Energy does not disappear or dissipate; it only changes form. In fact, since the Big Bang, the mass of the universe has been constant, only changing its shape and state of aggregation. Ella Littwitz revisits the ancient space around the Dead Sea and Mount Sodom, an area where the winds of Creation prevail. She explores the substances she finds there as being in the midst of change, a transformation in which the artistic act can take part. Littwitz's sculptures are not inanimate objects; they are masses of matter undergoing constant metamorphosis, and even as you read these lines, the exhibition slowly changes its form: salt water drips, a patina forms, magnesium oxidizes. Much like the human body, the Dead Sea and the entire universe, art, too, is in an eternal process of becoming, evolving into something else.
Processes of formation are violent: stars explode, materials dissolve each other, and antithetical forces seem to wrestle with one another. In the background of this natural struggle of substances, the echoes of the ultimate human war are heard—the battle of absolute good against absolute evil. With trumpets playing in the background, Littwitz's sound work interprets the prophecy of the War between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, as described in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The chaos of war disintegrates cultures into their constituent elements, returning them to a primal state. The human desire for war is perhaps one of the few constants in our world, as is the human hope that light will emerge from the chaos.
Ella Littwitz
1982, Haifa; lives in Jaffa
The works are courtesy of the artist; Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels; and Alexander Levy Gallery, Berlin
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