Miles Aldridge's Carousel: Lithograph and Screenprints, Drawings and Photographs 2014

Miles Aldridge’s

CAROUSEL Lithograph and Screenprints, Drawings and Photographs

Exhibition: 17th September - 3rd October 2014 Sims Reed Gallery The Economist Building 30 Bury Street London SW1Y 6AU T +44 (0)20 7930 5111 F +44 (0)20 7930 1555 E gallery@simsreed.com www.gallery.simsreed.com

In co-operation with Camilla Grimaldi Gallery, London.

Miles Aldridge’s

CAROUSEL Lithograph and Screenprints, Drawings and Photographs

FOREWORD At the heart of this exhibition is Miles Aldridge’s Carousel – a stunning and meticulously conceived portfolio of 32 images. The individual sheets are a combination of pigment rich screenprinting and vivid colour photographs, printed here as offset lithographs. As you move through the portfolio, the rhythm of colour and form is carefully orchestrated and each plate is as intriguing and beautiful as the next.

The images included in Carousel span over ten years of his career and the portfolio is full of the high glamour and vibrant colour that Aldridge is best known for. At first glance, these pictures are arresting, beautiful, and compelling; but behind this façade of visual delight is a sense of lurking discord, also typical of his work.

Alongside Carousel, we are showing a significant group of drawings, most of which relate to images from the portfolio. Perhaps more like a painter then a photographer, his initial ideas for a photograph are laid out in sketches and storyboards. These are bursting with spontaneous thought and fluid line, offering a revealing insight into his working practice.

We have also included three large chromogenic prints. This is how Aldridge’s work is most often seen and including them here provides a wider context for our show. They are the culmination of his artistic process from original, small sketch to final, monumental photograph.

It is rare to have a show that is at the same time so disparate and yet so coherent – three very different mediums together telling one story of genuine artistry and unique vision.

– Lyndsey Ingram, Sims Reed Gallery

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INTRODUCTION I love photography. Still today, after so many years at Vogue Italia, when I receive a photo that I like, I get an emotion; it makes me dream, or sometimes just think. I imagine the world behind it and try to understand what brings the photographer to make a certain choice instead of another. I would love to know what inspires him, what is his vision, his fantasy.

Photographers usually send me ideas for a new shoot as a collage of reference photos. Miles is one of the very few who sends me drawings. He just sketches his idea before making it real. You can see the photo is almost there in his drawings, but still not defined. You can already see what will happen, but there is a lot of space for your imagination.

I love paintings, but I think that sometimes in sketches, an artist is more spontaneous, instinctive and original. That is why I love Miles’ drawings; they make me imagine what will happen during the shoot. These sketches are an assemblage of creativity and fantasy. It’s an artistic approach that leads to another artistic moment. A few lines, a touch of colour, and the photo is there already - in your imagination. – Franca Sozzani. Editor-in-chief, Vogue Italia

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32 QUESTIONS MILES ALDRIDGE IN CONVERSATION WITH MAURIZIO CATTELAN MC Why photography?

MA I always thought I wanted to be a film-maker because whenever I watched a movie by Hitchcock or Lynch, there would be this one image that I could not get out of my head, but actually leading up to that image and after that image there were a whole series of very banal images, that only served the purpose of setting up that one amazing image. As a photographer, I am liberated from this constant need to explain the images I make. For me, a picture works best when there is a mysterious, inexplicable quality to the narrative suggested in it.

MC Why colour?

MA When I started my career, for a photograph to be considered serious art it had to be black and white, so I thought the challenge was to make colour work and to make it my own. The equation was something like – the world is in colour, therefore any idiot can take a picture in colour whereas it would take a genius to take a picture in black and white because there was some sort of transformation of the world going on and therefore, they were an artist. But coming from my background, and seeing colour used with great effect and abandon in my father’s work, I felt that there was something I could really do. So I just started experimenting with colour and each time the work seemed to take another step forward to the point where I am now, where colour is the great emotional starting point of any picture.

MC Why supermarkets?

MA I find all that consumerist stuff really interesting because it relates to my own experiences – these are the products and settings through which I experience life. It also visually relates to one of the things that has always resonated with me, which is Pop Art. It is funny to think how in the 60’s they thought they were in a maelstrom of consumerism and now it is just a joke, where everything is for sale, where everything has an advertiser or a sponsor.

It almost makes Warhol’s comment on contemporary culture look quaint.

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MC Why sex?

