Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award A Smithsonian Book of the Year A New York Review of Books "Best of 2020" Selection A New York Times Best Art Book of the Year An Art Newspaper Book of the Year A powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men and women rendered invisible by America's prison system. More than two million people are currently behind bars in the United States. Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America's prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them. Based on interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and the author's own family experiences with the penal system, Marking Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into elaborate works of art. Working with meager supplies and in the harshest conditions-including solitary confinement-these artists find ways to resist the brutality and depravity that prisons engender. The impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being published for the first time in this volume, have opened new possibilities in American art. As the movement to transform the country's criminal justice system grows, art provides the imprisoned with a political voice. Their works testify to the economic and racial injustices that underpin American punishment and offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century.

What meaning does the American public attach to images involving key black political, social, and cultural figures? At a time when photography has become a primary means of documenting historical progress, what is the representational currency that these images carry? How do racial icons circulate and acquire meaning within the broader public? The answers to these questions will change the way you think about the next photograph that you see depicting a racial event or black celebrity or public figure. On Racial Icons looks at visual culture and race in the United States, in particular the significance of photography to document black public life. It examines America's fascination with representing and seeing race in a myriad of contexts as emblematic of national and racial progress at best, or as a gauge of a collective racial wound. Investigating the concept of the icon in the context of photographic history, national and cultural histories, and racial relations, Nicole Fleetwood focuses a sustained lens on how racial icons circulate and acquire meaning within the broader public. Concise in length, On Racial Icons offers readers a quick overview of the uses of photography to capture shifting race relations. Each chapter spotlights a different set of iconic images and sector of American public life. Throughout, Fleetwood guides readers through several familiar and iconic photographs and asks them to consider revealing examples, including the historical weight and racialised violence associated with images of Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till; the political, aesthetic, and cultural shifts marked by the rise of such black pop stars as Diana Ross in the early 1970s; and the power and precarity of such black sports icons as Serena Williams and LeBron James.

In 2001 Renee Cox's "Yo Mama's Last Supper" was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum. Cox's photographic recreation of Leonardo da Vinci's painting features an almost all black cast and the artist, nude, standing in for Jesus. The intense controversy that erupted testifies to the enduring power of images of black bodies to unsettle and disturb viewers. Over the course of the twentieth century, as black visibility rose across a variety of media, scholars in art history and media studies began to analyze how audiences view black subjects, while performance and theater studies scholars examined black self-presentation. "Troubling Vision" bridges the gap between these divergent approaches, arguing that grasping the cultural meaning of blackness relies on understanding both performance and vision. Taking into account this fixation on black visibility, Nicole R. Fleetwood explores how blackness is always a troubling presence in the field of vision and the black body is persistently seen as a problem. Fleetwood examines a wide range of materials from visual and media art, documentary photography, theater and performance, fashion advertising, and celebrity culture. Based on her trenchant analysis of this work, Fleetwood investigates the various ways black cultural producers disrupt dominant notions of black identity and the black body.

In 2001 Renee Cox's "Yo Mama's Last Supper" was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum. Cox's photographic recreation of Leonardo da Vinci's painting features an almost all black cast and the artist, nude, standing in for Jesus. The intense controversy that erupted testifies to the enduring power of images of black bodies to unsettle and disturb viewers. Over the course of the twentieth century, as black visibility rose across a variety of media, scholars in art history and media studies began to analyze how audiences view black subjects, while performance and theater studies scholars examined black self-presentation. "Troubling Vision" bridges the gap between these divergent approaches, arguing that grasping the cultural meaning of blackness relies on understanding both performance and vision. Taking into account this fixation on black visibility, Nicole R. Fleetwood explores how blackness is always a troubling presence in the field of vision and the black body is persistently seen as a problem. Fleetwood examines a wide range of materials from visual and media art, documentary photography, theater and performance, fashion advertising, and celebrity culture. Based on her trenchant analysis of this work, Fleetwood investigates the various ways black cultural producers disrupt dominant notions of black identity and the black body.