Page 206 - ART GIANTS issue of World of Art (WOA) Contemporary Art Magazine

Walker, widely acclaimed for her bold investigations of
WORLD-CLASS ART KARA WALKER: with an immersive tableau that challenges collective
power, race, and sexuality, expands her artistic practice

memory and institutional narratives. Inspired by antique
FORTUNA AND THE
dolls, Bunraku puppetry, and Octavia Butler’s Parable
IMMORTALITY GARDEN
of the Sower, Walker’s automatons perform a perpetual
(MACHINE)
ritual of struggle and transcendence, serving as proxies
for human experience. Set atop a field of black obsidian,
a volcanic glass historically believed to repel negative
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) energies, her Gardeners enact a choreographed interplay
unveils Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), of mourning, resilience, and possibility.
a groundbreaking commission by Kara Walker that At the heart of the installation stands Fortuna, the enigmatic
will transform the museum’s admission-free Roberts figure who responds to each visitor with a silent gesture and a
Family Gallery into a visionary space of reflection and printed fortune, an offering of contemplation and absolution.
storytelling. Running through spring 2026, this ambitious “This work emerges from the isolation and reckoning of the
installation weaves history, technology, and spirituality COVID-19 era,” says Eungie Joo, SFMOMA’s curator and
into a landscape of mechanized sculptures and evocative head of contemporary art. “With her charged composition
imagery. of Black automatons, Walker invites us into a space of
collective memory and future-making.”

Kara Walker, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), 2024 (installation Kara Walker, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), 2024 (installation
view, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); commissioned by the San view, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); commissioned by the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Kara Walker, courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Francisco. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio. Courtesy SFMOMA.
Co. and Sprüth Magers; photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio

Kara Walker, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), 2024 (installation
view, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); commissioned by the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Kara Walker, courtesy Sikkema Jenkins &
Co. and Sprüth Magers; photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio

214 WORLD of ART