The Annotated Reader

1 September 2021 — 3 October 2021

A publication-as-exhibition and exhibition-as-publication conceived by Ryan Gander and Jonathan P. Watts.

“Imagine you’ve missed your last train – what single piece of writing would you want with you for company in the small hours? “

The Annotated Reader is a publication-as-exhibition and exhibition-as-publication conceived by Ryan Gander and Jonathan P. Watts. It features almost 300 creative personalities’ responses and handwritten annotations on a chosen piece of writing. 

Ryan Gander and Jonathan P. Watts invited a range of people, encompassing contemporary artists, designers, writers, institutional founders, musicians and more – to imagine they’ve missed the last train. “Perhaps this text transformed your thinking.” they wrote in their introductory letter, “It might be a mantra continually returned to. Perhaps it is a text you felt should be read by younger generations or that you wish you’d encountered as a student.”

The impressive list of 281 contributors to the project include Marina Abramović, Rodney Graham,  Saâdane Afif, Holly Hendry, Cory Arcangel, Alistair Hudson, Rachel Ata, John Kaldor, Art & Language, Ragnar Kjartansson, David Batchelour, Sarah Lucas, John Bock, Jonathan Monk, Jim Broadbent, Alek O., Pavel Buchler, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Gregory Burke, Hannah Perry, Banu Ceenetoglu, Prem Sahib, Tony Chambers, Jerry Saltz, Paul Clinton, Rosemarie Trockel, Matt Darbyshire, Richard Wentworth, Richard Deacon, Shen Xin, Tom Godfrey, Bob and Roberta Smith, Sir Antony Gormley, and Nicholas Fox Weber.

First launched during Frieze Art Fair, London 2018 at London’s Cork Street Galleries (UK), The Annotated Reader has been shown nationally and internationally including, at locations across Great Yarmouth by originalprojects (UK); M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (Belgium); Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, New York (North America); Quartz Studio, Milan (Italy); Printed Matter’s Art Book Fair, New York (North America); and Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (Scotland). As part of its continuing tour Castlefield Gallery is presenting The Annotated Reader. 

As part of the exhibition, each of the contributions are printed and exhibited. Visitors to the exhibition are able to compile their own ‘ANNOTATED READER’. In addition, a vending machine distributes USBs’ containing the entire ream of submissions at the cost price of £5, with the ability to either be printed or read digitally.

The mission of Gander and Watts was to create a free and accessible educational resource and index for future generations, alongside being an archive that captures the unique perspectives from hundreds of contributors, who for Gander and Watts are, at the forefront of our contemporary society. 

Coinciding with The Annotated Reader at Castlefield Gallery will be The Naming of Things curated by Bryony Dawson. The Naming of Things was selected from proposals submitted by Castlefield Gallery Associates by guest selector, and Artist Patron of Castlefield Gallery; Ryan Gander OBE, and Castlefield Gallery’s Curator & Deputy Director, Matthew Pendergast. The exhibition explores the unfixed and mutable potential of language. 

Special thanks to Castlefield Gallery Commissioning Patrons Allan & Jo Melzack.

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LATE OPENING. 6pm-8pm, Friday 1 October.

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Slow Saturday. Sat 4 September

On Saturday 4 September we will be restricting numbers in the gallery. Pre-book a timed visit to enjoy additional restricted capacity in the gallery and explore our new exhibitions The Annotated Reader and The Naming of Things at your own pace. Capacity is limited. You can pre-book your free ticket on eventbrite HERE

•To maintain access for all, the wearing of face coverings will be mandatory, unless a person is exempt for reasons related to their age, health, or disability, at this Slow Saturday event. Please head to the VISIT US page for the most up-to-date information about visiting Castlefield Gallery.

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Image: Ryan Gander and Jonathan P. Watts, The Annotated Reader. Installation view, 2019, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. Image courtesy Chris Scott.

The Naming of Things

1 September 2021 — 3 October 2021

Curated by Bryony Dawson

ARTISTS:  Sriwhana Spong / Charlie Godet Thomas / Jeanne Constantin  / Sarah Tripp / Jessica Higgins / Lydia Davies / Bryony Dawson

If to name something is to attempt some ownership over it – some fixity or hold – to pinpoint some integral meaning or to assert a structure for experience – then it is destined to slip and miss, since the associated meaning of words is never identical between any two people. 

Curated by Bryony Dawson, The Naming of Things explores the unfixed and mutable potential of language. Unhooked from the task to convey truth or objectivity, this slippery unreliability can instead be viewed as a generous invitation for fluid, speculative and plural perspectives.

The media of painting, sculpture, moving image and sound have a materiality, a tactile or spatial presence that language can only simulate. However, in this exhibition, it is precisely this immateriality that gives language the freedom to expand and mutate in virtual space – to construct imaginary architectures, give voices to intangible phenomena, and to inhabit multiple viewpoints at once. The selected artists use writing as a central tool within film, sculpture and sound works to explore topics including quantum physics, psychological space, and everyday encounters. 

The exhibition welcomes the tensions between fixed identity and subjectivity as a way to interrogate the structures that name our experience. It invites inquiry into methods of knowledge production that are not reliant on fixed categories or objective structures. Instead, ‘knowledge’ might be conceived as a complex, woven and mutable network incorporating both acceptance of and resistance to these categories and structures that name us: a continuously shifting process of rethinking, rearranging, re-naming. 

The Naming of Things was selected from proposals submitted by Castlefield Gallery Associates by guest selector, artist Ryan Gander OBE and Castlefield Gallery’s Curator & Deputy Director, Matthew Pendergast.

Coinciding with The Naming of Things at  Castlefield Gallery will be a presentation of The Annotated Reader; a publication-as-exhibition and exhibition-as-publication featuring creative personalities responding and remarking on a chosen piece of writing conceived by Ryan Gander and Jonathan P. Watts. Contemporary artists, designers, writers, institutional founders, musicians and more were invited to imagine they’d missed the last train. “Is there one piece of writing that you would want with you for company in the small hours?”

Special thanks to Castlefield Gallery Commissioning Patrons Allan & Jo Melzack.

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LATE OPENING. 6pm-8pm, Friday 1 October.

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Slow Saturday. Sat 4 September.

On Saturday 4 September we will be restricting numbers in the gallery. Pre-book a timed visit to enjoy additional restricted capacity in the gallery and explore our new exhibitions The Annotated Reader and The Naming of Things at your own pace. Capacity is limited. You can pre-book your free ticket on eventbrite HERE

•To maintain access for all, the wearing of face coverings will be mandatory, unless a person is exempt for reasons related to their age, health, or disability, at this Slow Saturday event. Please head to the VISIT US page for the most up-to-date information about visiting Castlefield Gallery.

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Image: Sriwhana Spong, castle-crystal (2019), video still. Image courtesy the artist and Michael Lett.