paulmaheke - Thankyouforcoming

M A H E K E
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PA U L
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A good part of my work is based on simple gestures that once consisted in
placing works, which might not even be noticed, in public spaces. It has now
expanded to video, installation and sculptural works.
The practice itself is grounded in decolonial and emancipatory thought with a
focus on cultural identity and new subjectivities. My current research imagines
the body as an archive, a territory with its cartography and its colonised zones;
a utopia to be reimagined via different strategies of resistance.
With particular attention to dance, I propose to defuse the power structures
that shape Western imaginations and to rearticulate the representations that
emerge from them. At the intersection of feminisms and critical cartography,
this exploration is a way to question social and geographical relationships to
places as they relate to a more personal inquiry that mainly deals with exoticism
and more widely to Othering processes.
My pieces are to be experienced as poetic yet political spaces looking at the
body and the landscape as resilient points.
s w ay i n g
Identities
I Lost Track of the Swarm, 2016
South London Gallery, London (UK)
The show I Lost Track of the Swarm looks at pulsating and
desiring brown and black bodies as affective and political
archives. In shedding a (lavender) ray of light on empowered
narratives, it strives to unfold the intricate layers of the
production of subjectivity.
2
I Lost Track of the Swarm
(TRANSFORMATION), 2016
soundtrack 23:00 min (loop)
composed in collaboration with
Nkisi (NON Worldwide).
I Lost Track of the Swarm, 2016
South London Gallery, London (UK)
3-channel video installation (endless loop), luminous ceiling, fake
rubber cockroaches, synthetic hairs, grass and seeds, digital print
on fabric, curtains, window light filters.
3
Mutual Survival, Lorde's Manifesto, 2015
diptyque, vidéo HD, 17:50 min
While Looking at dance as a practice of resistance, the video
—meant to be displayed on two screens— narrates Black
subjectivities through a fictional manifesto made out of several
texts by feminist author Audre Lorde.
4
Tropicalité, l'Île et l'Exote, 2014
HD video, 12:50 min
Tropicalité, l'île et l'exote is a silent subtitled video raising
questions relating to Otherness through concepts such as
empowerment, exoticism and individual subjectivities. The film
ties together the symbolic figure of the island and the body, as
well as it aligns with decolonial thoughts which look at both as
typical spaces to be colonized yet as possible sites for resistance.
5
Beyond Beyoncé: Use it Like a Bumper, 2015
documentation of the event
A public conversation held at Open School East using
Hip-Hop as a keystone to question what possibilities are
offered to Black female bodies in the mainstream as well
as in more alternative cultures.
6
Il faut d’abord décrire ce regard qui part du bas pour aller vers le haut et rebondit
sur tous les reflets qui rejaillissent et se diffractent sur le métal des poles.
Un regard qui s’arrêtera sur tout le lustre, celui du corps huilé qui ondule, celui
des podiums éclairant de rose et de rouge le cuir synthétique des banquettes qui
décrivent un poste d’observation.
Ille s’enroule autour du métal.
Dans tous ses mouvements ille garde contact avec l’axe métallique.
Répétée et étirée par les miroirs du plafond, cette lance argentée s’enfonce sous la
plateforme lumineuse sur laquelle ille se tient.
Ille tourne encore quand rien ne bouge autour, à 360°, solidaire de sa pole elle-même
solidaire du sol et du plafond, connecté.e par le haut et le bas.
Ille se dédouble à l’infini dans cet endroit où les cloisons donnent l’impression de
ne pas en être.
Le pornoscope pourrait être cette architecture faite de lustre et de reflets, d’éclats
et de brillances. Une architecture conçue pour s’assurer que l’œil sera repu, rassasié
des effets de lumière et de la vibration des surfaces lisses et luisantes agitées sous le
poids de ce corps qui danse.
L’espace-réceptacle du désir où le confinement se frotte à la vastitude, à l’expansion,
au multiple.
