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Robert Polidori (1951) is a Canadian-American photographer known for large-scale, color images of architecture and urban environments. Recognized for his documentation of disrupted human habitats, Polidori was awarded the 2006­ Deutscher Fotobuchpreis for his book on New Orleans After the Flood and the 2008 Liliane Bettencourt Prix de la Photographie for his book on Château de Versailles reconstruction Parcours Muséologique Revisité. He was awarded the 1998 World Press Photo Award for Art and the 1999 and 2000 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography (Architecture). His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Martin-Gropius-Bau museum (Berlin), and Instituto Moreira Salles (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). His photographs are also included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), New Orleans Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Château de Versailles, Centre Pompidou (Paris), and Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris).

Polidori is described by Stephen Wallis in The Wall Street Journal as one of "most esteemed practitioners of large-scale photography" who brings "a sharp aesthetic eye to documentary images that thoughtfully address issues of historical, socioeconomic and ecological consequence." His subjects include the architectural beauty of Château de Versailles or Havana, urban sprawl in Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, or Amman, as well as images documenting natural or man-made disasters from post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans to Chernobyl or war-torn Beirut. Often of unoccupied rooms, Jeff L. Rosenheim, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's After the Flood exhibition, wrote: "The pictures succeed because, in part, Polidori eschewed nostalgia for something far more complex — the poignancy of absence." At the time of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal retrospective exhibition in 2009, curator Paulette Gagnon described his work as a "photographic account that invites us to share the historical moments it portrays, making them part of the collective memory."

Life and career

Polidori was born in 1951 in Montreal, Canada, to a French Canadian mother and a Corsican father. He moved to the United States when he was ten and arrived in New York in 1969, where he got a job as an assistant to a filmmaker Jonas Mekas at the Anthology Film Archives, producing a number of avant-garde films in the early 1970s. In 1980 he received an M.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo and subsequently turned his attention to still photography.

Polidori has been living in Paris and New York City since 1987. He is listed as a staff photographer with The New Yorker magazine and makes frequent contributions to other magazines such as Vanity Fair. In 2009 Polidori became an American citizen.

Equipment

For aerial photographs, Polidori uses a large format custom-designed Kipp Wettstein camera to record his photographs.

Works

Polidori's works have been seen in many mediums, from the New Yorker to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The high level of detail allows the viewer to question things more and more as well as still be touched by the mood of the works. Due to the nature of the modern camera lens, the analytical sense of his images comes from the pre-Renaissance and Renaissance perspectives.

When images are soft, they just remain evocative, or in your imagination. You get a mood, and it remains on the emotional level. The viewer has to put more of him or herself into it. When there is more detail, it’s like that old expression: There’s no fiction stranger than reality. Reality will compose the most extreme paradoxes and contradictions and adjacencies, which can’t be understood.

Commissioned by Italian luxury label Bottega Veneta, Polidori undertook his first ever fashion shoot and photographed models Isabeli Fontana and Nicolas Ripoll for the brand’s fall 2011 campaign, portrayed against the background of the 16th century Palazzo Papadopoli, on Venice’s Grand Canal.

Exhibitions and Collections

His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Martin Groius Bau Museum (Berlin) and the Instituto Moreira Salles (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). His work has also been shown in private galleries around world including the Edwynn Houk Gallery (Zurich and New York), Paul Kasmin Gallery (New York), Fontana Gallery (Amsterdam), Galerie Karsten Greve (Paris), Flowers Gallery (London), Nicholas Metivier Gallery (Toronto), Galerie de Bellefeuille (Montreal) and Galleria Carla Sozzani (Milan and Seoul).)

His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art (New York), New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), The J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Musée d’art contemporain (Montreal), Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Château de Versailles, The Centre Pompidou (Paris), Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris), Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), Martin Groius Bau Museum (Berlin), and Instituto Moreira Salles (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). His photographs are also in university collections including Princeton University, Yale University (New Haven), and New York University (New York).)

