Galleria Franco Noero is pleased to present Obdurate Space, the second solo exhibition of Eric Nathaniel Mack with the gallery in Torino. For the occasion, the artist has conceived a new series of works that tie in with the architecture and environment of the gallery's outdoor garden space, a former industrial site on Via Pollone: this location, which is only a few meters away from the exhibition space on Via Mottalciata and has now become its outdoor counterpart.

The exhibition brings together a body of works that focus on some of the themes most dear to the artist. From his most recognizable richly textured compositions through the assemblage of textiles mounted on metal stretchers whose colors and prints serve as a palette, favoring and emphasizing their sculptural presence through the addition of elements such as space and volume, and so doing, in a continuous effort to synthesize painting with sculpture.

Breaking free from the canonical boundary of the two-dimensional plane, Mack uses suspended and draped textiles creating immersive environments that dialogue extensively with the existing architecture and that invite the visitors to explore new perspectives and question the relationships between materiality and the surrounding space.

Functioning as an archive, these colorful assemblages of fabrics, being them mounted on stretchers or draping from ceiling and walls, present and give new life to the found, wear off and very often overlooked materials researched and employed by the artist in his regeneration process which clearly characterise his practice, enhancing and unexpectedly revealing their best features.

Inspired by Judd's show Obdurate Space: Architecture of Donald Judd, held at the Center for Architecture at Graham Foundation in New York in 2018, where five unrealized architectural projects by Judd were presented for the first time to the public, the exhibition by Mack intends to address the complexity or rather the relative freedom in making design decisions while experiencing the form, space and structure of a given place and, once understood it, to create a continuum across art and architecture without being compromised by trivial contingencies or differences in scale.

The textiles become a bridge between body and space, suggesting subliminally the idea of movement and the attitude that people could eventually have in wearing them as clothes.

Clothes as a vehicle for self-expression and transitively the changes in taste and fashion are also other elements quoted by the artist's work, mirroring the infinite sources of imagery constantly conveyed at any level - high and low, subculture through mainstream - by fashion magazines and fanzines in a constant renewal of costume and society.

Eric Nathaniel Mack will present a project in collaboration with the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Estate at the Newport Art Museum in New Port in July 2024. Also, in July Mack will have a solo show in Italy at Casa Flash Art in Ostuni, Puglia, while his work is currently featured at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in a group show curated by Veronica Ryan.