I need to live

Throughout his 35-year career, Juergen Teller has been renowned for his non-conformist style, defying expectations with a unique combination of seriousness and self-irony, creating authentic narratives from his insatiable curiosity for life and the endlessly surprising world around him. I need to live, accompanying Teller’s major solo exhibition at the Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, in 2023–24 and the Triennale Milano in 2024, captures the depth of his unmatched photographic achievement. Storytelling has always been integral to Teller’s practice, realized through the unconventional merging of his personal experience and commercial work in a range of genres: from portraiture and landscapes, to nudes, still lifes and the ever-changing self-portrait. This book embodies Teller’s interest in the unpredictable circle of life and a desire to explore his self and his familial relationships with a new poignancy—reflecting on the loss of close collaborators and friends including fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and gallerist Suzanne Tarasieve, while celebrating the arrival of his third child and the fruitful creative relationship with his wife and muse, Dovile Drizyte.