perfect.’

Love, family, relationships and religion are frequent threads throughout the wider show. Elsewhere on the ground floor are further photographs of Drizyte, as well as Iggy (not to be confused with Iggy Pop, although features in the show too), the Pope, Teller’s parents, friends, collaborators and self-portraits, while downstairs in the basement is a more conceptual interpretation: a small video room showcases fashion films made between 1998 and today, while The Path of Hope occupies the main hall. Initially conceived for Harper’s Bazaar Italia, photographs of models in variously decorated Italian churches are blown up to mammoth size. Towards the back of the hall, a sleek grey pavilion screens Men, the photographer’s love letter to male relationships inspired by his father-in-law (nearly seven minutes long, the film sees Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård cutting Teller’s frozen faeces away with a stick).

Juergen Teller photograph of naked man in the sand

Symposium of Love No.131, 2025

(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

Juergen Teller photograph of woman's legs raised, in front of painting

The Myth No.50, Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, 2022

(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

‘The whole thing could have been square, really boring,’ suggests Teller of the exhibition’s design. Instead, he worked with Tom Emerson of 6a architects, with whom he collaborated on the 2023 show ‘i need to live’ at the Grand Palais in Paris, and who also designed his RIBA award-winning studio in London. ‘Tom’s extremely sensitive [to the work] and brings ideas which help me to be excited; he’s an important part of the show. There are many architects who are like dictators, doing it without really thinking about the work, but with Tom, we have fun.’

Of the curatorial intention, Teller adds, ‘I wanted to have it specific to the space, the place, the people, and to what I feel right now in that moment.’ His fascination with football is well documented – during an earlier preview he notes that his beloved Bayern Munich are playing against Dortmund at the same time as the exhibition’s opening party (they’ll win, 2-1) – and when we speak, he uses this to underscore his precision in choosing which works to show, pointing out an image of a bare-looking goal, shot in Sifnos earlier this year, before swivelling in his chair to highlight the training ground of local team Olympiacos, on the other side of the building.

Juergen Teller photograph of Pope shaking hands

Pope Francis in Venice, 2024

(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

Juergen Teller photograph of Charlotte Rampling in pink, on bed

Charlotte Rampling, Louis XV No.2, Paris, 2004

(Image credit: © Juergen Teller, All rights Reserved)

Immediately to our right are vitrines filled with images from The Myth, shot with Drizyte at the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio in 2022, examining the old wives’ tale of raising your legs in the air to get pregnant. It’s the concrete nucleus of the show, and feels emotionally so too. ‘It’s the heartbeat in a way, the centre of the whole thing,’ agrees Teller. ‘I find it very beautiful and romantic, but it can be easily dismissed. It’s what surrounds me, what my head and body are occupied with. It’s an abstract fairytale of a family, it’s not a reportage – even with the coffee series [Guten Morgen Sonnenschein], you have no idea what my kitchen looks like. It’s the same with my self-portraits, I’m not any better or worse than Isabelle Huppert, but I’m always around.’

In a vitrine on the outside perimeter is a close-up of a can of Gaza Cola, the nails of the hand clutching it, belonging to the designer Katharine Hamnett, decorated with the Palestinian flag. It’s part of a wider series about Brexit that the photographer made with Hamnett, with whom he first worked in the 1990s, and reads as an anomaly against his otherwise largely apolitical showcase. ‘You react to the environment of what is now, culturally what you do is a mirror of things,’ says Teller. ‘That’s why I put the table opposite Why Trump [an image made in 2017 of the David King book, Why Trump Deserves Trust, Respect & Admiration, poking out from a jacket pocket]. It’s important what she’s doing and what she stands for, similar to what Vivienne Westwood was doing. I’m very proud of that work, and I put it in because it’s an important statement.’

Juergen Teller, 'you are invited', until 30 December 2025 at Onassis Ready, Athens, onassis.org

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Zoe Whitfield is a London-based writer whose work spans contemporary culture, fashion, art and photography. She has written extensively for international titles including Interview, AnOther, i-D, Dazed and CNN Style, among others.