Miles Aldridge: 15 Minutes of Fame
SMAC Venice, 2026

15 Minutes of Fame is an ongoing series of Polaroid portraits by British artist Miles Aldridge (b. 1964, London), bringing together a democratic mix of public figures and complete unknowns. Each sitter steps into Aldridge's studio and is photographed against a pleated orange backdrop, under theatrical lighting, and surrounded by a curated selection of props drawn from his distinctive visual universe — telephones, popcorn, cocktail glasses. Within the span of fifteen minutes, Aldridge works spontaneously with each sitter to construct a fictionalised version of themselves: a brief performance in which myth and reality begin to blur.

The project originated following Aldridge's portrait of Elton John for TIME's Icon of the Year cover. That shoot, conceived as a sequence of photobooth-style images, prompted a broader question: what happens when anyone — not just a celebrity — is given their moment in the spotlight? The result is a pop-inflected homage to August Sander and Andy Warhol, filtered through Aldridge's hyper-stylised, cinematic lens. Shooting on Polaroid allows for immediacy and a certain irreverence, capturing fleeting moments of humour, vanity, drama, and surprise. Each image becomes a unique, unrepeatable record of the sitter's time in front of the camera. Aldridge is widely recognised for his distinctive approach to Polaroid photography, as celebrated in his acclaimed book series Please Return Polaroid.