January 2010 • Observed
Grand Obsession
Parcours Muséologique Revisité, Robert Polidori’s new, 744-page, three-volume set from Steidl, traces the photographer’s 26-year journey capturing the Palace of Versailles. “I am dealing with a collective superego,” Polidori says in the introduction, “documenting the way a whole society decides to see itself.” Since becoming a historical museum in 1837, the former royal palace has been turned into a curated space, making its ongoing maintenance and restoration, as the neurotically detailed images reveal, a political matter. Weighing in at 16.4 pounds, this is Polidori’s second and even more obsessive offering on Versailles: his first was a measly 424 pages and 6.8 pounds!
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