exhibition of Ella Littwitz
curator: Agata Ciastoń
coordinator: Mika Drozdowska
15.10.2021–15.01.2022
SIC! BWA Wrocław Gallery, Poland
The artistic research of Ella Littwitz explores archaeology, history, nature and agriculture as agents of culture and geopolitics. By reproducing, subtracting and recreating artefacts, and by addressing the characteristics of certain botanical species, Littwitz’s work reveals the mechanisms behind notions of ideology, national identity, borders and belief in general. With frequent reference to her homeland Israel, her oeuvre appropriates relics, archaeological sites, existing narratives, political symbolism and other historical and anthropological cyphers, often focusing on “territorialization”; her installations, sculptures, drawings, and embroideries tell of claimed and conquered territories, of no-man’s-land, mixed territories, border crossing and migration. Her works, including the latest ones planned to be exhibited at BWA SiC, concern universal values, at the same time referring to the complex issue of the Middle East. They introduce the viewer to the world of Israel’s most recent art, which is neither well-known nor often presented in Poland. Interestingly, the questions of border instability, territorial affiliation or historical memory sound remarkably familiar in Lower Silesia, a region of interlacing histories, marked by traces of its past and present inhabitants.
Littwitz’s solo exhibition will feature her latest body of work, created as a result of frequent research trips to locations on the border between Israel and Jordan. Littwitz’s works echo the Biblical and modern narratives associated with these areas, presenting us with diverse examples of transition, transfiguration and the formation of political constructs through acts of belief. Many works at the exhibition refer to people’s need to mark areas and territories while nature stubbornly keeps obliterating and blurring them.
Ella Littwitz’s works will premiere at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv, then go to Berlin’s alexander levy Gallery, after which they will be presented in Wrocław. Each of these locations will offer a different interpretation due to the unique local context.
partners: CCA – Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv, Artis, COPPERFILED GALLERY, alexander levy gallery, Harlan Levey Projects
The project was carried out with the support of the Municipality of Wrocław.
more info about the exhibition
