For the past 17 years, the Uruguayan photojournalist Quique Kierszenbaum has photographed the daily life, history and religions in Jerusalem. In the exhibition Jerusalén, 3 historias, on view at the Centro de Fotografia in Montevideo, Kierszenbaum documents the city in black-and-white and color through the stories of those who live there.

“Jerusalem is beautiful and complicated, sacred and war-torn, picturesque and fanatical. I cannot tell its story through one story alone,” says Kierszenbaum. The photographer approaches the city through a series of little doors, each one opening onto a different story, a different life, a different way of seeing. “I’m talking about six to ten years,” he says. “I had to forge an intimacy that can only be achieved through presence, respect, and the ability to listen, to learn, and to take the time to tell the story.”

At the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jerusalem is the vital center of three major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. “Jerusalem has been the focus of thousands of documentary photographers, pilgrims almost, who have embodied icons with their images,” says Kierszenbaum. “In a city full of rites, my almost obsessive return to these places has become perhaps a kind of ritual.”

Céline Chevallier

Jerusalén, 3 historias
Until February 28th, 2013
CdF Fotogalería - Bazar
Av. 18 de Julio 885 entre Andes y Convención
Montevideo - Uruguay
Monday - Friday 2.30pm - 7.30pm.