Get ready for some of that New York City art show love we have been missing.

Fotografiska New York is currently showing the exhilarating Virgin Mary. Supermarkets. Popcorn. Photographs 1999 to 2020, a photographic exhibition by British artist and photographer Miles Aldridge. Think of it like a Pedro Almodovar love fest meets modern day politics. It just captivates you with color and inspires you with bright emotion.

The exhibition is Aldridge’s first museum retrospective in the US, comprising 64 works spanning the artist’s career. The show draws on Aldridge’s highly composed and cinematically inspired tableaus, including his 2015 project (after Cattelan) in which the artist Maurizio Cattelan invited Aldridge to respond to his sculptures over the course of one night together in a Paris museum. Aldridge’s unique style is also applied to portraiture and his subjects include Marina Abramović, Gilbert and George, Sophie Turner, Viola Davis, Michael Fassbender, Donatella Versace and David Lynch.

Virgin Mary references the religious paintings by artists such as Caravaggio, who like Aldridge represent experiences in an artificial, almost cinematic manner through their use of dramatic lighting, costuming and staging. Supermarkets are a metaphor the consumer society; the hope of self- improvement through retail therapy. Lastly, Popcorn is a nod to the influence of cinema in Aldridge’s work and the many auteur directors such as Hitchcock, Lynch and Fellini, who serve as a source of inspiration for his style and approach. With so many diverse influences coming from the history of cinema, when everything was still shot on analogue film, Aldridge likewise prefers to shoot on film rather than digital. Every print in the exhibition was captured on Kodak Colour Negative.

Virgin Mary. Supermarkets. Popcorn. Photographs 1999 to 2020 is curated by Nadine Barth, barthouse Berlin, in collaboration with Johan Vikner, Director of Global Exhibitions at Fotografiska International. This installment marks the second iteration of the show which debuted at Fotografiska Stockholm in September 2020 and ran till March 2021. The exhibition has been made in close collaboration with the artist and his galleries; Fahey Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, Lyndsey Ingram Gallery, London, Christophe Guye Gallerie, Zurich, Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam, and Casterline Goodman Gallery, Aspen.