Parcours Muséologique Revisité is Robert Polidori’s attempt to visually portray aspects of historical revisionism as seen through various stages of the restoration of the Palace of Versailles. With this body of work photographed over a period of 25 years, Polidori challenges the idea of restoring the palace to its original state. For Polidori, Versailles is not so much genuinely old as a constant re-fabrication of the old in order to keep the past alive.
Polidori states "With Versailles, I had the opportunity to witness museum restoration but I realized what was really going on was historical revisionism. What does it mean to restore something? It means to make something old new again… When you choose to restore a certain room as it was in a certain period, the period you chose is based on your contemporary worldview."
Robert Polidori was born in 1951 in Montreal, Quebec. He moved to the United States when he was ten and briefly lived in New Orleans in his teenage years. He now lives in New York City. He is considered one of the world's leading architectural photographers. His photographs of neglected and estranged cities including Chernobyl, Havana and New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina have received world wide acclaim. He is the author of several books, most recently Parcous Muséologique Revisté, an epic three volume collection of his Versailles published in 2009 by Steidl. He has been awarded the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography in 1999 and 2002 and the Word Press Award for his coverage of the Getty Museums construction in 1998.
- Book design by Robert Polidori and Gerhard Steidl
- 744 pages, 480 colour plates
- 29 cm x 29 cm
- Three hardcover books housed in a slipcase
- Steidl
