A High Degree of Certainty: SOLO EXHIBITION: ELLA LITTWITZ AT THE CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, TEL AVIV. CURATED BY SERGIO EDELZSTEIN

A geotextile is a permeable cloth-like material used to increase soil stability, provide erosion control, separate soil layers, and/or aid in drainage. At a site known as Qasr al-Yahud, the Jordan River is only a few meters wide, and for most of the year can almost be traversed on foot. Israeli and Jordanian soldiers who patrol the area spend most of their shifts just sitting idly, facing each other. One might argue that envisioning two distinct sides to this minimalistic waterway is an exercise in imagination. Littwitz’s symbolic act of submerging the textiles on either side of the border was as simple as it was transgressive; the work disrespects the idea of an un-crossable border. While the immersion obviously echoes the Christian rite of baptism that for millennia has been performed at this specific site, Littwitz’s performative double-dipping questions the sanctity of a human-made border in relation to a divine precept. Especially considering that, due to political and logistical reasons, the certified baptismal site was in 1967 moved from the side currently occupied by Israel to the Jordanian side.

This work has two elements: a stack of books, piled from floor to ceiling, and an array of torn pages—from the very same books—that feature dedications. The books, collected by the artist from the street, belong to a specific genre of Israeli patriotic literature: biographies of generals and politicians, albums celebrating military victories, and founding texts by figures such as Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Rabin, Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, Shabtai Teveth, and Ezer Weizman. For many years, these books were given as presents at bar mitzvahs, military promotions, and other such commemorative events, and had an honorable place on Israelis’ bookshelves. They were often “enriched” by corny dedications, which are here isolated and highlighted. In piling the books, Littwitz followed the chronological order of the events they celebrate, but the pile’s top and bottom, like the capital and base of a column, have special importance. The “base” is a yizkor [ יזכור†, “remembrance” in Hebrew], a type of book commemorating a Jewish community destroyed during the Holocaust, and the “capital” is the Hebrew translation of Richard Laub and Olivier Boruchowitch’s 2010 book Israël, un avenir compromis [Israel, a Future in Doubt].

Typically, these barrels are used to mark the limits of military shooting ranges. They define territory and rules. Bullet-riddled, they barely hold themselves together, resembling lace more than steel. As the title suggests, the question “What is a place?” presents many difficulties; it is drawn from the longer phrase “If everything that exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on ad infinitum” from the Paradox of Place, one of the several paradoxes attributed to Zeno by Aristotle.

This work is one of the so-called bronzed weeds that Littwitz started to produce in 2014. Widow’s Boundaries are casts of Dittrichia viscosa (also known as false yellowhead, woody fleabane, sticky fleabane, and yellow fleabane), which belongs to the category of “pioneer plants” and whose biochemical composition prevents other plants from growing in its immediate surroundings. In Israel, it is often one of the first types of vegetation to take root on disturbed soil. The title continues the artist’s interest in biblical narratives connected to the land and their recontextualization by the Zionist movement. It is taken from the verse “The Lord tears down the house of the proud, but He protects the boundaries of the widow” (Proverbs 15:25), which was used as a blessing for each new settlement established in Israel. In this passage from the Book of Proverbs, the Jewish people, in exile, are compared to a widowed woman.

As an appropriation of natural objects (stones) that were manipulated for a purpose (painted to be trail markers), The Path embodies one of Littwitz’s primary interests, which is to map landscapes that are in continuous transformation thanks to geological, geopolitical, and/or cultural factors. As in Like a Shadow of a Great Rock in a Weary Land, 2017 (p. 38), this work triggers existential questions. It also, according to Littwitz, questions Michel Foucault’s notion of “heterotopia,” a term the French philosopher used to define places—like cemeteries, or Turkish baths—that are “worlds-within-worlds,” mirroring and yet distinguishing themselves from what is outside.