Paul Maheke
18 - 22 May 2016
PAUL MAHEKE
I Lost Track of the Swarm
18 March - 22 May 2016
Following six months as the South London Gallery’s Graduate-in-Residence in the Outset Artists’ Flat, Paul Maheke presents his first solo show in a public institution. Maheke’s exhibition and accompanying events look at pulsating and desiring brown and black bodies as affective and political archives.
In shedding a (lavender) ray of light on empowered narratives, I Lost Track of the Swarm strives to unfold the intricate layers of the production of subjectivity. While exploring the question of visibility through Georges Bataille’s notion of formlessness (L’Informe), Maheke refers to the dance club by turning the white rooms of the gallery into a vibrating space within which dance and music operate as means of resistance and gestures of remembrance.
With thanks to Fluxus
Biography
Paul Maheke is the fifth South London Gallery Graduate Resident and will be in residence at the SLG's Outset Artists' Flat for 6 months from November 2015 and will exhibit in the first floor galleries in late spring 2016.
Maheke has recently completed a programme of study at Open School East, after receiving an MA in Art Practice at l’École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy (FR) in 2011.
His practice is grounded in emancipatory and decolonial thought with an emphasis on cultural identities and new subjectivities. His current research focuses – through video, installation, sculpture and furtive interventions – on the body as both an archive and a territory, as a utopia to be reimagined through different strategies of resistance. With particular attention to dance, he proposes to defuse the power relations that shape Western imaginations and to rearticulate the representations that emerge from them.
Over the past year Maheke has pursued his research initiating a series of public conversations, at Open School East, entitled Beyond Beyoncé: Use It Like a Bumper!, which considered Hip-Hop cultures through the lens of Queer and Black Feminist theory. Other selected group exhibitions and residencies include; Ruptures, ABI, cur. Katy Orkisz, London (2015); artist-in-residence at Darling Foundry, Montreal, Canada (2015); ODRADEK, Les Instants Chavirés, cur. Mikaela Assolent + Flora Katz, Montreuil, France (2015); Re-former le monde visible, Le 116, cur. Marlène Rigler, Montreuil, France (2014); 59th Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge, France (2014); artist-in-residence at CIAP - Île de Vassivière, France (2014); Videoakt, French Institute, Barcelona, Spain (2013); VIVA!, at Centre CLARK, Montreal, Canada (2012); «Pratiques Furtives» : fragments d’une enquête, cur. Patrice Loubier, Skol art center, Montreal, Canada (2012).
Upcoming projects include: Green Ray Turns Out To Be Mauve, Green Ray, London (March 2016, solo show); performance at The Rebel Man Standard Festival, Guest Projects, London (April 2016); I Would’ve Done Everything for You / Gimme More, cur. Cédric Fauq, London (May 2016, group show); Festival de l’Inattention, Paris (June 2016, group show); Take the Weight, SixtyEight Art Institute, cur. Tom Clark + Iben Elmstrom, Copenhagen, Denmark (2017, group show).
I Lost Track of the Swarm
18 March - 22 May 2016
Following six months as the South London Gallery’s Graduate-in-Residence in the Outset Artists’ Flat, Paul Maheke presents his first solo show in a public institution. Maheke’s exhibition and accompanying events look at pulsating and desiring brown and black bodies as affective and political archives.
In shedding a (lavender) ray of light on empowered narratives, I Lost Track of the Swarm strives to unfold the intricate layers of the production of subjectivity. While exploring the question of visibility through Georges Bataille’s notion of formlessness (L’Informe), Maheke refers to the dance club by turning the white rooms of the gallery into a vibrating space within which dance and music operate as means of resistance and gestures of remembrance.
With thanks to Fluxus
Biography
Paul Maheke is the fifth South London Gallery Graduate Resident and will be in residence at the SLG's Outset Artists' Flat for 6 months from November 2015 and will exhibit in the first floor galleries in late spring 2016.
Maheke has recently completed a programme of study at Open School East, after receiving an MA in Art Practice at l’École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy (FR) in 2011.
His practice is grounded in emancipatory and decolonial thought with an emphasis on cultural identities and new subjectivities. His current research focuses – through video, installation, sculpture and furtive interventions – on the body as both an archive and a territory, as a utopia to be reimagined through different strategies of resistance. With particular attention to dance, he proposes to defuse the power relations that shape Western imaginations and to rearticulate the representations that emerge from them.
Over the past year Maheke has pursued his research initiating a series of public conversations, at Open School East, entitled Beyond Beyoncé: Use It Like a Bumper!, which considered Hip-Hop cultures through the lens of Queer and Black Feminist theory. Other selected group exhibitions and residencies include; Ruptures, ABI, cur. Katy Orkisz, London (2015); artist-in-residence at Darling Foundry, Montreal, Canada (2015); ODRADEK, Les Instants Chavirés, cur. Mikaela Assolent + Flora Katz, Montreuil, France (2015); Re-former le monde visible, Le 116, cur. Marlène Rigler, Montreuil, France (2014); 59th Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge, France (2014); artist-in-residence at CIAP - Île de Vassivière, France (2014); Videoakt, French Institute, Barcelona, Spain (2013); VIVA!, at Centre CLARK, Montreal, Canada (2012); «Pratiques Furtives» : fragments d’une enquête, cur. Patrice Loubier, Skol art center, Montreal, Canada (2012).
Upcoming projects include: Green Ray Turns Out To Be Mauve, Green Ray, London (March 2016, solo show); performance at The Rebel Man Standard Festival, Guest Projects, London (April 2016); I Would’ve Done Everything for You / Gimme More, cur. Cédric Fauq, London (May 2016, group show); Festival de l’Inattention, Paris (June 2016, group show); Take the Weight, SixtyEight Art Institute, cur. Tom Clark + Iben Elmstrom, Copenhagen, Denmark (2017, group show).