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"in Search of Lost Time" Photographs of Robert Polidori


Marcel Proust wrote "Our memory is like a shop in the window of which is exposed now one, now another photograph of the same person. And as a rule the most recent exhibit remains for some time the only one to be seen."



Boisserie by the brothers Rosseau
Chateau de Versailles, 
Polidori, 2007


"The only paradise is paradise lost."
 Proust

Does Versailles come alive within its silent darkness? Are its corridors, petite rooms, its grande saloons haunted? One would have to think it so after leafing through the bewitching photographs of Versailles by Robert Polidori (here)

as she might appear in her cabinet at Versailles
thinking of freedom She only found at petit trianon


The images are Still.
Rich-
Besotting even.
Robert Polidori’s legendary documentation of the intricate restoration work at Versailles in the 1980s is now being completed with never before seen works on show at the Camera Work. The Berlin gallery is mounting an exhibition of the artist's twenty five years of  this photographer's own haunting of the Palace with his camera. The exhibition is a selection of Polidori's recently published work, ‘Parcours Muséologique Revisité’, which has been awarded the Liliane Bettencourt Prix de la Photographie.


Chambre du capitaine des gardes
Chateau de Versailles
Polidori, 2007



"Only through Art can we get outside of ourselves 
and know another's view of the universe." 
Proust


Salles du XIX, Attique du Nord, Aile du Nord - Attique, 
Chateau de Versailles
Polidori,2006




"All our final decisions are made in a state of mind
that is not going to last."
Proust




Entrée de Napoléon à Berlin 
by Charles Meynier, 
1810 Attique du Midi, Aile du Midi Attique
hateau de Versailles
 Polidori, 2009




"We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance." Proust



Robert Polidori  is an international photographer whose work has been published in "The New Yorker" – of which he is the main photographer,“Geo,” “Vanity Fair,” & ”Architectural Digest. Camera Work has exhibited Polidori's work of Havana, New York and the Russian Kremlin.
Camera Work here
ROBERT POLIDORI
8 May - 26 June 2010
Galerie CAMERA WORK
Contemporary Photography and Vintage Masterworks
Kantstraße 149 . 10623 Berlin

little links for reading,
VERSAILLES here 
see beautiful photographs of Versailles from Stefan here and his posts about Petit Trianon here, here, 
here  here  The photographs and details are so beautifully done by Stefan of Architect Design.
read a Strange Encounter at Versailles here
about Marie Antoinette on pbs here
Paintings in Proust, a must have books for little augury readers here
.