Allow. Galerie Kornfeld.

Within the 21 photographs displayed at the gallery young, mostly male people can be seen trampolining, skateboarding, bouldering, stretching and expanding. Photographed in close-up and with backgrounds that are difficult to define, it is often impossible to determine whether the sitters are lying, standing, or falling. However, a tension can be discerned in their bodies. Aesthetic references to the world of glossy, queer fashion photography and Technicolor-era color in film date back to his early childhood. Growing up in the 1980s in Georgia, which had still been part of the Soviet Union, his access to these aesthetics was very limited. His father, however, was the coach of the national gymnastics team and therefore traveled to many countries. Traveling was a great privilege in those days. From global tournaments, the father brought back brochures, magazines and sometimes films that would open the world of Meshki. In this way, as a boy he gained insight into other points of view.
In one photograph, one sees a reddish moon surrounded by a lapis lazuli blue firmament. It’s like a spontaneous glance, where you happen to notice the moon briefly while looking at the sky. Some motifs are mystically charged for artists, like a connection between the now and the past. In the case of the artist, it is a memory of his father. As a child, he encouraged him to jump on the trampoline, telling him that if he jumped high enough, he could touch the moon up in the sky and feel freedom.
The West became a place of longing. And the athletic bodies of the “flying” became the projection surface of an ideal. Since the beginning of his artistic activity, these elements have been recognizable. The artist takes freedom and youthful lightheartedness literally; he lets his protagonists float. As if in a dream, they seem to fly above the gymnasiums, at peace with themselves. In the documentary When the Earth Seems to Be Light (2015), which Meshki shot together with Salome Machaidze and Tamuna Karumidze, this seemingly endless world full of possibilities and simultaneous hopelessness is captured.
Meshki exchanged the documentary view for the free, open perspective of the artist. It is no longer accuracy that represents a reality, but an inner state that he comes much closer to through his photography than documentation can. As if exploring his own fragility and identity. The desire to return to early lightheartedness, which have been so felt especially in youth and adolescence. The question of masculinity and different ways of life, escapism and idealism. Questions of masculinity and femininity emerge in his observations. What is natural and mystical? What is earthly and what is possibly divine.
The works of David Meshki leave a melancholic and beautiful feeling of longing. Like some nights when looking at the moon.
This exhibition is part of EMOP Berlin – European Month of Photography in Berlin.