Text Out of Context, an exhibition that recently ran at Marymount Manhattan College in celebration of the art of the book, also heralds the return of Maddy Rosenberg’s Central Booking to the gallery scene. Central Booking, formerly located at 111 Front Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn, has continued in a nomadic fashion since the gallery closed last year. When I reached Ms. Rosenberg by email earlier this week, she said that she is about to sign on a new gallery space, and plans a “soft” opening in May, on the Lower East Side. If you missed Text Out of Context, here’s a sample of the kind of adventurous book arts programming that is about to return.

When Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid- 1400s, he revolutionized the process of sharing the written word. Producing yet another new spin to sharing language, Text Out of Context offered a visual tribute to literacy in unexpected forms.

Above: Katherine Jackson, Turn to the thorn jugglers (l); Hard to find something there isn’t a lot of (r). Below: Rosaire Appel, Untranslated (detail).

As the book was transformed, over time, from the stone tablet to the finely crafted illuminated manuscript to a mass produced carrier of content, Ms. Rosenberg explained, the exhibition echoes that metamorphosis through the work of 14 contemporary artists who take the book off the shelf and onto the wall. The diversity of book arts is revealed again, as narrative thought through visual expression come together in unusual combinations. Stay tuned for more news about Central Booking--PR.