The New Art Gallery (2000, Caruso St John, £21m) stands amidst Walsall like a Norman castle or R.U.C. fortress. The Norman-Irish theme continues with the name of the Fitzmaurice.

Burke's Peerage speaks of Thomas Fitzmaurice, third son of Maurice Fitzgerald, Lord of Naas and Maynooth, who married Elinor, daughter of Jordan de Marisco, and died in 1213, leaving two sons, the younger of whom, Maurice Fitzthomas, was held hostage in England until 1215. Now, some 800 years, 25 generations, later, the Liverpool-based artist Leo Fitzmaurice (born Shropshire, 1963) has returned to the heart of England with further subtle Hibernian subversion.

Fitzmaurice's exhibition is situated on the gallery's fourth floor in a gloriously light-strewn and huge seven-windowed, double-cube-height eyrie. This medieval chamber, with its conquering views over the town, is worthy of this putative descendant of the Geraldines. Arguably the finest gallery space in the land, it would, on account of its aspect, make for somewhere to hold master-classes in town planning.

On the journey to the fourth floor, visitors can admire the gallery's generous hallway, ascend wood-lined staircases, pass an approachable mini-library, walls of shuttered concrete, the Epsteins and Freuds of the Garman Ryan collection, and a couple of handsome temporary shows.

Previously, Fitzmaurice has been a 'detourist', where, whilst travelling abroad, he has re-arranged ready-made found objects: chip holders mounted as if CCTV cameras, plastic bags tweaked into rabbits, Argos catalogues carved out into crater forms. In the present exhibition, specifically commissioned by the gallery, Fitzmaurice has turned to advert subversion or rather mere flyer obfuscation. After the Fitzmaurice treatment we can no longer listen to the seller's message, hence the show’s title: You try to tell me but I never listen. Behold 6000 flyers which have been reborn as a shimmering rainbow of colour. Meanwhile, their 'white noise' has been transformed. That is to say, the words integral to the thousands of sheets of brightly coloured paper have been obscured. All text has been alchemised; their original didacticism rendered decorative and indecipherable.

Some call this process 'sous rature'; a stripping away, the aesthetic of 'visible absence', or the lyrical and revelatory effects of removal. The mass-produced printed material has been layered, folded, inverted, recontextualised, and converted into fresh patterns, manifestations and forms. Spread over 12 plinths and on to two walls, Fitzmaurice has created polychromatic repeating patterns and alignments: the visual equivalent of hypnotic bass-beats. This 'design-bending' appears most notably in his cylindrical zoetropes, which hint at animation as a result of variations on folding the same flyer. Meanwhile, further flyers, hung in strips on the walls, move very slightly in the breeze.

The obliterated sub-texts in this show were extra-benign at their outset, as perhaps befits such a cheery gallery. The identifiable flyers were for the English National Opera, Les Misérables, Madame Butterfly, two different sculptures made from flyers of Fitzmaurice's own show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (Sometimes the Things You Touch Come True), and a horse racing fixture list.

Warsaw might be cheaper and quicker to get to, at least from London and Edinburgh, but, for me, the birthplace of Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) takes the laurels. For further fine examples of text art – in the form of graffiti – don't miss the architecturally notable bus station and the façade of the nearby Hatherton Road car park, seemingly named after the same family that opened Walsall's arboretum in 1874. The arboretum was hoped to provide 'a healthy change from dogfights, bull-baiting and cockfights', and set a tradition that the National Lottery funded art gallery (conceived in 1995) has followed in fine style.

Leo Fitzmaurice
You try to tell me but I never listen

The New Art Gallery, Walsall
17 June - 1 October 2011
Tuesday to Saturday 10am-5pm,
Sunday 12-5pm, and bank holidays

Rodolph de Salis is an art historian and artist. His installation Sottoportego will be on view in the Schwartz Gallery, Hackney Wick, London, from 20 July 2011.

www.artselector.com/users/r-de-salis

Images: Leo Fitzmaurice, You try to tell me but I never listen, 2011. Installation shots © Photography Fiona Campbell. By permission of the artist. Unknown, 'Love Walsall', June 2011. Graffiti near Hatherton road car park, Walsall © Photography Fiona Campbell.