Robert Polidori is one of the world’s most acclaimed photographers of human habitats and environments. 

Born in Montreal, Polidori moved to the United States as a child and began his career in avant-garde film, assisting Jonas Mekas at the Anthology Film Archives in New York, an experience that critically shaped his approach to photography.

While living in Paris in the early 1980s, he began documenting the restoration of Versailles, and has continued over a 30 year period to photograph the ongoing changes.

Polidori’s additional projects include Havana, Chernobyl, and the aftermath of the flooding post Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. His current work deals with population and urban growth through photographing “dendritic” cities around the world, including Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Amman.

Since 2015, Robert Polidori and his family live and work in Ojai, California.

 

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