Image: Eric N. Mack, RARE ESSENCE, 2026. Photography by Luke Stettner
The Speed Art Museum in Louisville is presenting RARE ESSENCE, a new site-responsive installation by Eric N. Mack in Gheens Court, on view from 27 May to 29 November 2026. The project is part of the museum’s Sam Gilliam Visiting Artist Program.
Mack has filled the court with a large group of suspended textile paintings, combining recent and earlier works. The fabrics range from sheer, translucent cloth to materials that have been painted, dyed, patterned, stained or worn. Hanging over the space like a canopy, the pieces fold and drift, catch and release light, and soften the lines of the architecture. According to the museum, the installation is continually reshaped by light, air and the movement of the visitors who pass beneath it.
The setting is central to the work. Gheens Court links the Speed’s original neoclassical building of 1927 with the 2016 expansion designed by Kulapat Yantrasast, and it is also the route between the museum’s interactive learning space, Art Sparks, and the paths used by school groups, public programmes and community gatherings. The museum describes it as a threshold where the building’s histories and circulation meet.
Mack’s approach draws on the example of Sam Gilliam (1933–2022), whose draped and suspended canvases took painting off the wall and into space, making gravity, architecture and the viewer’s movement part of the work. The Speed presents Mack as carrying that line forward in a contemporary key, bringing in found materials and references to fashion and paying close attention to how spaces are used.
The exhibition is organised by Diallo Simon-Ponte, the Speed’s Sam Gilliam Assistant Curator of Artist Programs, with additional support from Tyler Blackwell, Curator of Contemporary Art.
The Sam Gilliam Visiting Artist Program, created by the Speed, invites two contemporary artists to Louisville each year to build exchanges with Kentucky artists and local communities, through public presentations, workshops, studio visits, screenings and talks.
