Destruction as Conservation in Dane Mitchell’s ‘Iris, Iris, Iris’

Abstract

Artist Dane Mitchell’s installation, Iris, Iris, Iris (2017), was developed in Japan as a result of a co-commission between Mori Art Museum and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Following acquisition into the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the relational and conceptual contemporary installation—removed from its cultural context of Japan—has experienced a slide toward an object-focused monumentality. The broad theoretical and technical skillset unique to conservators is utilised in the proposal to destroy a critical element of the artwork, with the aim of regenerating conceptual salience in the contextual shift to Aotearoa New Zealand. Underscored through interviews with Dane Mitchell, a feminist critical methodology and a model of version control locate the research within an New Zealand/Australian context? to consider destruction as form of conservation.