An incredible installation at SFMOMA is full of surprises and provokes discussion. It’s Kara Walker’s Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), A Respite for the Weary Time-Traveler, Featuring a Rite of Ancient Intelligence Carried out by The Gardeners, Toward the Continued Improvement of the Human Specious. Remarkably located in the free section of the museum, the large-scale multi-component art installation can be visited on your lunch break or on a repeated stop-in basis through the spring of 2026.
On a recent Monday, we visited SFMOMA specifically to see this piece (and then ponied up admission to also see Yayoi Kusama’s immersive Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love and some wonderful photo-realistic Gerhard Richter pieces in the exhibition “German Art After 1960”). We entered via the Third Street entrance, which meant that we took stairs up and then stairs down, providing an interesting aerial vantage point of the piece.
The most striking aspect of the installation is, of course, Fortuna, an automaton who stands on her own pedestal in her stark black 1800s gown and then lurches into motion, sometimes bending down to look at visitors, before a slim piece of paper emerges from her mouth and drifts like a maple helicopter. These are cryptic fortunes. Fortuna is the Roman goddess of luck or chance who spins her wheel to show how fortunes are temporary and cyclical (and that’s why we have the game show Wheel of Fortune), and it’s brilliant to see how Walker re-envisions her as a woman from the era of slavery. Walker’s work always examines race, gender, sexuality and power, and this installation carries forward that powerful study.
Separate from Fortuna, the main portion of the installation features a field of black obsidian (a sign warns visitors not to touch it since the rocks are sharp, plus: art) upon which a handful of life-sized automatons behave in various ways. One is a young girl with a circular hole through her chest, strung with strings as if she can play her heart like a musical instrument. One is an older woman whose arms are hung with bells that ring as she raises her arms, seemingly in grief. Behind her, a younger woman lies on a plinth that rises up and down, and three other figures engage in the tableau in various ways. Some of them have their backs turned towards each other, but still seem connected to the story unfolding in the center.
In another component, a single figure has been divested of its arms, which quiver in the obsidian at its feet. The figure bends over, seemingly looking for its limbs. A final aspect is a glass case full of sewn objects that appear vintage and relate to puppetry, masks, patchwork quilts and the South. One puppet wears a cone-shaped hat with a Confederate flag that reads, “Dixie Border Patrol.” As always, Walker’s haunting work invites us to consider the still-rippling repercussions of our country’s brutal history of slavery.
RECOMMENDED: Mark your calendar for next month’s Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week.