Text Messages

In Text Messages the word is the image. Featuring pieces from the Tang’s collection and on extended loan, the show presents a wide range of contemporary works, including prints, drawings, and sculpture. The artists on view approach language through such strategies as the imperative voice, creating “written readymades,” and self-reflexivity. Angus Fairhurst issues absurdly nihilistic commands to “Delete all memories, Flatten all buildings, Fill all rivers with concrete.” Erika Rothenberg blots out the letters in a poem by Paul Valéry, reconstituting them as a connect-the-dots game in which the viewer rewrites Valéry’s words. Matthew Higgs’s print Ink on Paper self-referentially uses ink on paper to spell the words “Ink on Paper.” These works underline tensions between the visual and linguistic power of words, forcing viewers to ponder their potential meanings in new and often playful ways.

Installed in the Kettlewell Print Study Room, Text Messages includes work by Nayland Blake, Nancy Dwyer, Angus Fairhust, Matthew Higgs, Jenny Holzer, Christian Marclay, Jane Masters, Marlene McCarty, Erika Rothenberg, and Ed Ruscha.

Text Messages is curated by Emily Devoe ’10, and supported by the Carter-Rodriguez Fund for Student Curated Programs.

Exhibition Hours
Thursdays: 1:00-7:00pm
Fridays: 1:00-5:00pm
Saturdays: Noon-5:00pm
Sunday, May 23: Noon-5:00pm