MA Sex, well? A lot of the work is driven by curiosity about sex, rather than sex per se. Fellini is one of my great heroes and he was endlessly riffing on erotic possibilities. Many of his films have a central character that is constantly distracted by sex or the possibility of sex.

MC Why beauty?

MA I have observed women alone on buses, in airport lounges, on park benches waiting and there is a kind of daydreaming blankness that goes across their faces when they disengage momentarily from their lives. Typically buses are great for this. Hypnotised by the slowness of the journey with the endless traffic and the view out of the window being so unexciting, suddenly upon their faces falls this incredible peace. At that moment, these women look incredibly beautiful, trapped in stillness like the women painted by Piero della Francesca or Vermeer. And then, if they were to awake from this dream, they would become quite ordinary again, but for that moment, they are transcendentally beautiful.

MC Why desire?

MA All of my pictures have one recurrent idea – a kind of simultaneous attraction and repulsion, a kind of a push and a pull within them. You are drawn to the image but at the same time disturbed by it. If I had to summarise my work, to give it a motto that could be emblazoned in Latin above the door of my studio it would be – An ugly thing photographed beautifully. Meaning that it is something troubling, that is not pleasant, but by the trick of beauty you are drawn into it and feel slightly uneasy having witnessed it. It has now entered your blood stream. It sears into your consciousness. It has ambushed you.

MC Why fear?

MA I don’t know. Fear and paranoia are modern battles often dealt with unsuccessfully by addictions to alcohol, sex, gambling, etc. Fear and addictions are great instigators of character. They give depth. Think of Blanche DuBois in A Street Car Named Desire, she is fascinating.

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MC Why happiness?

MA Are the people in my pictures happy? I think probably not.

MC Why pain?

MA Well a lot of my work is about the mask that is worn to hide the pain. I feel that the characters I portray, the women I make, are in some way broken. They wear a mask of beauty, which attempts to conceal the cracks, but the damage is the driving force of their character. There is a sense that their internal world is so demanding that they are not there right now, they sort of drift into a kind of dark reverie.

MC Why now?

MA Although my work does have some sort of nostalgic reference, I feel fond of a certain colour because I grew up with it – it might be the shade of the lipstick my mother used to wear, I never want the pictures to feel retro. I want them to feel like they are happening in the present, right now and forever.

MC Why anxiety?

MA I read the newspaper every day and the world is driven by anxiety, whether it is war, murder, the end of Christianity, financial fraud – the news is rarely good. My work, as an artist, is to be aware of the world that is revealed to me every day in the Herald Tribune and reflect that anxiety in my pictures.

MC Why be an artist?

MA It is my way of reorganising the experiences of my life, into pictures.

Rather like the women on the bus, drifting through the city looking very beautiful. As an artist, I’m drifting through the same city and picking up images that resonate, and reflecting them back to society.

MC Why popcorn?

MA It is a great Pop Art food.

MC Why an open mouth?

MA An open mouth has been an obsession in my work for quite a while. I can

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only suggest that as a photographer, observing a female subject opening her mouth, it is rather like a scientist looking inside the woman through an orifice that is often closed in politeness. And by requesting that it be open, one is given a sort of entrance into a secret, interior world.

MC Why boredom?

MA A sense of boredom and disappointment does seem to pervade my work on first glance. However the women in my pictures are not simply bored but rather so desensitized to the world that they have retreated inwards into their imaginations. They are reacting to their world, which is ultimately unfulfilling; the children they have made, the homes they have made, the choices they have made. To say you are content with your world is very rare. A lot of people wish something else had happened.

MC Why a bed?

MA It is the arena for sex and dreams. It is a great place for those two fascinating mysteries of life to occur. The well of dreams is unbelievably deep and the strangeness of sex is, gratefully, an unending mystery too.

MC Why smiling?

MA I used to get this a lot as a fashion photographer – ‘Can’t you just make the girl smile?’. And I would reply – ‘but why?’ For me, smiling is very transient, it is a moment. A human face photographed smiling, caught in mid-emotion, mostly looks awful. Smiling is an action, it rises and subsides.

The kind of photograph I am trying to create does not work with a fraction of a second of a smile. When you are smiling, you are not thinking, you are just reacting.

MC Why cigarettes?

MA Visually, cigarette smoke enveloping a woman’s face is really incredible.

And again, it is like, you can be in any city in a very normal, everyday space and suddenly you see a woman, smoking in the sunlight, and it all comes together to create something – it is like an image from ancient Greece. It’s like the Oracle. In reality, it is a woman with bad breath and smelly hair. But visually, it is like ‘Wow!’

