Against the Clichés of Soviet Photography

The discovery and study of the archive of the photographer and cameraman Rezo Kezeli gives a reason to say that Georgian photography of the second half of the 20th century gained an interesting author. An author who, despite the fact lived and worked in the “golden era” of Soviet period – 1950s, 60s and 70s – refused to use existing clichés and created his own original photographic aesthetics. Rezo Kezeli creates a portrait of his time. But in reality this is not a portrait of the Soviet times or of a Soviet man. This is a world viewed by the man who has a cliché-free vision, who uses different visual “codes”, creates “unofficial” and “non-mainstream” photography and tells completely “non-Soviet” stories about himself and his contemporaries using a different visual aesthetics.