Dane Mitchell

Dane Mitchell, Remedy for Agoraphobia, Ataxia, Anxiety (AgNO₃), 2016

Homeopathic remedy and intermediate bulk containers. Courtesy The Renshaws, Brisbane.

Remedy for Agoraphobia, Ataxia, Anxiety (AgNO₃) is a stack of intermediary bulk containers (IBCs) containing a homeopathic remedy for agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), ataxia (impaired balance or coordination), and anxiety—all pathologies one might experience while walking the sculpture trail. Homeopathic medicine emerged in Germany in the late eighteenth century. It was underpinned by some fantastic ideas—that dilution results in potency and that water has a memory. Homeopathic practices remain popular, but have been absorbed into the natural and holistic health industry, losing some of their mystical character. While key homeopathic principles have little currency in modern medicine, they remain rich in artistic possibility. Mitchell invites us to approach a threshold of perceptibility. 

Dane Mitchell (b.1976) lives in Naarm/Melbourne, where he’s an artist-in-residence at Gertrude Contemporary and teaches at Victorian College of the Arts. He studied at Auckland University of Technology, completing a BFA in 1998 and an MPhil in 2012. His work plays on oppositions—materiality and immateriality, absence and presence, stability and impermanence—using such ‘materials’ as light, scent, vapour, and electromagnetic waves. He has had solo shows in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, the United States, Brazil, and New Zealand. He represented New Zealand at the 2019 Venice Biennale, and has participated in many other biennales and triennales, including Bangkok, Busan, Gwangju, Klontal, Liverpool, Ljubljana, Sydney, Singapore, and Thailand. He has had residencies at Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2011; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu/New Plymouth, in 2010; Berliner Künstlerprogramm DAAD, Berlin, in 2009; and Gasworks, London, in 2008. His show Iris, Iris, Iris was presented at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, in 2017, at Auckland Art Gallery, in 2018, and Te Papa, Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington, in 2022.