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Review Nov 19 2008 « | »
Robert Polidori at Flowers Central I know Versailles. School textbooks, art galleries and movies have puffed out an image of gilt hallways, walls of......

Jon Openshaw

I know Versailles. School textbooks, art galleries and movies have puffed out an image of gilt hallways, walls of mirrors and many, many miles of silk curtains. I nurture equally vivid stereotypes of the wigged prigs that once walked these hallways, carrying solid silver Armadas in their powdered curls - gambling and eating cake whilst the rest of France was, generally speaking, not. It is the epitome of the elaborate stage-set that was the Ancien Regime.

Polidori plays with this prominent symbol in Versailles, scratching the surface of the stage-set. At first glance, the rich colours, elaborate patterns and solid proportions of the prints make you feel like you are looking at one of the glossy oils that line the walls of the palace. Polidori allows his lens to be distracted however, and rather than looking straight into the sun (a painting of Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette's mirror) he looks at the things going on around it. The photographs therefore juxtapose gilt frame with fire alarm, carved doorway with CCTV camera, silk-clad regal calf with smudgy fingerprinted wall.

This is the same treatment that he has given to other prominent symbolic spaces such as Chernobyl or New Orleans, places that have been looked at so hard and so directly that they have almost disappeared. Polidori's more offbeat work can succeed in breathing fresh life in to staid landscapes.

His photography is at its most successful when most simplistic, and the standout pieces for me focused on the negative spaces between details (empty wall hangings, a Perspex curtain guard). Some of the photographs do feel over-thought however, and they lose something in their complexity. Mirrors reflecting mirrors or storage rooms of jumbled painted monarchs lying on their side become shots of ornate interiors rather than discoveries of surprising details.

Flowers Central is the perfect setting for this contemporary twist on old decadence. As I was leaving I passed an immaculately dressed lady in a vivid crimson-feathered hat posing in front of a perfectly matched crimson photograph whilst a man in NHS specs took pictures. I thought of powdered wigs. Plus ca change.

Robert Polidori Versailles - Transitional states shows from 19 November to 3 January at Flowers Central, 21 Cork Street. More information here.

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