Tbilisi Photo Festival Features Robert Capa Photography
By Mariam Chanishvili
Friday, September 22
On September 18, TBC Gallery hosted Thomas Dworzak’s photo exhibition and showcased the photographs made by Robert Capa during his visit 70 years ago. The exhibition has been arranged at TBC Bank headquarters in the frames of to Tbilisi Photo Festival week.
The Opening week of Festival took place on September 13-20 and offered various activities, including the Night of Photography, Master-classes, public lectures and live music.
70 years have passed since an acclaimed war photographer and founder of an international photographic cooperative Magnum Photos Robert Capa and the Nobel Prize winning American author, John Steinbeck visited three Soviet Republics: Russia, Ukraine and Georgia. Capa took photos in Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi, Batumi, and among the ruins of Stalingrad. “Russian Journal” (1948) was illustrated with his photos.
Thomas Dworzak and Julius Strauss have retraced the steps of Robert Capa and John Steinbeck. The project ‘A Russian Journal Revisited’ has been implemented by a German photojournalist Thomas Dworzak, who is the current president of Magnum Photos and an expert on Russia and the Post-Soviet space. Dworzak conducted his project together with a well-known British print journalist Julius Strauss, the former chief of the Moscow Bureau of The Daily Telegraph.
Robert Capa was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the second Sino-Japanese War, the Western front of WWII, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the first Indochina War.
Capa has pictured everyday life in Georgia, including churches, feasts, education, sights.
In 1947, Capa founded the cooperative venture Magnum Photos in Paris. It was a cooperative agency to manage work for and by freelance photographers, and developed a reputation for the excellence of its photo journalists. In 1952, he became the president of the organization.
Magnum Photos is the photographic co-operative of great diversity and distinction owned by its member photographers. With powerful individual vision, Magnum photographers chronicle the world and interpret its peoples, events, issues and personalities.
A lot of students and famous people attended the festival. Ani Khvedelidze, 20, Tbilisi State Academy of Arts student noted that the festival is “very interesting and appealing.”
“After seeing several photos taken by Robert Capa, I felt like I went back in time. It is an amazing experience to get to see these photos for Georgians and for foreigners as well,” said Khvedelidze.
The Festival aims to be a central meeting point for photography from different regions – Asia, Iran, Turkey, Europe, and Arab world. It showcases the best of world photography; as well as promotes emerging regional photography.
