RISKY BUSINESS
Dane Mitchell
August 22 - September 8 2001
Auckland based artist Dane Mitchell work's serves to interrogate and explore
the norms of cultural practice today. Playful, critical, and painfully
observant, Mitchell lays an unerring finger on the pulse of our
local art world today, placing art world icons such as Artspace,
Jenny Gibbs, and the Auckland Art Gallery under investigation.
His project for The Physics Room, Risky Business, is presented here in somewhat
different form than originally anticipated. With the forensic air
of a detective Dane spent six months during 2000 collecting waste
and refuse from the rubbish bins of Auckland dealer gallery the
Gow Langsford.
This assortment of paper scraps, gallery memos, and shredded documents
gave a fascinating glimpse into the Gow Langsford itself, mapping
the institution's inner workings and procedures over a period of
time.
However, after an initial showing of the work at Auckland's rm212
space was greeted with controversy, a settlement was subsequently
reached between artist and gallery. Therefore, all documents and
artifacts in this show exist merely as replicas of the originals,
simulations which ape the often stained and crumpled finds, painstakingly
reconstructed from photographs and memory. Provocative and disturbing,
Risky Business challenges the viewer to reconsider the boundaries
between private and public.
Reviews & Essays Fresh - A series profiling
Contemporary New Zealand Practitioners
Essay by Lee Devenish
in The Physics Room Annual
2001
ISBN 0-9582359-1-0
Strutting
their stuff
The Press, 2001 Aug. 29, p. 34
Peers, Robyn.
Recreation by Paula Collier; Risky Business by Dane Mitchell; A
Good Tradition Well Maintained by Marcus Moore.
Young & Contemporary
The Package, September, 2001
Lee Devinish
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