The Master V: Araki

This season sees the release of three new books in Juergen Teller’s original and beloved “Masters” series. Teller made his first Master in 2005 as an homage to everything he believes is a master or masterful—be it a chef like Fergus Henderson, an artist like David Hamilton, his own grandmother, Kurt Cobain, or a landscape—as well as a tongue-in-cheek recognition of himself as a master of his own photographic identity. The concept was simple: to produce an ongoing series of humble booklets, each at the same small size, with no text and as little design as possible, and bound as stapled softcovers in different colored cardboards—an antithesis to the standard overblown coffee-table book. Like past volumes in the series, Masters IV, V, and VI feature an unpredictable mix of Teller’s eclectic photography: be it his unorthodox fashion work, still lifes and landscapes, celebrity and self-portraits, or images that slip between these genres. These books are dedicated to three of Teller’s most important masters who have influenced both his work and outlook on life—Boris Mikhailov, Araki and William Eggleston—and feature new portraits of these photographers.