Our Son, My Moon

David Meskhi's images follow one another like fragments extracted from a leap, of an effort, of an impulse. Between chance and intuition, the photographer captures an extraordinary variation of bodies sculpted by light and weightlessness. The athletes, immobilized in their flights, are captured in an infinite time of pause. The jumps become astronaut pauses, the ascents of gravity-defying dives. Sometimes a waltz of hair, a triangular hand and foot falling into the blue water, a pair of legs outstretched; all seem to be part of the same cosmos. The one who reflected in the stars scattered over a few pages, the silhouette of the moon as an absolute choreographer, thinning out the rhythms. Exhibited from November 7, 2024 to March 16, 2025 by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Saint Etienne, the Sports photographs by David Meskhi, son of a former Soviet coach gymnastics, are putting the spotlight on the refined athletic gesture this year Olympic. Editions Light Motiv, alongside the artistic director Nolwen Lauzanne, places them in an elegant model, opening flat and leaving room for movement. They are inspired by the dynamics of leaps which, page after page, we question what we see, a piece of body under a light beam, the gymnasts in suspension. The interview between David Meskhi and the director of the Museum Aurélie Voltz, translated into English and French, puts inspirations into perspective with geometric angles and movement which he draws from the constructivist work of the Russian Alexander Rodchenko. This interview reveals the keys to Meskhi's pictorial vault where gestures are not no longer end up being accomplished.