Installation view, Eric N. Mack: You Red the Shirt Off My Back 2026. © Eric N. Mack. Photography by Steven Probert Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
Eric N. Mack, “You Red The Shirt Off My Back”
Paula Cooper | 534 West 21st Street
Through October 24
Just as you see that a feather’s fallen on the floor, below a headdress that’s bowing down like a wig or a hat on a head, with tees stretched to a teasing degree across a pole that juts out of its other side, you might also see the slightest of tears, made in a white strip of thick acrylic paint that pulls and bunches and holds an array of fabrics together, each length nudging the eye one way or another, as in flirtation or a dance; or, you might follow a totally different line of sight than I did in that moment, across the space that Eric N. Mack has made, between the stitches or through the scrims that fold or swing or flutter, startling you, because you’re there, breathing like they are, moving them, while they do what they do, moving you. —Shiv Kotecha