Manual Setting: Paul Ryan

About

Manual Setting will take place from 2-5pm and 6-9pm on the following dates: Friday 28 January Wednesday 2 February Saturday 5 February Sunday 6 February Tuesday 8 February Friday 11 February Manual Setting is a series of performances where artists sit with visitors and together they leaf through their sketchbooks. The viewing of an artwork becomes a hand-held, shared and performative activity. Who is revealed during this process of showing and being shown? An enquiry is made concerning intimacy and the border between personal and private. Sketchbooks can often only be exhibited in cases, boxes or frames one page at a time, (or as objects for conceptual discussion). Handing the sketchbook over repairs this loss of human contact with the art object, through touch and page turning. There can then be a reconciliation with the manual practice of showing to others, generating discussion between the makers and the audiences via the sketchbook. In the house/gallery setting, several artists have been invited to present their sketchbooks including Dino Alfier, Eleanor Bowen and Paul Ryan (who co-curated this project with Danielle Arnaud). A visitor to the ‘setting' can watch the viewings before them, and then participate with the artist when they look through the sketchbooks themselves. Afterwards they will be able to look back and observe the position they had previously occupied.