For his fifth exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Juergen Teller will present an exhibition entitled Paradis, on view at the 540 West 26th Street location. The photographs were originally commissioned for the French magazine, Paradis, and will appear in a leather bound limited edition book available at the end of September 2009.

Blurring the distinction between his commercial and non-commercial work, Teller takes a story-telling approach to this series, in which he revisits two of his previous subjects – Charlotte Rampling and Raquel Zimmermann. Shot alone one evening at the Musee du Louvre in Paris, this nude study features large-scale photographs of the two women as they move amongst the masterpieces housed in the museum and captures the intimacy between photographer and subject. The women's lack of vanity is revealed as they are shot at an uncomfortable proximity, blending their bodies with Classical statues and standing before Leonardo's Mona Lisa. Teller removes the artifice between photographer and subject, leaving only the purity of each image, and unlike the sculptures in the museum's collection, his photographs do not present a standard of beauty but are more akin to a tribute to women and the human form.