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MC Why ketchup?

MA The ketchup smashed on the floor is something that happened in my kitchen. And seeing that made me think – that is an interesting image and I want to re-do it in the studio but with the most brightly coloured ketchup and the most broken glass, on a checkerboard floor. Captured in that ketchup are many thoughts, hopefully full of interpretations.

MC Why caviar?

MA That caviar picture is quite funny – the model was allergic to seafood and couldn’t even look at the caviar. When she told me, I said ‘Well, let’s try anyway’. As an artist, you are not going to give up and say – ‘oh well, let’s just try something else.’ That was the idea and it needed to be shot. The fact that she was allergic to seafood was not enough to stop the image being made, hence she took a deep breath, opened her mouth and inserted her caviarladen finger.

MC Why screaming?

MA Screaming has been quite a large part of my life, women screaming around me, it is an image I am very well acquainted with – madness.

Temporary maybe. A momentary crack.

MC Why an egg?

MA It’s the beginning of everything. It’s a very feminine symbol. I am interested in creating images that lay in ambush in magazines. So in the middle of Vogue Italia, for example, there would be this picture of the egg, with the cigarette snuffed out in it, because for me, that is a rather ugly unpleasant thing to do to an egg, and to a cigarette. Yet, photographed in the way I did, it is very beautiful.

MC Why a secretary?

MA That secretary was a fantasy secretary who had incredible hairdos. It was my Beige Period, I wanted to do a study in beige.

MC Why Hitchcock?

MA Hitchcock is one of the greatest artists ever.

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MC Why breakfast in bed?

MA In that image there is this incredible scream, it expresses not being able to handle this world. Whether it is consumerism, the failed marriage, the children, or the disappointment of ‘okay so you didn’t make it’. But, you are dealing with a woman’s face screaming and you want it to be beautiful, even though it is in anguish. It has to be beautiful and eternal. And the image is so strong, what else would she be doing, what else would she ever be doing?

It’s like, there is no other scenario to that picture – she is endlessly screaming.

MC Why love?

MA It is the thing we are all looking for. No matter how self-sufficient or guarded we pretend we are. Rich, poor, famous, useless, nobodies, somebodies, the desire for love is older than Shakespeare, it is something that drives human actions. Sex will drive a man to do something, but I think love will drive him to do something else.

MC Why ‘The Ritz’?

MA That’s the setting for the girl on the red sofa with the petit fours – one of the great joys of my career has been to photograph the couture collections in Paris for Vogue Italia. You have this incredible historic continuity – the dress arrives, it’s unpacked, it goes on the model, you shoot it and then it goes on to the next magazine and so on – this system is unchanged since the days of Avedon and Penn. In this case, the woman is naked but the people around her are wearing haute couture.

MC Why a plastic dry-cleaning bag?

MA That picture is about the suburbs – which means net curtains and secrets. I set up this picture of the model lying on the carpet with the sun streaming in and the blocking of colours was very interesting, but it was lacking some sort of drama. I remembered that my dry-cleaning had arrived that morning and somehow, this vision of my dry-cleaning lying on my bed entered my head. I thought the element of that, considering the suburban middleclass setting could be really great. So I sent my assistant back to collect all the dry-cleaning, I chose a bag with an ‘express’ label pinned to it, and laid it across the girl’s face. The image seemed to suddenly come together. That was the missing element.

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MC Why a carousel?

MA It’s about colour and the euphoria of speed – being carried away by the experience like a child on a carousel. Happy, but with that melancholic organ music in the background there is always a bittersweet quality to the joyfulness.

MC Why steak tartare?

MA It is a wonderful bloody mess on a bourgeois plate, I thought this really summarised the work – the polite society around the mess of life.

MC Why beautiful lighting?

MA It goes back again to this idea of rather disturbing things, being photographed beautifully. By bringing in beautiful lighting the viewer is drawn in, they swallow the picture but afterwards have a quasi regret that they viewed it at all. And it’s this ambivalence that I am after. It is the mystery of beauty, rather than just a beautiful girl, because who cares about beauty on its own, it’s just not that interesting. What’s more interesting are beautiful images of ugly things. Michelangelo’s Dying Slave, for example, what a thing!

MC Why you?

