By Charles Gute

Find-A-Text is a 96-page paperback publication that accompanied an exhibition of the same name in New York at the Jason Rulnick gallery. It is a book that both emulates the look and feel of mass-market puzzle books and that effectively functions as a catalogue raisonné of this particular body of work.

Unlike popular word search puzzles that commonly contain hidden words grouped around popcultural
themes such as television or sports, Gute’s austere text grids contain names and references
that are grounded firmly within the realm of contemporary art. In each work, the contemplative
gaze of the viewer is conflated with that of the puzzle-solver looking for hidden words. This dual
reception playfully questions the notion of art as a “puzzle” with hidden meanings that the viewer
must decode in order to appreciate.


Charles Gute is a Brooklyn-based artist and editor. He has been awarded artist fellowships from
the San Francisco Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and has twice been a MacDowell
Colony Visual Arts Fellow. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Berkeley Art
Museum (Berkeley), ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany), the UCLA Hammer Museum (Los Angeles),
Catherine Clark Gallery (San Francisco) and Feinkost Gallery (Berlin).

Published by Jason Rulnick Gallery, 2008