Enigmatic New York publisher and private bookshop Fulton Ryder — founded by artist Richard Prince — has been captivating us with their Tumblr snapshots of rare and fascinating cultural fragments. We wanted to take a closer look at their collection of books, manuscripts, and counterculture collectibles, and they were kind enough to allow us a peek.
Past the break, Fulton Ryder has curated a unique gallery of works including an early conceptual piece from Yoko Ono — inspired by John Cage’s Experimental Music Composition class at the New School for Social Research in New York, where Ono’s then husband (musician Ichiyanagi Toshi) attended. It’s composed of “event scores,” or simple instructional actions and ideas that are reinterpreted through a performance art lens. There’s also a book from artist Danny Lyon, created after he became a member of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club in the 1960s, adopted the gang’s lifestyle, and photographed the midwestern motorcyclists. Wallace Berman also makes an appearance, with reference to his legendary 1957 Ferus Gallery exhibition where the artist was arrested on obscenity charges.
Check out the collection below, and keep your eyes peeled for Fulton Ryder at the Printed Matter and EAB book fairs this fall (they’ll be publishing a book on San Francisco Artaudian group the Diggers in June, however), as well as at site-specific events around New York City.
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Robert Frank’s New York Is originally published as an ad campaign by the New York Times in 1959 includes Mr. Frank’s photos alongside edgy captions — and although the images for New York Is are slightly subdued, some of them contain traces of work from The Americans. A minimal and beautiful object.”
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, 1961 first edition, with its striking dust-jacket. An influential book on the counterculture of the 1960s.”
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Wallace Berman’s self-published Semina Two from 1957. A manually-produced magazine that was sent by Berman to friends, one of nine such issued from 1955-1964. Semina Two is widely considered the most desirable issue with collages of written work by Herman Hesse, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Bukowski and Alexander Trocchi, and with pasted-in photographs of semi abstract nude bodies. This copy retains the oft-missing printed label on the rear cover with Berman’s account of the pornography charges levelled against him by a Los Angeles judge that resulted in the closing of his Ferus Gallery show.”
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Jack Kerouac’s Rimbaud from 1960 published by City Lights in San Francisco.”
“So, poets, rest awhile & shut up: Nothing ever came of nothing”
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Bruce Conner exhibition catalogue from 1990 signed by the artist, because as Dennis Hopper writes in the intro, ‘Mr. Conner is important stuff.'”
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit, English edition from 1971, signed by Yoko Ono and John Lennon.”
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders from 1968.”
Photo credit: Fulton Ryder
“Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968 first edition.”