Controversy

While much of Polidori's work is seen as straightforward architectural and urban photography, some of it has aroused controversy in blogs, especially his photographs taken in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A photograph of a dead victim in his own bed is strongly criticized by New Orleans photographer William Greiner. And further controversy arose in both the New Orleans press as well as a number of photo commentary blogs, when a number of his photographs of Katrina devastation were used commercially in an antismoking campaign in Brazil.

Awards

Polidori has twice been awarded the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography (1999 and 2002), and won the World Press Award for his coverage of the Getty Museum's construction in 1998.

Books

• EYE and I (2014) 160pp
• Chronophagia (2014) 228pp
• Points Between... Up Till Now (2010) 192pp
• Parcours Muséologique Revisité (2009) 744pp
• After the Flood (2006) 333pp
• Fotografie: Portfolio (2006)
• Metropolis (2005) 128pp
• Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl (2003) 112pp
• Havana (2001) 160pp
• Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Midcentury Oasis (2001)
• The Levant: History and Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean by Pierre-Louis Gatier, Robert-Louis Gatier, Eric Gubel, and Philippe Marquis (2000)
• Brasilia de 0 a 40 anos by Todd Eberle, Joaquim Paiva, and Robert Polidori (2000)
• Libya: The Lost Cities of the Roman Empire by Antonio Di Vita, Ginette Divita-Evrard, Lidiano Bacchielli, and Robert Polidori (1999)
• Chateaux of the Loire Valley by Jean-Marie Perouse De Montclos and Robert Polidori (1997)
• Sites Greco-Romaines de la Triploitane et Cyrenaique (1997)
• Versailles by Robert Polidori and Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos (1991)

Solo public exhibitions

Polidori's photographs have been shown in a number of galleries, including the Edwynn Houk, Pace/McGill and Robert Miller Galleries in New York City, Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, Flowers-East in London, several in Paris, Sundaram Tagore Gallery , Mary Boone Gallery , the Erie Art Museum and many others.

Notes

1. ^ "Gallery Artists: Robert Polidori." Edwynn Houk Gallery. Web.
2. ^ Robert Polidori CV. "RobertPolidori.com". Web. Cite error: The named reference "CV" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
3. Wallis, Stephen. "Edward Burtynsky and Robert Polidori’s Shared Visions." Wall Street Journal: WSJ. Magazine, 12 Sep. 2016. Web.
4. Zamponi, Beatrice. "Robert Polidori." Domas Italiano, 18 Nov. 2016. Web.
5. Rosenheim, Jeff L. "Essay." After the Flood, Steidl. 2006. Print.
6. Gagnon, Paulette. "Sounding Reality." Translated by Judith Terry. Robert Polidori. Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal/Steidl, 2009. pp. 1-7. Print.
7. http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/the-critics/robert-polidoris-photographs-of-the-palace-of-versailles/1947364.article
8. ^ Robert Ayers (September 23, 2006), Robert Polidori, ARTINFO, retrieved 2008-04-28
9. Luisa Zargani (June 22, 2011), Memo Pad: Bottega Veneta Taps Robert Polidori Women's Wear Daily.
10. William Greiner, "What’s Wrong With This Picture?" Greiner's blog, 22 September 2006.
11. "Outdoor Lions Winners 2007", describing the ads; "Polidori Katrina Photos Used in Anti-Smoking Campaign?" (blog entry); Amy Stein, "National disaster as visual metaphor" (blog entry); "Robert Polidori's Katrina/Stop Smoking Ads" (blog entry); "What Are You Smoking"(blog entry); "Robert Polidori defends his post-K decisions - Times-Picayune".

External links

• Interview with Polidori in BOMB Magazine
• Mary Boone Gallery
• Edwynn Houk Gallery
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Official Site

• 1951 births
• Canadian photographers
• Living people
• People from Montreal