Dane Mitchell : Post hoc

For the 2019 New Zealand Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, Dane Mitchell’s Post hoc will symbolically revive vanished, extinct and defunct phenomena. Throughout the duration of the Biennale Arte 2019 an extensive inventory of over 300 different lists comprising millions of lost entities, will be enunciated within an anechoic chamber inside the New Zealand Pavilion, situated in the Palazzina Canonica, the former headquarters of exhibition partner Istituto di Scienze Marine (CNR-ISMAR), on the Riva dei Sette Martiri.  

From its origin in the Palazzina, the melancholy archive of defunct phenomena—from forgotten words, to ghost towns and former nations—will be transmitted continuously via a number of cell-phone stealth towers installed by the artist in public sites across Venice. Industrially produced and designed to resemble trees, these towers will facilitate a unique and expansive exhibition footprint that will reach Venetians and visitors beyond the Exhibition’s borders. 

Listeners at the towers will be able to tune in to over 10,000 entities named each day, encompassing an encyclopedic range of subject matter, from lists of known black holes, disappeared sounds and extinct birds to former national anthems. Each list provokes a range of emotions: wonder, amusement and melancholy in comprehending the extent of each loss.

Coinciding with the audible component, the immaterial lists will find tangible form in the Palazzina’s empty library, where lines of text will be printed on rolls of paper in sync with the transmissions.

While highlighting the ever-expanding myriad of things that are no more, Mitchell’s exhibition eludes causality between the context of extinction and vanished "past things," leaving it to the viewer to consider the implications of this loss. Post hoc provides a timely intersection with global concerns, such as climate change, depletion of resources and technological obsolescence.

Exhibition catalogue
The Arts Council of Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa is proud to partner with Mousse publications and Studio Akin in producing the Post hoc publication. The A4, 128 page case bound book is unique as a record of the "List of the lists" of bygone phenomena. Other contents include installation documentation and essays on the background to the project and Mitchell’s practice by pavilion Lead curator Dr Zara Stanhope and Chris Sharp, Co-curator, as well as additional essays by Dr Stephen Turner and artist Heman Chong.

Dane Mitchell
Post hoc
May 11–November 24, 2019 

New Zealand Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale
Palazzina Canonica 
Riva dei Sette Martiri
Castello 1364/A 
30124 Venezia
Italy 

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