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Exhibition Spotlight—Eric N. Mack: Vogue Fabrics

March 13, 2017

Eric N. Mack (American, born 1987). Newdaline, 2016. Two aluminum flagpoles, umbrella, silk, cotton, polyester, aluminum, wood, zip ties, and straight pins, 108 x 102 x 92 inches (274.3 x 259.1 x 233.7 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles. © Eric N. Mack, Courtesy of the artist and Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles.

Although many of Eric N. Mack’s works on view in Eric N. Mack: Vogue Fabrics are three-dimensional, the artist thinks of these vibrantly colored accumulations of purchased and found materials, abstract painting, soft sculpture, wearable fashion, and display devices in terms of painting.

Many of the textiles featured in these works originated as articles of clothing or fashion fabrics. Clothing is ultimately and inherently linked to the human form, and however abstract they appear, Mack’s works always smuggle the body into the exhibition space. This is often accomplished through evocation. In Newdaline, for instance, a skirt waistband has been married to another piece of cloth and scarves pieced together to form an extended hideout for a beach umbrella. While the artist has largely prevented his materials from accomplishing their intended use, he has maintained, and even highlighted, their former functions and connections to the human body.