Video: Miles Aldridge re-imagines British painter Mark Gertler's 'Merry-Go-Round'

last updated 30 September 2022

Watch Miles Aldridge in action as he re-envisions British artist Mark Gertler's 1916 wartime painting, 'Merry-Go-Round', commissioned for the relaunch of London's Tate Britain

To celebrate the newly redesigned Tate Britain, fashion photographer and provocateur Miles Aldridge was among several of the country’s top creative minds invited by the Tate to re-envision an artwork from the gallery’s vast collection. Aldridge chose British artist Mark Gertler's ‘Merry-Go-Round’, painted in 1916 at the height of WWI, and the film follows his creative process as he re-imagines it through his lens.

Gertler’s seminal wartime painting depicts a group of military and civilian figures seemingly trapped on an endlessly revolving carousel. ‘I feel like I’ve always been drawn to this painting,' says the photographer. 'It’s a picture I saw very early on as a secondary school student. It’s kind of sweet, but has this amazing kind of menace.'

Taking a painting, reinterpreting it as a 3D set and photographing it - while staying true to its spirit - is no easy task. ‘The challenge will be to do anything as interesting as Mark Gertler did with his painting, because the palette of the painting is fantastic - pretty much perfect,’ explained Aldridge during the shoot. 'To me, it’s like a precursor of pop art - kind of industrial in a way, with its limited tones.’

To wit, his photographic frieze draws on the dream-like quality and colours of the original painting, while injecting the photographer’s signature gloss-licked surrealism into the scene.

The first phase of the Tate Britain revamp, conceived by London-based practice Caruso St John Architects, launches on 19 November. See our December issue - out on 14 November - to read about its transformation.

Miles Aldridge re-imagines Mark Gertler's 'Merry-Go-Round — Watch Miles Aldridge in action as he re-envisions British artist Mark Gertler's 1916 wartime painting, 'Merry-Go-Round', commissioned for the relaunch of London's Tate Britain

Miles Aldridge Merry Go Round — Gertler’s seminal piece, painted at the height of WWI, depicts a group of military and civilian figures seemingly trapped on an endlessly revolving carousel

Aldridge has re-imagined Gertler's painting as a photographic frieze comprising four hyper-saturated frames

A closer look at a still from Aldridge's frieze, which draws on the dream-like quality and colours of the original painting...

His signature gloss licked surrealism into the scene — ...while injecting his signature gloss-licked surrealism into the scene

Aldridge chose British artist Mark Gertler's ‘Merry-Go-Round’, painted in 1916 at the height of WWI — ‘I feel like I’ve always been drawn to this painting,’ said Aldridge during the shoot. 'It’s a picture I saw very early on as a secondary school student. It’s kind of sweet, but has this amazing kind of menace'

A re-envision an artwork from the gallery’s vast collection — Added the photographer: 'I intend to take the elements of the painting and create a series of photographic studies as if they were made by the artist himself'

Working sketches by Aldridge isolate individual elements from Gertler's painting. 'When I work on an idea of re-intepreting a painting, or maybe something autobiographical, I like to go into that as an art student and visually inquire as much as I can,' explains the photographer

A view of the photographer's complex lighting set-up in his studio. Says Aldridge: 'I wonder what Mark Gertler would make of all of this, nearly 100 years after his painting. The camera was just in its infancy in 1916, and the idea of photography as art was still very far away from his experience of photography'

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