Elements of Vogue

The title of this installation is a quote from Fiona Buckland’s book, Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World-Making : The dance floor could never be a story with one voice. The dance floor is packed with stories all pulsating with their own experiences and needs. Maheke deconstructs this phrase in the exhibition space in a similar manner to how the author invites the reader to deconstruct the notion of a homogenous “us” which inevitably fails to take into account the many possible expressions of gender, race and desire within any collectivity of bodies. […]

This performance was originally commissioned by Catherine Wood for the BMW Tate Live Exhibition : Ten Days Six Nights at Tate Modern. Featuring Cédric Fauq as a drummer, it was re-enacted at CA2M on 16 November 2018 to mark the opening of Elements of Vogue.

In the early stages of his career, Paul Maheke engaged in discreet urban interventions on the streets of Montreal. He would leave behind enigmatic, glittering and strangely queer objects for passers-by to find. The artist expected inadvertent viewers of his work to ask themselves “Why is this object being offered to me?” In his performances, Maheke’s choreographic language implicates the spectator as well. The allure of his dance movements reveals desire in the viewer’s gaze, an attraction towards what is perceived as exotic. For Maheke, dancing is not just an offering but an inscription of power.


Extract form the catalogue Elements of Vogue, published for the group show Elements of Vogue at the CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, Spain, edited by CA2M and Motto Books, 2020