Pourtant tout y est à portée de vue. Parce qu’il s’agit bien de tout y voir, d’embrasser
la vastitude en un regard, du bas vers le haut, en suivant l’axe ou l’un de ses doubles,
toujours aussi statiques alors que le pornoscope se déploie tout autour de nous.
Knowing Less About Our Own Situation, 2013
documentation of an action,
in collaboration with Maxime Bichon
A participative walk through Paris (France) devised as an attempt to question
racial and gender issues in public spaces.
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Les Étendards, Swaying Bodies 2013
printed fabric and wood, 90 x 125 cm
Eight flags set up in Montreal's (QC) streets, with words written on
them that refer to the action itself in both official languages of the city,
French and English.
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The Shelter Skit, 2013
billboard poster 200 x 300 cm
A picture of a train shelter displayed clandestinely on a
public billboard. The printed text describe a small scene wherein
ten teenagers, nine boys and a girl, wait for the train to come, with
each embodying masculinity in a different way.
9
Crocus/Manhood, 2013
vinyl poster, 77 x 129 cm
A public square in Paris where only men congregate. There, I displayed
a vinyl poster on the billboard of public restrooms in the center of
the square. It presents an excerpt of Jeffrey Eugenides' book
"Middlesex," in which the main character, Calliope, describes her/his
genitals and thereby her/his intersex conditions.
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While Appealing The Sun (Dervish and Van der Rohe), 2012
documentation of an action.
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While Appealing The Sun (by the country-side), 2011
documentation of an action.
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Unveiling The Ghost, 2014
billboard poster, monitor, flags, glass, wood, glitter gel
Documentation of several actions held furtively in public spaces
exhibited at the 59th Salon de Montrouge.
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Proposal To Form A Group Of Domestic Poets, 2014
broomsticks, printed flags, printed text.
A series of printed flag cloths has been given to local shop owners
around the art center few days before the opening. I requested them
to give a flag cloth to each customer who would buy a broomstick;
with the possibility for the customers —whenever and wherever
they want— to turn their broomstick into a flag.
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B a r e ly
n ot ic e d
A Mirror For Public Restrooms, 2013
frosted mirror 45 x 30 cm
(Daniel Bosser's private collection)
I set up a mirror in the public restrooms of a small French town. A
part of the mirror has been frosted to draw a ghostly silhouette.
16
While Appealing The Sun (blue dots), 2012
glitter and glue on wood
I coated tree stumps with a blue glitter gel along a jogging trail
by Barcelona's heights.
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Paintings For A Stranger, 2012
acrylic on canvas 12, 7 x 17,7 cm
On a Sunday afternoon I left a series of eight monochrome paintings at a business's
parking lot. I set them under the name tags of specific drivers, so that by the next
morning, on their way to work, B. De Serres, G. Lapointe and F. Massie would find the
present that I offered to them.
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Iridescent Reflectors, 2011
tempera and iridescent pigment
on canvas board, 10 x 15 cm
I left twelve little monochrome paintings with metallic reflectors in
the paint in a neighborhood of Montreal, Canada. They were placed
so that their surfaces would catch the sunlight at sunset.
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While Appealing The Sun (bench), 2011
glitter gel on concrete
I coated a public bench in front of the Atlantic ocean with glitters.
It shimmers at sunset.
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Of Mounts and Seas, 2013
plastic signal plates, 9 x 25 cm
Several signal plates are hung on the protection fencing around the railway station
Gare du Nord in Paris. The sentences written on them recall the snapshots that I
took during various journeys abroad. The title of the piece is a translation from the
Chinese of a concept of landscape.
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Those
lands are
n ot to b e
seeN
Wilderness, 2014
End of residency presentation with Alice Didier Champagne,
CIAP - Île de Vassivière.
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₁.
Wilderness, 2014
₁. While appealing the sun (blue log), 2014
96 cm x Ø 20 cm, beech, glitter and glue.
