Lost And Found

Behind the scenes at Post hoc by Dane Mitchell, New Zealand’s representative at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

- Anthony Byrt

Over the past 20 years, Dane Mitchell has established himself as one of our most intriguing contemporary artists. He is known for his rigorous conceptual thinking, but also his deep interest in how spiritual and unseen forces shape our experience of the world. He is New Zealand’s official representative at the 58th Venice Biennale, and his exhibition, Post hoc, is a monumental exploration of the unseen. At its heart is an enormous list of “things” that have disappeared from our world – not just physical objects and species, but esoteric energies, meteorological events, languages, and ideas. These lists are then broadcast around the city from a central venue, the Palazzina Canonica, via cell towers designed to look like pine trees. Anthony Byrt was at Post hoc’s opening in May and spoke to Mitchell about his ambitious exhibition.

I was very interested in how Post hoc seemed to expand and clarify some of your central interests – particularly about memory, loss and the unseen. How did the idea evolve?

What really started this for me was a consideration of the invisible forces that churn and move around us – how they have a kind of seething presence. The invisible impinges on our lives in all kinds of ways, be it technological, spiritual, or through language. The borders or boundaries of objects, which transmit immaterial forces, are always more slippery or blurred than their visible edges suggest. For me, this is an interesting sculptural proposition.