Kara Walker’s series of four bronze busts was developed in connection to her major interactive installation Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine) currently on view at SFMOMA. Three of the busts were cast from the original set that became the automatons of the Immortality Garden, while one was produced from an unused prototype. Poised on futuristic pedestals, their expressive faces are a vaguely humanistic counterpoint to the fleshy pastoral tableaux around them. Inspired by a wide range of sources, from antique dolls to Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, Walker’s commission at SFMOMA considers the memorialization of trauma, the objectives of technology, and the possibilities of transforming the negative energies that plague contemporary society. Here, automatons trapped in a never-ending cycle of ritual and struggle are repositories of the human soul. They recall mechanized medieval icons that evidenced divinity, vitality, and the promise of faith. Situated within an energetically charged field of black obsidian from Mt. Konocti in Lake County — a volcanic glass with deep spiritual properties — Walker’s Gardeners evoke wonder, reflection, respite, and hope. Just past this prophetic vignette, the installation’s namesake, Fortuna,
responds to each visitor with a choreographed gesture and a printed fortune fresh from her mouth — an offering of absolution and contemplation.