Chambre d'Amis VII, Cleveland x Ella Littwitz

The seventh edition of "Chambre d'Amis:" featured a talk between Ella Littwitz and DJ Hellerman, the Deputy Director & Senior Curator of The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa).

 

The evening centered on a conversation with Ella Littwitz, exploring key works from her practice through questions of place, history, politics, and memory—echoing Aristotle's proposition that if everything that exists has a place, then place itself must also have a place.  The gathering offered an intimate introduction to Ella's work ahead of her first U.S. institutional solo exhibition at moCa Cleveland, opening in April 2027.

 

We are deeply grateful to Shlomit and Stewart for so generously welcoming us into their home, where they also arranged a beautiful musical performance by a trio of Oberlin Conservatory violinists. Our thanks also go to Ella for sharing her work and insights, to DJ Hellerman and the moCa Cleveland team for their partnership and support, and to everyone who joined us and contributed to such a thoughtful and engaging evening.

  • ABOUT Ella Littwitz

     Photo credit: Haifa Museum of Art & Hadar Saifan

    ABOUT Ella Littwitz

    Ella Littwitz (b. 1982) lives and works in Tel Aviv - Yafo, Israel.

     

    Littwitz investigates political, social, and cultural landscapes by appropriating and shifting specific elements connected to the land. Pivotal to her practice is the constant desire of humans to create sovereign ideologies by drawing limits, borders, and frontiers, sometimes even controlling nature and moving soil. Littwitz’s interest in a specific stretch of land - namely Israel and Palestinian territories - stems from its status as a crossroads of religions, geography, and politics; water, soil, and sky; mythologies, beliefs, and momentous transitions. Her works echo its biblical and modern narratives, presenting us with diverse examples of transition, transfiguration, and the formation of political constructs through acts of belief.

  • BIO

    Ella Littwitz is a laureate of the HISK- Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent (BE) in 2015 and received her BFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (Jerusalem, IL) in 2009. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions such as CCA: Tel Aviv - Yafo (IL), the Haifa Museum of Art (IL), Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (CH), Centre d’Art La Panera (Lleida, ES), Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław – MWW (PL), basis (Frankfurt, DE), petach tikva museum of art (IL), Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg, AT), and many others.  Littwitz has participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Kunsthaus Zürich (CH), EMST - National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EL), MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (PL), the 12th Istanbul Biennial (TR), The Israel Museum (Jerusalem, IL), Tel Aviv Museum (IL), Tallinn Kunsthal (EE), Haus am Lützowplatz (Berlin, DE), Haifa Museum of Art (IL), The Jaffa Museum (Tel Aviv, IL), Arter Istanbul (TR), The Center for Digital Art (Holon, IL), and many others. 

     

    Her work has been acquired by The Israel Museum (Jerusalem, IL), Kunsthaus Zürich (CH), Vehbi Koç Foundation (Istanbul, TR), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (IL), S.M.A.K. - the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Ghent, BE), the Dallas Museum of Art (US), the Centre Pompidou (Paris, FR), and many other private and public collections. In 2024, Ella Littwitz received the prestigious Beatrice S. Kolliner Award for a Young Israeli Artist, presented by The Israel Museum (Jerusalem, IL).

  • ABOUT DJ Hellerman

    ABOUT DJ Hellerman

    DJ Hellerman is a dynamic curator and arts leader whose practice centers on collaboration, experimentation, and supporting artist-led processes. He currently serves as Deputy Director and Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa), where he helps shape the institution's evolving curatorial vision. Previously, Hellerman was Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, where he organized poetic, experimental exhibitions grounded in creative risk and community engagement. His curatorial interests span art, technology, spirituality, and early video practice, with a focus on place-sensitive art making and alternative museum models. Earlier in his career, he held curatorial roles at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, and Burlington City Arts in Vermont, establishing a reputation for thoughtful, interdisciplinary programming.

     

    He has curated numerous influential exhibitions, including "Yoko Ono: Remembering the Future", "Pale In Comparison" by Doreen Lynette Garner, and "A Place for the Affections" (co-curated with Harlan Levey), as well as projects featuring artists such as Henry Taylor, Jayson Musson, and Edie Fake.

  • the Farms series

    the Farms series

    Cast from Dittrichia viscosa, a weed native to the Mediterranean Basin that takes root in disturbed and contested landscapes while suppressing surrounding vegetation, these intricate sculptures are at once delicate in appearance and quietly relentless in logic.

     

    Each is named after an illegal Israeli outpost in the occupied West Bank, titles drawn from recently established settlements that invoke biblical language to justify territorial expansion and land appropriation. The parallel between botanical and political occupation is precise, and intentionally understated.

     

    Characteristic of Littwitz's practice: a poetic, measured intelligence that allows the political to surface through material and metaphor. Works from the series are held in several institutional collections, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

     

     

     

     

  • Semiology of the Underground

    Semiology of the Underground

    The entire area surrounding the southern part of the Jordan River, also known as the Land of Pursuits, is a matrix of signs, symbols, borderlines, military fences, religious iconography, and agricultural indicators. One can even find the remains of the King Abdullah Bridge, which was partially destroyed during the 1967 Six-Day War to prevent Jordanian attacks on Israel. The work features a tin warning triangle of the type used to mark a minefield, taken from this area, which is indeed scattered with mines. On the sign, the artist has drawn fragments of a plant that is genetically engineered to detect mines in the ground: a modified version of Arabidopsis thaliana (also known as thale cress), which is sensitive to the nitrogen dioxide gas released by underground mines. The leaves change from green to red after three to five weeks of growth in the presence of this gas.

     

     

     

     

  • Ella Littwitz, Semiology of the Underground, 2022 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Ella Littwitz, Semiology of the Underground, 2022 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Ella Littwitz, Semiology of the Underground, 2022 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Ella Littwitz, Semiology of the Underground, 2022
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  • Thank you for joining us.