An exhibition of photographs by Georgian contemporary artist David Meskhi that explores the dynamics of the human body in motion is being presented at an iconic gallery in Germany's capital from tomorrow.
Later today Berlin's Gallery for Modern Photography will host an opening reception celebrating Meskhi's exhibition before his works go on public display from November 9 to January 28.
In the photographs, which have a creative technical and artistic approach, Meskhi explores the experiences of professional athletes and urban skaters as they put their bodies through leaps and falls.
Meskhi's exhibition shows the human body in the middle of a leap or a fall. Photo from David Meskhi.
The energy needed to achieve a goal, the daring, liberating moment of a leap which brings you invariably further but which is also tied to the counter-movement of the fall, is for me a powerful metaphor for a dynamic that we are repeatedly confronted with in life,” said Meskhi while explaining his exhibition pieces.
Organisers of the display also noted the relation of the visual impression from the pieces to real life experiences.
[On] one hand, [there is] a sense of achievement that arises when we overcome the fear of taking the first step and achieve a set goal, and on the other, the realisation that this moment is fleeting and that you are compelled over and over to wager the next leap, the next start," said the Berlin gallery.
David Meskhi's 2013 photograph of a young gymnast in Georgia's seaside city Batumi. Photo by David Meskhi.
The subjects of Meskhi's photographs are professional gymnasts as well as young skateboarders and were shot in Georgia and Russia.
They document Meskhi's connection with the skateboarding scene in his country, a topic he explored with fellow film directors Tamuna Karumidze and Salome Machaidze in the award-winning 2015 documentary When the Earth Seems to Be Light.
Ahead of the exhibition, the Berlin venue curators cited Meskhi's usage of technical skill to achieve certain visual effects in his photographs.
The increasing degree of abstraction observed in Meskhi’s work makes it difficult for the viewer to locate the photographic motifs spatially, depriving the photographs of any documentary character. The use of this artifice lends Meskhi’s images a mystical, intangible quality," the curators said.
Berlin's Gallery of Modern Photography was founded in 2008 by Kirsten Hermann. The venue focused specifically on the medium of photography and concentrated on presenting internationally established artists as well as discovering young photographic talents.
Previous exhibitions at the gallery included displays from fashion photographs of the Soviet East Germany from the 1960s and 1970s to works by contemporary artists such as Camille Vivier, Ingar Krauss and Albrecht Fuchs.