Following the success of the first Tbilisi Photo Festival which gathered 15,000 people in May 2010, the capital of Georgia is pleased to welcome this second edition. The festival will be held between 25 and 31 May 2011.
During the 'Night of Photography', on May 28 a Caucasian version of the Nuit de l'Année of the Arles photography festival, ten screens will once again be set up in the streets and squares of Tbilisi’s old town, showcasing the work of the greatest photographic associations, agencies, magazines and publications (Liberation, Noor, Reuters, MYOP, VII, etc.) from dusk to dawn.
But since Tbilisi is at the heart of the Caucasus, at the point where the culture ofTurkey, Iran, Russia and other European countries meet, the city aims to be a space where young photographers from this diverse yet interlinked world will converge. The Festival’s screens will therefore also present – in between the work of the great names of photography – the images of many young photographers from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Iran..
The Photo Festival, an event jointly organised by Tbilisi Photography House and by Europe House georgia, will be part of the ‘European Week’ in Tbilisi. Europe house is foundation which aims to promote European values and culture in Georgia.
Four exhibitions will also attempt to illustrate the Caucasus as a meeting-point of different worlds which became intertwined with a Europe whose modernity was revealed to it in the 'click' of a camera shutter
Georgia at the Crossroads of Modernity – The XIXth-Century’s Ermakov Collection
A selection of images from the collection of Dimitri Ermakov (1848-1916) will be shown for the first time. Having only just finished restoring them to their former glory, Tbilisi's History Museum has lent a series of images taken by this pioneer of photography in the Caucasus to the organizers of the Tbilisi Photo Festival: pictures documenting the construction of the South Caucasus railway, portraits of members of the Georgian aristocracy, images of the art of bathing in Tbilisi's sulphur baths, mountainous landscapes, pictures of Tbilisi and Batumi whose subtle charms are heightened by their mixture of the oriental and the European...
Changes
The Arab Spring of 2011, the coloured revolutions of the former Soviet Union... a world in revolt. This group exhibition, organised in partnership with the young and promising Parisian gallery La Petite Poule Noire, brings together the work of photographers who witnessed these dramatic events – from Belgrade to Bishkek, Tbilisi to Tunis, via Kiev to Cairo. Alex Majoli, Dominic Nahr, Thomas Dworzak (Magnum), Yuri Kozyrev (Noor), Lionel Charrier, Julien Daniel and Guillaume Binet (MYOP), Justyna Mielnikiewicz...
Kavkaz by Thomas Dworzak
The famous Magnum photographer will present us with the first complete exhibition of his work, taken from his book Kavkaz. 'During the spring of 1993, I decided to live in Tbilisi for a few months before returning to university. It was then that I discovered the cultures of the Caucasus. Hospitality, the beauty of languages, the unbelievable speed of change during the post-Soviet period, war and conflict, courage and cruelty'
This German photographer – known for his brave work during the brutal wars in Chechnya – will show us 80 of his black-and-white photographs of the noisy and furious Caucasus which he captured with his lens.
Georgia - New Generation
Some began to take photographs during the Soviet Union, and others began later... but from the early 1990s onwards all of them devoted themselves body and soul to their art. This exhibition will introduce us to the work of the masters of modern photography such as Yuri Mechitov – who produced a series of portraits of film director Sergei Parajanov, Guram Tsibakhashvili and his Explanations – as well as to the images of young photographers such as Beso Uznadze, David Meskhi and Marika Asatiani, whose work is beginning to charm the European photography world. The highlight of this exhibition? A wonderful series of photographs produced by a real self-taught photographer named Shalva Alkhanaidze.
Lectures and discussions will also be held during this European Week in Tbilisi. Politicians and artists alike will share their visions of Europe, of its ties with Georgia and of the dramatic events which are shaping our world in the XXIst century.
www.europeanweek.ge
