{"product_id":"richard-prince-howard-johnson-the-popes-butler-fulton-ryder-2012","title":"RICHARD PRINCE \/ HOWARD JOHNSON — The Pope’s Butler, Fulton Ryder, New York, 2012","description":"\u003cp\u003eRichard Prince \/ Howard Johnson, \u003cem\u003eThe Pope’s Butler\u003c\/em\u003e. Fulton Ryder, New York, 2012. Staple-bound softcover; 20 pages, 19.5 × 24.5 cm; black-and-white offset printing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA slight, deliberately anonymous publication from the Fulton Ryder orbit, where the distinction between artist book, found document, joke and evidence is allowed to remain unresolved.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe cover is built from the spines of commercially produced religious DVDs: \u003cem\u003eThe Lost Tomb of Jesus\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Spear of Christ\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eJerusalem: Center of the World\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eSecrets of Angels, Demons \u0026amp; Masons\u003c\/em\u003e and others. Removed from the shelf and reproduced together, their titles begin to read less as merchandise than as a strange inventory of belief, conspiracy and mass-market spirituality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInside, that language disappears. In its place are close, degraded black-and-white images of stained, burnt, torn and heavily repaired cloth. One spread is followed simply by the title page: \u003cem\u003eThe Pope’s Butler\u003c\/em\u003e by Howard Johnson \/ Fulton Ryder. The publication gives little instruction as to how its parts should be reconciled.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat uncertainty is central to the object. Howard Johnson is presented as author; Richard Prince sits behind the publication and Fulton Ryder, the short-lived New York bookshop and publishing project through which Prince circulated books, editions, appropriated material and objects that frequently complicated conventional attribution.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlmost nothing about it settles into a single category. A found image becomes a cover. Damage becomes subject matter. A name becomes an unstable attribution. A modest stapled booklet carries the structure of an artist’s work without needing to announce itself as an artwork. It belongs to the quieter side of Prince’s publishing practice: objects whose significance is produced through selection, reproduction, adjacency and circulation rather than spectacle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCondition: Very good. Light handling and minor edge wear consistent with age; internally clean.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSecurely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fulton Ryder","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54208001311058,"sku":"PRINCE-FULTONRYDER-AB-2012","price":350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0991\/5636\/1554\/files\/Prince_Richard.Johnson_Howard.ThePope_sButler.2012.jpg?v=1786177471","url":"https:\/\/thenewrare.com\/products\/richard-prince-howard-johnson-the-popes-butler-fulton-ryder-2012","provider":"The New Rare","version":"1.0","type":"link"}