The exhibition you are invited – the inaugural exhibition of the Onassis Foundation’s new Onassis Ready space in Athens – marks a significant moment in Juergen Teller’s artistic oeuvre, which has been shaped by landmark events and encounters.
This mid-career survey presents various series, individual works, numerous videos, and combines Teller’s selections from previous exhibitions and portfolios, with new, unpublished images, from the 1990s to today, including iconic images (such as his portraits of Iggy Pop, Kate Moss and Charlotte Rampling), still-lifes and family portraits. This forthcoming solo exhibition encourages retrospection between past and present work, celebrating Teller’s re-energised perspective to form an active dialogue that acknowledges the shifting modes of exploration in his creative journey.
While Teller has always made personal work, this exhibition shows a new sense of purpose triggered by recent projects, such as photographing Pope Francis in a women’s prison during the 2024 Venice Biennale and his invitation to photograph Auschwitz for the 80th anniversary of its liberation earlier this year. In addition to such public commissions, in the past eight years, Teller has collaborated with his wife, Dovile Drizyte, on projects that reflect various aspects of their relationship and the birth of their daughter. These works are defined by a typical mixture of serious, intimate, yet often humorous characters created in the style of the grotesque.
These life-changing experiences have generated a deeper intensity regarding the way Teller responds to the world around him, forming profound connections and translating them into meaningful narratives. His resulting photographic and video works explore familial and universal stories of love, trust, hope, fertility, environment, politics and religion. Consequently, Teller’s heightened emotional bond with his subject matter embodies a positivity, spiritual awareness and renewed attitude to life.
you are invited will be presented in Athens, Greece, from 19th October to 30th December 2025, inaugurating Onassis Ready—a new multidisciplinary space launched by Onassis Stegi in a restored factory in the city’s industrial district. Conceived as a platform for experimental and boundary-pushing work, Onassis Ready also houses the Athens hub of Onassis ONX, an international program (based in New York) supporting artists working with emerging technologies. With a dual focus on contemporary art and innovation, Onassis Ready opens with its first major exhibition as part of Onassis Stegi’s 2025–2026 artistic program—marking Juergen Teller’s most expansive solo presentation in Greece to date.
Afroditi Panagiotakou, Artistic Director of Onassis Foundation comments:
This is where it begins. We’re opening the doors of our new venue with an exhibition by Juergen Teller—an artist who reshapes the standards, whose work pulses with life —where the political clashes with the intimate, where raw, unfiltered emotion meets the quiet strength and vulnerability of family. Set on the edge of the city, Onassis Ready, is set to become a meeting place where stories simmer, boundaries blur and unexpected encounters emerge. Juergen Teller’s show will be more than an exhibition. It’s an invitation: to feel, to question, to belong.
Exhibition curated by Juergen Teller and Dovile Drizyte Architecture by Tom Emerson, 6a architects Exhibition manager: Josselin Merazguia (Juergen Teller Studio) Commissioned and produced by Onassis Culture.
Juergen Teller you are invited, October 19th – December 30th, 2025 Onassis Ready
Strati Tsirka 2, Agios Ioannis Rentis, Athens Opening hours: Friday-Sunday, 6pm-11pm
About
Juergen Teller (b. 1964, Erlangen, Germany) studied at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie in Munich, before moving to London in 1986. Working across different genres of photography, Teller has shot fashion campaigns for numerous luxury brands, as well as editorials for prominent art and fashion publications. In 2003, Teller was awarded the Citibank Prize for Photography by the Photographers Gallery, London, and in 2018, he received the Special Presentation Infinity award by the International Cente of Photography, New York. His work has been exhibited internationally, including solo shows at Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain, Paris (2006); Dallas Contemporary, Texas (2011); Daelim Museum, Seoul (2011); Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2013); DESTE Foundation, Athens (2014); Bundeskunstalle Bonn (2016); Martin- Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2017); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2018), T- 10/SKP-S, Beijing (2021) Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris (2023), Triennale Milano (2024) and Galleria Degli Antichi, Sabbioneta (2025). In 2007 he was asked to represent the Ukraine as one of five artists in the 52nd Venice Biennale. Teller’s photographs have been acquired by numerous international collections including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain, Paris; International Center for Photography, New York; Musée du Louvre, Paris and National Portrait Gallery, London. Teller has published over 60 books and was a Professor of Photography at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg from 2014-2019.
Opening in October 2025, in the heart of the Agios Ioannis Rentis district of Athens, an old plastics factory has been transformed into something completely new: Onassis Ready. A raw, generous space for artists to dream, rehearse, and take risks. Spread across 3,760 square meters, it’s the newest creative hub in the Onassis Foundation’s ever-growing creative ecosystem.
Onassis Ready is more than a building. It’ is a space that listens, adapts, and invites. A place where Athens meets New York and the world, where the post-digital meets the deeply human. Where tomorrow’s ideas can be tested loudly, quietly, wildly.
Access to Onassi?s Ready by public transport, By bus: Line 838, Stops: 2nd Agias Annis (300 m) | School 3rd Agias Annis (280 m)
By trolleybus: Line 21, Stop: Papadopoulou (1.3 km) By metro: Line 3, Station: Eleonas (2.4 km)
Culture is not just art; it is a way of life at Onassis Culture. With the Onassis Stegi (meaning ‘roof’) theatre and performance centre as its hub, the Onassis Foundation encourages the talent and energy of local and international artists to thrive and starts conversations that aim to shake and shape society. Onassis Stegi also oversees the arts and culture program of Onassis Culture and is a centre of global contemporary culture that, through a series of initiatives and commissions and events, promotes dialogue about democracy, social and environmental justice, racial and gender equality, and LGBTQIA+ rights.
Through Onassis AiR, a residency program built on the continuous support of artistic research and practice, aiming to foster a space where the artists set the conditions themselves for the development of their work, the Onassis Foundation supports the existing partnerships and members of its broader ecosystem with the local and international artistic community.
Stegi Radio is Onassis Stegi’s international web radio, thus a cultural platform that focuses on new music productions, speaking through sounds and ideas, tracing current political and critical thought, and crossing an imaginary archipelago for the bolstering of dialog that goes beyond borders and dates.
The Onassis YouTube Channel is constantly evolving and growing by adding new productions, digital concerts, documentaries, online discussions, and unique content, bringing our common digital future into focus.
Onassis ONX is an Onassis Culture platform dedicated to new media art and digital experiences. It empowers creators with cutting-edge technologies, artistic excellence, and financial sustainability. The program offers capacity-building, incubation, seed funding, and showcase opportunities for artists worldwide. Founded in 2020 as ONX Studio, Onassis ONX is a field-building platform with strategic partnerships in the international new media art and is based both in New York and from October 2025 in Athens at the new Onassis Ready space.
