The Artist & the Book | Rahim Fortune in Conversation with Nicole Fleetwood

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September 5, 2024
Artists have long used the book as a source of inspiration and edification for artistic production. Increasingly, contemporary artists have used books and research as key elements in their artistic practice to examine the past and create new narratives.

Rahim Fortune, a Brooklyn- and Austin-based photographer; and Nicole Fleetwood, a NYC and Houston-based art historian and curator, discuss what books and research mean for contemporary artists and creators.

Fortune’s new book, Hardtack, recently acquired by the Hirsch Library, explores Texas and the American South, as well as the people fixed within that complex landscape. He uses his personal experiences to examine the friction between public and private life, as well as the unspoken tensions in daily life.

A book signing follows the conversation.

Plan Your Visit

• Admission is free.
• This event takes place in the Hirsch Library Reading Room, on the lower level of the Beck Building.
• Parking Information | Museum Hours | MFAH Campus Map

About the Speakers
Rahim Fortune, a visual artist and educator from the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, uses photography to explore American identity through narratives of families and communities. His work, including the award-winning book I can’t stand to see you cry, has been featured in global exhibitions and major collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Nicole R. Fleetwood, a NYC and Houston-based art historian and curator, is the inaugural James Weldon Johnson Professor at New York University. She authored Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, which won multiple awards. Fleetwood also co-curated and co-edited Aperture’s Prison Nation, focusing on photography’s role in documenting mass incarceration.