A performance Friday by Delta blues musician James “Super Chikan” Johnson, along with a guitar demonstration on Saturday, will help close out the “America At The Crossroads” exhibit at the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience.

Developed by the New York-based National GUITAR Museum, the exhibit, “America At The Crossroads: The GUITAR and the Changing Nation,” has drawn thousands of visitors, including school and tour groups, since it opened in February. Recent visitors have included jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, who happened to be in Meridian to perform at the MSU Riley Center.

“This remarkable guitar exhibit and related programming provides opportunities to experience the museum in new ways while demonstrating how Mississippi is essential to American arts and culture,” Penny Kemp, president and CEO of The MAX, said in a press release about the guitar exhibit.

To help conclude the exhibit, Johnson will perform from 6-9 p.m. Friday at The MAX as part of the Blues Series. His show is free to MAX members and $20 for nonmembers. Visitors can register to attend at msarts.org.

Johnson has played everything from dirt floor Delta juke joints to musical festivals throughout Europe. He is a regular performer at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero blues club in Clarksdale. Hailing from a family of blues musicians, Johnson is the nephew of fellow Mississippi blues legend Big Jack Johnson.

His nickname, “Super Chikan,” harkens back to his childhood and his fondness for the chickens on his family’s farm, walking around and talking to them before he was old enough to work in the fields.

A self-taught musician and former truck driver, Johnson has won a W.C. Handy Award, five Living Blues Awards, and the Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.

The first-floor guitar exhibit at The MAX includes 40 instruments and a dozen archival videos, exploring the guitar’s contributions to jazz, blues, country, rock ’n’ roll and protest music.

Several artifacts were loaned to the museum to enhance the traveling exhibit and are on display on the second floor near the Juke Joint gallery. Among these are a Prototype Fender Telecaster guitar dated 1999 and covered with blue sparkle belonging to Marty Stuart and electric guitars made by Peavey Electronics, such as the T-60, which represents part of a shift to computer-controlled guitar manufacturing in the 1970s.

Phillip Bolin, exhibits registrar/preparator for The MAX, said museum visitors have been struck by the extreme variety in guitars that won the affection of entertainers and those who played for their own pleasure.

“There are so many different styles of guitars and ways to make them unique,” he said in the release.

On Saturday, the closing day of the exhibit, Johnson will demonstrate how he creates guitars in a workshop from 10-11 a.m. at The MAX. The guitar demonstration is open to the public without museum admission.

Johnson is also well known as a visual artist. He handcrafts his own guitars and other instruments from recycled parts, including old Army gas cans, to create “chikantars,” or fully playable guitars that Johnson uses at many of his shows. He hand paints each of the instruments, which have become popular with collectors.