₂. Seascape, 2014
190 x 160 x h. 90 cm trestles, wood and fabrics.
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₂.
₁.
₂.
Wilderness, 2014
₁ Les Jaraux, 2014
70 x 50 cm, diptych, digital printing on paper.
₂ Tropicalité, Royal Palms, 2014
90 x 140 cm, printed fabric, glitter coating.
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Ask For Trouble, 2015
printed table cloth, table top, chairs
390 x 190 cm
Table produced in collaboration with Maxime Bichon
to host impromptu discussions about feminisms
in group show ODRADEK, Les Instants Chavirés,
Montreuil.
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Googly Eyez, 2015
HD video, 13:05 min
This video collage invests exoticism as a starting point
exploring colonial and geographical imaginations relating
to island imagery. Through a collection of footage shot
in Montreal and Réunion island, the work investigates
decolonial thoughts about landscapes and identity,
narratives and territory.
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Green Ray Turns Out To Be Mauve, 2016
digital print on satin, 90 x 140 cm
A visual poem in the form of a sculptural work. The piece draws
on personal investigations into sexual desire and navigates a
metaphoric space where affects are politicised and understood
through a tortuous web of social constructs.
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SQUAD#1, 2016
documentation of the event at South London Gallery
in collaboration with Cédric Fauq et Mélika Ngombe Kolongo
In the form of a collage using texts, found footage, sounds and works
by visual artists Angel-HO, Minia Biabiany, FAKA and Belinda Zhawi,
that curated night of video, music and dance centred on Black Femme
subjectivities while exploring the multiplicity of voices coexisting in the
global now to engender matriarchal narratives.
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PA U L
m a h e k e
(1985, Brive-la-Gaillarde, FR)
Lives and works in London
[email protected]
E D U C AT I O N
Open School East, London, UK, 2015
MA Fine Art, ENSAP-Cergy, FR, 2011
BA Fine Art (Hons), ENSAP-Cergy, FR, 2009
BA Etching and Printmaking (Hons), École Estienne, Paris, FR, 2007
R es i d e n c I es
South London Gallery, 2015-2016
Fonderie Darling, Montreal (QC), Canada, 2015
The Serpentine galleries, London, UK, 2015
Centre International d'art et du Paysage, Vassivière, FR, 2014
Résidence de la ville de Montrouge, FR, 2014
Homsession, Barcelona, Spain, 2012
Villa Pan, French Institute, China, 2010
G r a n ts
Fluxus Fund, French Institute, London, 2016
French Culture Ministry, ADAGP, Salon de Montrouge, 2014
P u b l i c at i o n s
The Perfect School, The Serpentine Galleries, 2016
Agent Double#2, dir. Olivier Pierre Jozef, 2016
D'un abandon à l'autre, Inter Art Actuel, n°120, 2015
Abandonné.e.s à l'île, CIAP-île de Vassivière, 2014
Le Quotidien de l'Art, n°678, by Cédric Aurelle, 2014
59e Salon de Montrouge catalogue, by Daniel Bosser, 2014
Arts Magazine, by François Quintin, France, 2014
We Can't Wait for Better Times, Barcelona, Spain, 2013
Manuel #3, Glassbox, Paris, France, 2013
Remedy Paper, Brusells, Belgium, 2012
Speak Word le Journal de la Triennale #3, as part of LMDP,
Abdellah Karroum, Paris, France, 2012
Les artistes en leur monde III, Marie-Paule Nègre, 2012
Drawing Now Paris I catalogue, 2011
s h o w s
a n d
c o l l ec t i v e
e x p e r i e n c es
2016
Festival de l’Inattention, cur. Sophie Lapalu, Glassbox, Paris, FR
I Would Have Done Everything for You/Gimme More, cur. Cédric Fauq, London, UK
