`MONOLOGUE´ of Vakho Khetaguri

Review

Georgian photographer Vakho Khetaguri is currently presenting a retrospective solo exhibition at the Tbilisi History Museum.

Vakho Khetaguri is a representative of the new generation of Georgian photographers. He is a freelancer and mainly focuses on social-political issues of the Post-Soviet legacy in Georgia. His works are highly introspective, giving the observer a very personal sometimes even intimate view on the artists world and his perspective.

The exhibition is hosted in a one-room space in the Tbilisi History Museum, it shows printed works as well as video-projected ones. A variety of samples of his multifaceted series is on exhibition; his long-term project 'Life on the Rails' and his other series 'Dreams', 'The Fall' or 'Once upon a time' are presented, next to a collection of his photographs from his latest travel in South East Asia.

In his series 'Life on the Rails' he kept lived realities through train windows, emphasizing the momentary nature a train ride puts us in. Passing houses, landscapes, living and working people as well as other train passengers being fragmentary parts of the photographers life.

In the work 'The Fall' the Station Square of Tbilisi is shown as a lived space compound of a variety of actors and objects characterized through an aura of natural being.
In the interplay of all the photographed items and people a certain atmosphere gets captured through the lens of the photographer.

Khetaguri gives a very personal insight through his artworks on how he sees his surrounding world, its interaction of randomness and the ephemeral nature of the daily life.

Beside its experiements in motives his range in concept and form is also featured through his versatility; conceptual and documentary photography as well as photojournalism are included in his artistic portfolio. "He is not framing himself. He is not putting himself in certain genres or styles; he is just doing what he is feeling at the moment" the curator Myriam Grigalashvili told GEORGIA TODAY.

The exhibition is on until 15th of February.

By Lisa Maier

Photo source: Vakho Khetaguri