Art: ‘publication-as-exhibition’ The Annotated Reader is coming soon to the Castlefield Gallery

“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’ – including Marina Abramović, Bob and Roberta Smith and Sir Antony Gormley – 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.”

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 exhibition is on tour, and is showing at the Castlefield Gallery from September 1st.