Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine)

A gorgeously illustrated book documenting acclaimed artist Kara Walker’s major new installation—“a groundbreaking collaboration merging art and technology” (New York Times). Kara Walker is renowned for her bold examinations of the dynamics of power and the exploitation of race and sexuality through her profound work that has appeared in exhibitions around the world. She has created monumental sculptures, including A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby (2014), for the former Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn, and Fons Americanus (2019) for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. This beautifully designed book documents the creation of Walker’s major new commission, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) (2024), at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The installation features eight Black automatons, including the seven-foot-tall prophetess, Fortuna, who responds to each visitor with a choreographed routine and a printed fortune fresh from her mouth. Situated in fields of obsidian—a volcanic glass with deep spiritual properties—the other robotic dolls, or Gardeners, rise and fall, gesture, turn, and clamor—trapped in a never-ending cycle of ritual and struggle. Evoking wonder, reflection, respite, and hope, the work explores the memorialization of trauma, the objectives of technology, and the possibilities of transforming the negative energies that plague contemporary society. Paperback, 130 pages.