Fishers of Men

Over the last few years, Eric N. Mack (b. 1987, Columbia, MD) has been experimenting with custom steel armatures that temporarily anchor his paintings to existing architecture while anticipating future mobility. He describes the works as site-responsive, rather than site-specific, with the flexibility to perform differently as they move from one context to another. In this installation at Arts and Letters, Mack transforms the skylit North Gallery into a dynamic environment of suspended textile paintings that rely on these armatures. The first work, hung like a curtain across the threshold, acts like a filter or a lens, shaping our sense of the room as we enter. Others lean against a wall, cantilever over a passageway, or grip a corner of the room. Seeing the exhibition requires moving through and around these objects. The titles of Mack’s exhibitions, like the fabric remnants he uses, are selected from what he finds in the world around him. This one, Fishers of Men, is taken from a now-shuttered seafood restaurant in Harlem, though it may bring other associations to mind. Central to Mack’s work is nuance, and in this exhibition, Arts and Letters aims to be a holding place for that nuance. Founded in 1898 and located in landmark buildings in Washington Heights, the American Academy of Arts and Letters is an honor society of artists, architects, composers, and writers who foster and sustain interest in the arts. Arts and Letters’s members honor and support creative individuals through over seventy annual awards and prizes and champion experimentation and the breadth of contemporary art today through an exhibition program that gives artists space, time, and resources to realize ambitious projects. The program is led by Chief Curator Jenny Jaskey, in consultation with a committee of Arts and Letters artist members including Mel Chin, Charles Gaines, Ann Hamilton, Joan Jonas, and Amy Sillman.