15 Minutes of Fame

Widely recognised for his distinctive approach to Polaroid photography, as celebrated in his acclaimed series of books Please return Polaroid, British artist Miles Aldridge is offering a limited number of portrait sessions at SMAC Venice (San Marco Art Centre), to coincide with the Venice Biennale.
15 Minutes of Fame is an ongoing series of Polaroid portraits by Miles Aldridge, bringing together a democratic mix of public figures and “complete unknowns.” Each sitter steps into his studio, where they are photographed against a pleated orange backdrop, under theatrical lighting, and surrounded by a curated selection of props from his distinctive visual universe—telephones, popcorn, cocktail glasses.
The project originated following his 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. Within the span of fifteen minutes, Aldridge works spontaneously with each sitter to construct a fictionalised version of themselves. In this brief performance, a subtle alchemy takes place, where myth and reality begin to blur. 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.
At its core, 15 Minutes of Fame explores how individuals wish to be seen—and who they become when given permission to perform that vision. More often than not, the version they leave with reveals something closer to the truth than the one they brought with them.