I Only Want You To Love Me

This summer, Somerset House hosts I Only Want You to Love Me – a major retrospective of photographer Miles Aldridge’s work, to coincide with the publication of the book by the same name, published by Rizzoli. This is the largest exhibition of his work to date andwill include large-scale photographic prints from throughout his career including previously unpublished material as well as hand-drawn story-boards, drawings, polaroids and magazines, offering an intimate insight into Aldridge’s point of view and process.

Running alongside the Somerset House show will be Miles Aldridge’s first exhibition at Brancolini Grimaldi featuring new work and a new limited edition portfolio which explores his deeply personal vision formulated over 15 years of working in the fashion world. Miles Aldridge’s Carousel, features 32 iconic images showcasing what art writer Glenn O’Brien has described as ‘high glamour photo fiction’.

Women and colour are Aldridge’s twin obsessions. His work is filled with glamorous, beautiful women from dazed housewives and decadent beauties to sunbathing sexpots and ecstatic Virgin Marys. Luscious colours dazzle from every image – blood red ketchup splashes against a black and white floor; a mouth drips with gold; egg yolk oozes across a plate. But the technicolour dream world of seemingly perfect women with blank expressions belies a deeper sense of disturbance and neurosis. Look more closely and there is silent screaming, a head pushed down on a bed, a face covered in polythene, a woman pushing an empty swing.

Aldridge’s work has never been constrained by the demands of the fashion world. Working like an auteur filmmaker, his view of the world is wide and deep. His many influences include film directors such as David Lynch and Federico Fellini; the styled elegance of fashion photographer Richard Avedon and the psychedelic illustrations of his father, Alan Aldridge. Each image is immaculately crafted, often starting with story-board drawings so that the final image lies somewhere between cinema and photography.

Born in London in 1964, Aldridge studied illustration at Central St Martins, and briefly directed music videos before becoming a fashion photographer in the mid-90s. He has published his work in many influential magazines including Vogue Italia, American Vogue, Numero, The New York Times and The New Yorker. His work was showcased in Weird Beauty at the International Center for Photography in New York in 2009, and he has works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.