NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will present Eric N. Mack: Lemme walk across the room from March 6 through October 31, 2021. This large-scale installation by New York-based artist Eric N. Mack expands the boundaries of painting, sculpture, and fashion while dynamically reflecting and framing the rich visual experiences of the everyday. Originally presented at the Brooklyn Museum in 2019, the installation is being reimagined for its NSU Art Museum presentation. Mack’s textile-based works will be hung, mounted and draped in conversation with the architecture of the Museum’s grand second floor gallery, transforming this space while acknowledging the history of abstract (expressionist) painting.

Mack considers the essential elements of abstract painting, including color, form, and gesture, but does so through a distinct focus on nontraditional materials such as multi-textured and hand-stained textiles, pegboard, photographs, and images clipped from magazines. He encourages the viewer’s intimate relationship with the work by folding, fastening, draping, or even suspending his paintings so that visitors can move about the space—walking among, or even under, the elements of his installation. In this insistent consideration of how the viewer’s body relates to his paintings in real time, Mack’s work draws from not only sculpture but also fashion with its potential for aesthetic experience within everyday interaction. Fashion and musical performance components further activate the exhibition, presenting painting as a living and multisensory practice.

About Eric N. Mack

Eric N. Mack was born in 1987 in Columbia, MD, and lives and works in New York. He received his BFA from The Cooper Union and his MFA from Yale University. In 2017, Mack was the recipient of the inaugural BALTIC Artists’ Award and completed artist residencies at the Rauschenberg Residency, Captiva Island, FL and Delfina Foundation, London, UK. In 2020 he curated Pedestrian Profanities, a group exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery, New York, NY; and participated in the focused exhibition, Lynda Benglis, Eric N. Mack, Kelley Walker at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY. His work has been shown extensively internationally and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Face it, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Scrap Metal Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2019); The Power Station, Dallas, TX (2019); Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY (2019); Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2018); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2017); Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2017). Major group exhibitions include Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2019); Desert X, Coachella Valley, CA (2019); Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (2019); Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2017); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts, MA (2017); Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St Louis, MO (2017); Camden Arts Centre, London, UK (2016); and MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY (2015).

Eric N. Mack: Lemme walk across the room is organized by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale based on an exhibition originally presented by the Brooklyn Museum. The Brooklyn Museum presentation was curated by Ashley James, former Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum (currently Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum).

Additional support for the exhibition is provided by The Dalmar.

Exhibitions and programs at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale are made possible in part by a challenge grant from the David and Francie Horvitz Family Foundation. Funding is also provided by the City of Fort Lauderdale, AutoNation, Community Foundation of Broward, Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council and Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is accredited by the American Association of Museums.