Exhibition (Sulejman Gunduz)

DIVINE CITY - JERUSALEM

It is rarely that a city can call out for that many emotions but also the controversies, such as Jerusalem, ie. Quds.

The Christians and the Jews call it Jerusalem and the Muslims call it Quds. For all of them it is the holy city and they observe the history and the future destiny of the city in their way, unfailingly having a divison what this city truly represents and to whom it belongs.

However, what is noticeable is that in the last more then a thousand years Jerusalem was the city open for all the followers of the Book. Regardless that the Muslims ruled this city all this time, they enabled the Jews and Christians to live there and to confess their faith. And because of good will of one side, Jerusalem today has the image of gathering of different faiths.

However, we are the witnesses that today such harmony is interrupted. Yet, the fragile coexistence of the members of three monoteistic faiths and a large number of religious objects of the enormous historic importance, still gives to Jerusalem the aureole of the holy place which can’t leave anyone indifferent. Thus, it isn’t strange that this city had always been the challenge to many artists, who, attracted by the diversity, emphasized ethic and esthetic dimension of the holy space.

Turkish photographer Suleyman Gunduz took on a very demanding task to demonstrate all diversity of Jerusalem, but not as a gathering of diversities, but as places in which the confessions can live and exist next to each other.

The thing that was noticed in his work is the noticeable esthetic level of photography as the inevitable addition to one documentary approach as we have here. Thus, his photographs give us a significant insight in life of the holy city but they also conjure up the irresistable attraction of the ambiance of living.

The rest of the article you can read in the magazine.