Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York is pleased to announce T_XT_RT, an exhibition which examines the relationship between text and art. Focusing on visual artwork which incorporates text, the exhibition will also be accompanied by two readings at the gallery of New York and San Francisco poets and writers on Thursday, May 19 at 6pm and Thursday, June 2 at 6pm. Visual artists featured include Jeremy Bert, Samantha Boudrot, Brian Dettmer, Nathaniel Donnett, Tim Etchells, Claudia Goulette, Cody Hoyt, Mena Kamel, Glenn Ligon, Jack Pierson, Burt Ritchie, Felandus Thames, Leonie Weber, Christine Wong Yap, and Samson Young. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, May 5 from 6 - 8 pm.

T_XT_RT highlights the connection between artists and writers, visual art and written word, and author and audience through a wide variety of mediums ranging from interactive electronics to neon signs, drawings, paintings, photography, sculpture, installation, and spoken word. Featuring emerging and established artists and writers from across the country and around the world, T_XT_RT coincides with Glenn Ligon’s mid-career retrospective, AMERICA at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Brian Dettmer in Paperwork in 3D at the Shelburne Museum; and the final days of Jack Pierson’s work in The Spectacular of Vernacular at the Walker Arts Center; and Christine Wong Yap’s work in Shadowshop, The More Things Change at SFMoMA. T_XT_RT originated in San Francisco where it was on view at Jenkins Johnson Gallery from January 13 – February 22, 2011 to much acclaim including mentions in The Examiner as well as The San Francisco Chronicle.

Samson Young is on the cutting edge of art, music, and emergent technologies, making him not only one of Hong Kong’s most highly sought-after artists and composers today, but also, as CNN’s global portal called him in 2009, one of the top “20 people to watch in Hong Kong.” A current Princeton University Ph.D. fellow and the first Hong Kong recipient of the Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award in 2007, Young’s work takes an insightful and innovative look at contemporary cross-cultural society while remaining deeply rooted in the classical musical traditions of Young’s formal music composition training. Young’s new series of small interactive electronic gadgets, Machines for Making Nothing, 2011, “comment on the banality of human-machine interaction.” Young’s work has been featured in the Hong Kong Arts Festival; MONA FOMA Festival of Music and Art, Tasmania Museum and Art Gallery, Australia; Cogut Center for Humanities, Brown University; 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, London; Biennale Lichtkunst, ARTPARK Linz, Austria; Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture, West Kowloon Cultural District Waterfront, Hong Kong; International Festival of Media Art, University of Nevada; among others.

Based in performance and fiction, Tim Etchells’ work involves the deconstruction of language and the implication of events unfolding in time. His neon signs radiate witty implied narratives which activate the audience. Etchells is currently the Legacy: Thinker in Residence at Tate Research and LADA in London. His work has been exhibited at Pulse NY; Tate Liverpool; Gotenburg International Biennale; CASM, Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona; MACBA, Barcelona; Künstlerhaus Bremen; Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam; Sparwasser HQ, Berlin; ArtFutures, Bloomberg SPACE, London; The Centre for Book Arts, Canada; Exit Art, New York; and Manifesta 7, Rovereto, Italy. From 2004 through 2007 Etchells was a Creative Research Fellow at Lancaster University, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2007 by Dartington College of Arts, in recognition of his writing about contemporary performance which includes his book, Certain Fragments, Routlege 1999, documenting and theorizing his work with Forced Entertainment, a highly acclaimed group of six performance artists in Sheffield, UK.

Felandus Thames earned his Master of Fine Arts from Yale University and his Bachelor of Arts from Jackson State University. A Mississippi native, Thames creates multi-media totems which excavate history, proffer racial discourse, and scrutinize popular culture. Thames is the recipient of Travel Grant Awards, Mini Grants, and Individual Artist Fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission and The Greater Jackson Arts Council, and has completed commissions for the City of Jackson, Mississippi, Office of the Mayor; University of Mississippi Medical Center; Jackson Medical Mall Foundation; and Medgar Evers Institute; among others. Thames’ work has been featured at the Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS; National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN; Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center, Jackson, MS; Yale University, New Haven, CT; and Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, WI.

T_XT_RT reading I will be held Thursday, May 19 at 6PM featuring Susan Brennan, Will Edmiston, Adam Fagin, Evan Kennedy, Jesse Seldess, and Stacy Szymaszek.

T_XT_RT reading II will be held Thursday, June 2 at 6PM featuring David Buuck, Tom Comitta, Mónica de la Torre, Julie Patton, and Kim Rosenfield.

T_XT_RT is curated by Courtney Johnson. Johnson earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and Imaging from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the University of Miami.