Fine-art photography is something more than regular photo-effort, and is a genre that is highly developed in this country. In the last 100 years Sakartvelo has given the world tens of names in the field that have gone down in the history with the mark of their genuine professionalism, and Yuri Mechitov is one of them, whose black-and-white portraits were recently on display at the exhibition hall of the Georgian Academy of Arts, a magical show of old and new works preserved in his vast portfolio. Literally each portrait of that impressive indoor vernissage is marked with the photographer’s individual aesthetic quality and imaginative faculty, each piece going beyond plain camera mastery to perpetuate the captured image in the mind of the spectator with incisive sharpness. Mechitov talks to us through those images, as if he is rewriting human history in painfully memorable facial expressions to forever leave an indelible impression in the minds of those who found time to go to the event.
Yuri will be 75 next year. Oddly enough, he was trained as a mining engineer, but photo-art is what has infatuated his inquisitive personality beyond the imagination of anybody around him, including his family members. Little Yuri started shooting when he was hardly eight. He began exhibiting his photo-material as early as 1979, and today boasts having almost 100 authorized exhibitions under his belt. Mechitov’s artistic biography accounts for several documentaries and roles in some feature films. He was lucky enough to have worked with Sergei Parajanov, an outstanding film director of soviet times. He has written books and lectured for university students, and even functioned as Deputy Minister of Culture of Georgia, but I am not surprised – after all, the great Goethe himself used to be a finance minister!
The latest exhibition we are talking about was opened in the presence of a huge crowd. The curiosity of further attendants lasted for about a fortnight, which is quite an indicator in today’s busy world. Among the photo-exhibits, there were many famous faces, thus building the amazingly vivid photo-annals of Sakartvelo. Some of the personalities reflected in Mechitov’s works are no longer among us, but the author has perpetuated their memorable images as if writing them in stone. Writes Maia Deisadze, who has specialized in interpreting, evaluating and promoting Mechitov’s prolific legacy: “Outstanding photo-artist, peerless portraitist, and not just that . . . my closest friend and guru; his art is versatile; he is our nation’s genuine chronicler; his love for fellow-humans knows no limits, and this is clearly felt in all his masterpieces.”
But nobody can be more precise than Mechitov himself in describing his creative sense: “I have tried a variety of photographic genres, and was not unsuccessful. And yet, the genre closest to me is portraiture. This is an image of a man/woman who, alone in the entire animal world, knows for sure that he/she is mortal. This knowledge is especially evident when photographing very old or terminally ill people who are already aware of their imminent end. They think, not without reason, that this may be their last photographic image.”
Yuri Mechitov is always in the public eye, and the public in his eye, never missing a chance to freeze in time and digitalize the most attractive and shocking moments of our lives, especially the faces of our compatriots, this, in most cases, happening accidentally; the creative grandmaster’s spontaneity always clear, present and poised. Incidentally, judging by his childlike nature, when I see him at work, I can’t help throwing my imagination back into his childhood, thinking that he is still there, only with a somewhat honed sense of picture and seriously matured possession of the camera’s technical eye. On top of all that, Yuri Mechitov is a well-known public figure who the people never desist to talk about because he is always deeply in the swim of the most important matters of society. Aren’t we all lucky to have around a man who can do both – comment on current events and reflect the self-same proceedings in his artistic photo escapades? What an enduring service to the country!
By Nugzar B. Ruhadze
