David Meskhi, Our Son, My Moon

Born in 1979 in Tbilisi (Georgia), David Meskhi grew up in a sporting environment: his father was a coach for the national gymnastics team of the former Soviet Union. He studied a joint honours degree in photography and cinema at Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film University in Tbilisi. In 2015, he co-directed the film "When the Earth Seems to Be Light", a portrait of disenchanted Georgian youth. For several years, David Meskhi has been photographing young athletes apparently defying the laws of gravity during their training sessions. Their bodies, taking on a mystical dimension with their acrobatic figures, come into view as the artist plays with light and composition in gymnasiums whose high ceilings create a vertiginous sense of space. The silhouettes floating in the air, the resting faces betraying a certain melancholy, and the sporting environment with its saturated colours give the images an unreal quality, as though suspended in time. Among the sixty or so prints are images taken in 2023 in three sports clubs in Saint-Étienne. This exhibition was given the seal of approval by Paris 2024 as part of the Olympiade Culturelle. The first-ever catalogue of David Meskhi's work was published for the occasion, by Light Motiv publishers. In parallel with the David Meskhi exhibition, the MAMC+ Jean Laude library is presenting a selection of its collections of books of contemporary photographers, from 9 November 2024 to 5 January 2025.