Pictures and Words

For over a year Juergen Teller contributed a column to the magazine of Die Zeit, Germany’s most respected news paper. Given free creative rein, Teller presented a new image each week with an accompanying text he had written. Combining pictures and words in this way was new for Teller, and has since intensified the autobiographical element of his work. Like his images the texts are blunt, often controversial and irresistibly Telleresque. From the very beginning the column was greeted with enthusiasm but also elicited outcry – the magazine received piles of letters each week, most of them complaining that such poor photo graphs were being published in such a respected magazine. Book two Literature contains the best of these letters.