MA Well, I think only I could have made these pictures, given that I had this psychedelic father, this rather broken mother, three sisters who are all models, another model for a wife (now ex) – I guess I have really lived that life of being in the fulcrum of beauty. A superficial beauty, and I have witnessed a lot of the pain behind that, which many might find surprising given that our culture often equates beauty with happiness. I see imitations of my work quite a lot now. I get it, it has entered the public consciousness, this idea of the bored housewife, but really it is not just as simple as that – I did not go through all this shit for it to be summarised as that. This is my St. Matthew Passion, these are deeply personal pictures of my life expressed through the medium of women.

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Lithograph and Screenprints

Image right: Carousel. As issued in the portfolio box.

Image overleaf: Carousel The complete portfolio of 32 lithograph and screenprints in colour, 2013.

Each portfolio signed in ink on the title page.

Numbered from the edition of 180 on the title page.

Printed on 400gsm Hello Gloss Paper.

Designed by Graphic Thought Facility, London.

Published by Brancolini Grimaldi, London.

Each Sheet: 46.7 x 67.7 cm

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Carousel. As issued in the portfolio box.

Plate 1 Tan Lines #5

Plate 2 The Pure Wonder #1

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Plate 3 The Pure Wonder #2

Plate 4 Venus Smiles #2 Diptych

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Plate 5 Red Marks #1

Plate 6 Venus Smiles #5

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Plate 7 Beige #9

Plate 8 Semi–Detached #2

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Plate 9 Chromo Thriller #1

Plate 10 Chromo Thriller #3

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Plate 11 The Rooms #2

Plate 12 The Rooms #8

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Plate 13 A Dazzling Beauty #4

Plate 14 ImmaculĂŠe #3

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Plate 15 Like A Painting #1

Plate 16 First Impression, #1, 2, 3 Triptych

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Plate 17 Bold Gold #2

Plate 18 Short Breaths #1

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Plate 19 Cabaret #3, 7 Diptych

Plate 20 Cabaret #4

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Plate 21 Kiss of Death #1

Plate 22 Tan Lines #4

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Plate 23 A Drop of Red #2

Plate 24 Actress #6

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Plate 25 The Ecstasy #2

Plate 26 Home Works #3

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Plate 27 Fast Cars, Fast Food #4, 7 Diptych

Plate 28 A Precious Glam #2

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Plate 29 Chromo Thriller #2

Plate 30 Extravagant, Sophisticated Lady #12

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Plate 31 3-D

Plate 32 Le Manège EnchantÊ #1

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Drawings

Study for 3-D Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2010. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Study for 3-D Indian ink and coloured marker on paper, 2010. Signed verso. 31 x 22.3 cm

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Study for 3-D Indian ink on paper, 2010. Signed verso. 31.1 x 22.2 cm

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Study for Cat Story Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 22 x 30.7 cm

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Study for Cat Story Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 21 x 29.7 cm

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Study for Home Works Indian ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 30.9 x 22.4 cm

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Study for Home Works Indian ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 29.6 x 21 cm

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Study for Home Works Indian ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 30.9 x 22.2 cm

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Study for Home Works Indian ink, pencil and acrylic ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Study for Home Works Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Study for Home Works Indian ink, pencil and acrylic ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 30.9 x 22.3 cm

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Study for Labyrinths Indian ink on paper, 2013. Signed verso. 29.5 x 20.6 cm

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Drawing of a Woman on a Chair Indian ink on paper, 2009. Signed verso. 22.3 x 31 cm

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Study for Home Works Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2008. Signed verso. 30.7 x 22 cm

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Study for Red Marks Indian ink and coloured pencil on paper, 2003. Signed verso. 28.2 x 22.3 cm

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Study for Red Marks Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2003. Signed verso. 7.2 x 10.5 cm

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Study for The Oracle Indian ink and arcylic ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 24.9 x 24.7 cm

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Study for The Oracle Indian ink and arcylic ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 24.9 x 24.7 cm

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Study for A Drop of Red Indian ink and coloured pencil on paper, 2001. Signed verso. 15 x 15 cm

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Study for A Drop of Red Indian ink and coloured pencil on paper, 2001. Signed verso. 12.8 x 14.9 cm

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Study for The Rooms Indian ink on paper, 2011. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Drawing of a Woman at a Window Indian ink on paper, 2006. Signed verso. 14.4 x 17 cm T

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Drawing of a Woman Breaking a Window Indian ink on paper, 2013. Signed verso. 21.9 x 30.6 cm

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Drawing of a Woman at an Open Window Indian ink on paper, 2013. Signed verso. 31 x 22.2 cm