Publication launch Agent Double#2, dir. Olivier Pierre Jozef, Le Point Éphémère, Paris, FR
Publication launch MovingUp, The Serpentine Galleries, London, UK
Tableaux: a season of screenings and performances, Assembly Point, London, UK (screening)
Ways of Living, cur. Arcadia Missa + @ Gaybar, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK (performance)
In Conversation, artist talk, South London Gallery, London, UK
Paysage Sauvage, artist talk in duo with Alice Didier Champagne, FRAC Limousin, FR
HOWDY CHICAGO, cur. Filip Zezovski Lind + Joss Heierli, Royal College of Art Shuttle, London, UK
SQUAD, night of performance, cur. Paul Maheke+Nkisi+Cédric Fauq, South London Gallery, London, UK
A Gesture Towards Transformation, The Rebel Man Standard Festival, Guest Projects, London, UK
Decolonial Love, Eventually: Could My Desire Have Enacted The -isms I Call Out? ICA, London, UK (workshop)
Green Ray Tuns Out To Be Mauve, Green Ray, London, UK (solo)
I Lost Track of the Swarm, South London Gallery, London, UK (solo)
Art+Feminisms+Web, panel discussion as part of Wikipédia Editathon, Lafayette Anticipation, Paris, FR
2015
Ruptures in Places, cur. Katy Orkisz Association of British Insures, London, UK
Agenda Salad, Open School East, London, UK
Artist talk Dissections: Yinka Shonibare, DHC/ART, Montreal (QC), Canada
ODRADEK, Les Instants Chavirés, cur. Mikaela Assolent + Flora Katz, Montreuil, France
Beyond Beyoncé: Use it like a bumper! a public conversation about Black feminism and Hip-Hop cultures, Open
School East, London, UK
Parti(e) du Paysage, cur. Simon Cau, Simon Cau Gallery hosted by 60th Salon de Montrouge, France
Artist talk Proposal to form a group of domestic poets, Le 116, Montreuil, France
2014
Re-former le monde visible, Le 116, cur. Marlène Rigler, Montreuil, France
Festival of minimal actions, cur. Thomas Geiger, Bruxelles, Belgique
Paysage Sauvage / Wilderness, Les Banquets du Château, cur. Marianne Lanavère, CIAP- Île de Vassivière, France
59th Salon de Montrouge, France
2013
VIVA!, Centre CLARK, Montreal, Quebec
Si nous continuons à nous parler le même langage, nous allons reproduire la même histoire, Le Commissariat,
Treize, cur. Mikaela Assolent + Flora Katz, Paris, France
Videoakt, French Institute, Barcelona, Spain
Supermarket 2013, LMDP crew, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden
2012
Papier Français, The Poetry Art Club, Brooklyn, New York, USA
«Pratiques Furtives» : fragments d’une enquête, cur. Patrice Loubier, Skol art center, Montreal, Quebec
PA U L
m a h e k e
2011
Le musée performatif, Patio del Liceo, cur. Liv Schulman, Bueños Aires, Argentina
Domaine Public invited by Ultralocal, Pornichet, Loire-Atlantique, France
Mille Feuillets, La Vitrine, Drawing Now Paris I, Paris, France
2010
A New Ceremony, Villa Pan, Suzhou, China
Hautlesmainpeauxdelapins : Les Figures de l’imposture, la Maison de la recherche de la
Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France
International Drawing Fair, Paris, France
2010 / 20 ans / Génération Gravure, cur. Françoise Pétrovitch, Paris, France
2009
Expotempo, Le Carreau, Cergy, France
Aides Project, Yvon Lambert Gallery Paris, France
Road-trip between San Francisco and Las-Vegas, USA
Grand prix de peinture, Paris, France
2008
Youtube Battle : No Limit, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2008 sept. 31, Galerie 51, Seoul, South Korea
Make a wish, Luxun Academy of Art and Design, Dalian, China
Le cabinet de l’Heure Asiatique, En Cours, Paris, France