The Artist & the Book | Rahim Fortune in Conversation with Nicole Fleetwood Thursday, September 5, 2024 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
Rahim Fortune
September 5, 2024
Artists have long used books as tools for education and inspiration. Increasingly, contemporary artists make books and research central to their artistic practice, examining the past and often creating new narratives.
In this conversation, artist Rahim Fortune and art historian Nicole Fleetwood discuss how books, research, and libraries are central protagonists in the art world today.
Fortune explores Texas and its people in his book Hardtack (2024), recently acquired by the Hirsch Library. He examines relationships, environmental challenges, and the tensions between public and private life through a landscape-driven approach.
A book signing follows the conversation.
Plan Your Visit
- Admission is free.
- This event takes place in the Hirsch Library Reading Room, located on the lower level of the Beck Building.
- Parking Information | Museum Hours | MFAH Campus Map
About the Speakers
Rahim Fortune, a visual artist from the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, uses photography to explore American identity, migration, and resettlement. His work, including I Can’t Stand to See You Cry, has been featured globally and belongs to collections of institutions such as Atlanta’s High Museum of Art and London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.
Nicole R. Fleetwood, a MacArthur Fellow and inaugural James Weldon Johnson Professor at NYU, authored the award-winning Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. She co-curated Aperture‘s Prison Nation, exploring photography‘s role in documenting mass incarceration.
General admission to the MFAH is free on Thursdays, courtesy of Shell Oil Company.
The Hirsch Library’s “The Artist and the Book” lecture series receives generous funding from Judy and Scott Nyquist and from Linda McReynolds.
Learning and Interpretation programs receive generous funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services; Samuel H. Kress Foundation; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; Houston Junior Woman's Club; Sharon G. Dies; Sterling-Turner Foundation; Susan Vaughan Foundation; and additional generous donors.
The Freed Lecture Series is made possible by endowment income from the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation.
Arion Press has generously provided additional support for this program.