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Study for Pop Wife Indian ink on paper, 2007. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Study for Semi-Detached Indian ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 30.7 x 22 cm

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Study for Semi-Detached Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Study for The Rooms Indian ink on paper, 2011. Signed verso. 20.4 x 29.5 cm

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Study for Tan Lines Indian ink on hotel stationery, 2012. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Study for A Family Portrait Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2011. Signed verso. 30.6 x 21.9 cm

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Drawing of Four Women In a Car Indian ink on paper, 2014. Signed verso. 20.4 x 29.6 cm

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Drawing of a Woman in a Car Indian ink on paper, 2006. Signed verso. 7.7 x 10.3 cm

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Study for Semi–Detached Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 30.6 x 21.9 cm

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Study for Semi–Detached Indian ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 31 x 22.2 cm

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Study for Semi–Detached Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 29.7 x 21 cm

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Study for Semi–Detached Indian ink and acrylic ink on paper, 2012. Signed verso. 30.6 x 21.9 cm

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Study for Lookable Legs Indian ink on paper, 2002. Signed verso. 24.9 x 24.7 cm

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Study for The Ectasy Indian ink on paper, 2002. Signed verso. 30.9 x 21.8 cm

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Photographs

Red Marks #1 Chromogenic print, 2003. Signed verso. Edition of 3. 40 x 60 inches (Courtesy Camilla Grimaldi Gallery, London).

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Tan Lines #4 Chromogenic print, 2012. Signed verso. Edition of 6. 40 x 60 inches (Courtesy Camilla Grimaldi Gallery, London).

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Home Works #3 Chromogenic print, 2008. Signed verso. Edition of 3. 40 x 60 inches (Courtesy Camilla Grimaldi Gallery, London).

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 Beauty of Darkness II – The Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam 2010 Kristen: As seen by Miles Aldridge and Chantal Joffe – The Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam 2009 Weird Beauty – International Center of Photography, New York City 2008 Traumfrauen, Beauty in the 21st Century – Deichtorhallen, Hamburg Something for Everyone – Hamiltons Gallery, London 2004 The Beauty of Darkness – The Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam 2002 The Archeology of Elegance – Deichtorhallen, Hamburg

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 The Age of Pleasure – Christophe Guye, Zurich Vanitas – One black & white and nineteen colour photographs – The Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam 2013 I Only Want You to Love Me – Somerset House, London I Only Want You to Love Me – Steven Kasher Galley, New York Short Breaths – Brancolini Grimaldi, London 2010 13 Women – Contributed Studio for the Arts, Berlin New Work – Brancolini Grimaldi, Florence 2009 Pictures for Photographs – Collette, Paris Pictures for Photographs – Steven Kasher Galley, New York Doll Face – Hamiltons Gallery, London 2008 Acid Candy – The Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam 2007 The Cabinet – The Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam

COLLECTIONS The National Portrait Gallery, London The Victoria & Albert Museum, London The International Center for Photography, New York City

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BIOGRAPHY Miles Aldridge was born in London in 1964, where he continues to live and work today. He studied at Central St. Martin’s and after graduating worked briefly as an illustrator before finding his way to photography in 1993. He is best known for his unsettling images of glamorous but disconcerted women that combine vibrant colour, cinematic narrative, and meticulous attention to detail.

His photographs have appeared regularly in international publications such as American Vogue, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and most notably Vogue Italia, who he has worked closely with throughout his career. There are several books devoted to his work, including Pictures for Photographs (2009); Other Pictures (2012); and I Only Want You to Love Me (2013) – an extensive monograph of his photographs and drawings that accompanied a major retrospective of his work at Somerset House by the same title. In April 2014, he was invited by Tate Britain to create a temporary installation entitled Carousel II, as a response to Mark Gertler’s 1916 painting, Merry-goRound.

Image detail right: Miles Aldridge Self Portrait, 2011.

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Published by Sims Reed Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition Miles Aldridge’s Carousel: Lithograph and Screenprints, Drawings and Photographs. 17th September – 3rd October 2014. © All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this catalogue may be reproduced in whole or in part, without the permission from the publisher Sims Reed Gallery.

Designed by Lucy Harbut.

Printed by Dayfold.

Sims Reed Gallery The Economist Building 30 Bury Street London SW1Y 6AU T +44 (0)20 7930 5111 F +44 (0)20 7930 1555 E gallery@simsreed.com www.gallery.simsreed.com